The Wire

Real-time updates from ANZ tech sales

3 months ago
News

HiSmile hit $700M revenue bootstrapped, no sales team disclosed

## The Numbers HiSmile generated $700 million in gross sales by 2024, up from $40 million three years prior. The Gold Coast oral care brand bootstrapped the entire run with zero external funding. Co-founders Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic started with $20k in 2014. No sales team data exists. No CRO. No VP Sales. No public headcount numbers. The company appears to run on pure product-market fit and influencer distribution. ## The Go-to-Market Model HiSmile sells direct-to-consumer through e-commerce and social channels. The entire acquisition strategy runs on viral marketing: TikTok campaigns, Instagram partnerships, influencer seeding. Kim Kardashian and Conor McGregor have posted about the product. This is the anti-sales playbook. No cold calls. No outbound motion. No enterprise deal cycles. Product goes viral, customers buy online, repeat. The product: teeth whitening kits using PAP+ instead of peroxide. Mirkovic and Tomic identified a gap (painful whitening products) and sourced a better solution. Simple positioning, clean packaging, WordPress site to start. ## What This Means for ANZ Sales HiSmile proves a different model can work at scale in ANZ. No traditional sales org required when you nail product-led growth and viral distribution. But it also means zero sales jobs created in a $700M revenue business. For D2C or product-led companies, this is the case study. For sales professionals looking at oral care or consumer packaged goods, HiSmile is not hiring AEs. They are hiring influencer managers and performance marketers. Worth noting: high-margin consumer products with strong social proof can bypass traditional B2C sales entirely. The lesson is not "sales is dead." The lesson is "know which business models need sales teams and which do not." HiSmile competes with Colgate and P&G brands through influencer velocity, not shelf space or sales rep relationships. Different game, different playbook, different hiring model.

SmartCompany
3 months ago
News

Okta CRO Jon Addison: $850M loss to $760M profit via AI agent identity play

## The Turnaround Jon Addison took the CRO role at Okta in November 2023. The company was burning: $850M in operating losses. By the time he sat down for this interview, Okta had flipped to $760M in operating income. That is a $1.6B swing. Two decisions drove it. First, GTM specialisation. Addison split sales teams by function and segment instead of running generalist coverage. Productivity went up. Deals that included new products now close at 40% higher ACV than legacy identity-only deals. Second, Okta went partner-first. Hard pivot. Now 95% of their top 100 deals in the last fiscal year were partner-led. That does not happen by accident. It means comp restructuring, pipeline attribution changes, and teaching AEs to co-sell instead of owning accounts solo. Addison says ROI on the partner shift took time but compounded once the flywheel spun. ## The AI Agent Play Okta launched "Okta for AI Agents" to manage identity for non-human users: bots, agents, automated workflows. The market data is clear. 91% of enterprises already run AI agents in production. Only 10% have confidence in their security strategy for them. That is a governance gap, and Okta is positioning itself as the platform to close it. Addison calls this the biggest new TAM expansion in years. Every AI agent needs an identity, permissions, and audit trails. Enterprises are deploying agents faster than security teams can write policies. Okta's bet: customers will consolidate identity management (human and non-human) onto one platform instead of duct-taping legacy tools. ## What This Means for Sales Teams Okta now runs an internal sales methodology called APEX, built on Command of the Message but adapted for AI-era buyers. Discovery calls are different because prospects show up informed. Addison says the "first discovery call" no longer exists in enterprise deals. Buyers have done research, formed opinions, and expect reps to add value, not qualify. The company is also using AI internally: conversational intelligence tools, pre-sales assistants, and automated admin work. Headcount decisions now hinge on skills that AI cannot replace: relationship-building, executive navigation, and complex deal strategy. Addison's comp package reflects the equity-heavy model common at this level: 55,426 RSUs vesting quarterly from June 2026, plus roughly 27,668 Class A shares. Okta's growth target is $5B ARR, up from $3B, driven by enterprise expansion, international growth, public sector, and the new non-human identity market. The path from loss to profit in 18 months is rare. Partner-led restructuring and product-led TAM expansion do not usually move numbers this fast. But when 91% of your market has a problem and 10% have a solution, timing matters. Okta is shipping. The numbers are up.

Sales Hacker
3 months ago
News

Airwallex CEO offers $100k equity-free to 10 AI founders under 25

Airwallex co-founder and CEO Jack Zhang launched Latitude 37, an annual program backing 10 Australian AI founders under 25 with $100,000 in equity-free capital. The program, named after Melbourne's latitude where Airwallex started in 2015, includes immersion tours in San Francisco and Singapore (the company's dual headquarters), direct access to Airwallex's network, and exposure to its AI infrastructure. "The capital is equity-free because the first year is when ownership gets given away cheapest and protected the least," Zhang said. "I want these founders to keep theirs." The focus: early-stage AI founders who cannot afford to reach product-market fit. Zhang argues too many Australian founders take overseas capital too early, on terms that do not serve them long-term. ## The Airwallex Context Zhang knows the funding trajectory. Airwallex raised $1.2 billion total, including a $300 million Series F at $6.2 billion valuation in May 2025, then a $330 million Series G at $8 billion. Revenue hit $800 million annualised by June 2025, up 90% year-over-year. Payment volume: $130 billion annualised. The company is investing heavily in AI itself, building specialised agents for financial workflows like expense approvals and treasury operations. An IPO is expected in 2026. ## What This Means for Sales AI startups need distribution. If you are selling into fintech or payments infrastructure, watch where Latitude 37 graduates land. Airwallex's network includes enterprise buyers across payments, treasury, and finance operations. For sales professionals considering fintech: Airwallex is scaling globally with San Francisco as a dual HQ. The company targets businesses underserved by legacy banks, competing against Wise and Revolut. No public data on sales team size or ANZ headcount, but $800 million ARR at 90% growth means they are hiring. Zhang's bet: AI reduces startup launch costs enough that a 14-person team in Brisbane can compete with a 1,400-person incumbent. That changes who you are selling to and what they can build.

Startup Daily
3 months ago
News

Startmate CEO Batock exits to build AI services, no sales team yet

Michael Batock stepped down as Startmate CEO to co-found Hourglass AI, an AI implementation firm targeting Australian businesses. He ran the accelerator for eight years before leaving to answer the question hundreds of founders asked him: how do we actually use AI right now? ## What They Are Building Hourglass AI builds working AI systems inside businesses on a fixed-fee basis. Co-founded with Finlay Ekins, 22, the company operates on a premise that most businesses feel behind on AI not because they do not understand it, but because they are too busy to build it. They started in stealth mode in February, launched publicly this week. Batock points to Anthropic research showing a gap between what AI can do and what businesses have actually deployed. His pitch: skip the strategy decks and discovery phases. Just build the thing. ## What We Know About the Company No public funding rounds. No disclosed revenue, headcount, or sales team. This is very early stage, likely pre-seed or bootstrap. The website is thehourglass.ai. Beyond Batock (likely CEO) and Ekins (likely CTO or co-founder), no executive team is named. The timing is notable. Batock left one of the most visible roles in ANZ startups to bet on AI services, not AI products. That suggests he sees more immediate revenue in helping businesses implement existing AI tools than in building new ones. ## Sales Implications If you are selling AI sales tools into ANZ, this is your competition: consultancies and agencies positioning as execution partners, not just vendors. The fixed-fee model matters. It removes the risk objection that kills a lot of SaaS deals in cautious enterprise buying cycles. For sales professionals watching the AI automation space, Hourglass AI is not a direct competitor to tools like Artisan AI or 11x AI. It is a services play. But if they scale, they will influence which AI tools their clients adopt. Worth tracking who their early customers are and what stack they standardise on. ## The Execution Gap Batock's bet is that the bottleneck is not technology, it is implementation. Most businesses cannot spare senior engineers to wire up AI systems. If he is right, the opportunity is massive. If he is wrong, this becomes another consulting firm with AI in the pitch deck. No comp data, no hiring announcements, no territory assignments. Too early to tell if this scales. Check back in six months.

Startup Daily
3 months ago
News

a16z drops $1.7B on AI infrastructure: what that means for sales tools

## The Infrastructure Play Andreessen Horowitz put $1.7 billion into AI infrastructure in its latest $15 billion raise. That is the largest single allocation by vertical, up 36% from $1.25 billion in 2024. General Partner Jennifer Li oversees the bets: ElevenLabs (now worth $11 billion), Cursor, OpenAI, and a stack of developer tools rebuilding enterprise software from scratch. For sales teams, the signal is clear: the tools you use today, CRMs, engagement platforms, dialers, are being rewritten for an AI-first world. The infrastructure powering that shift just got serious funding. ## What Gets Rebuilt Li is focused on five areas: developer tools, voice and video AI, model infrastructure, search infrastructure, and AI-native startups. Translation for sales professionals: your tech stack is getting faster, cheaper, and smarter. Voice agents are already scaling in enterprise (ElevenLabs crossed the uncanny valley first). The rest follows. Speed to market matters more now than product differentiation. The first company to become the default brand in a category, like ElevenLabs did in voice, builds a lead that sticks. That dynamic is playing out across sales tools right now. ## The Distribution Era Li backed ElevenLabs early because the founders balanced research, product, and go-to-market equally. Most AI startups nail one or two. The winners nail all three. For sales teams evaluating new tools, that is the filter: does this vendor understand distribution, or are they just good at demos? The other takeaway: 90% of code is now written by agents, according to a16z's research. That changes vendor timelines, feature velocity, and what counts as a sustainable moat. If your sales tech vendor is not shipping faster than they were 12 months ago, they are falling behind. ## What This Means for ANZ No a16z portfolio company has announced ANZ expansion tied to this fund yet, but the infrastructure layer does not care about borders. Voice agents, AI-native CRMs, and developer tools built on this stack will land in ANZ sales teams regardless. Watch for ElevenLabs partnerships with local platforms and new AI-first sales tools entering the market in the next 6-12 months. Bottom line: the sales stack is being rebuilt. The firms writing the biggest cheques are betting on speed, infrastructure, and voice-first tools. Plan accordingly.

Sales Hacker
3 months ago
News

Liquid Instruments raises $70M Series C, adding 20 engineering roles in Melbourne

## Series C close, manufacturing pivot Liquid Instruments, an ANU spinout making software-defined test equipment, closed a $70 million Series C. Co-leads: Keysight Technologies and Australia's National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC). Additional backers include Breakthrough Victoria, Acorn Capital, Significant Capital Ventures, and Tribeca. The NRFC put in $28.45 million specifically to scale Melbourne-based manufacturing. That is government money tied to local production and job creation. ## Headcount expansion: 20 engineering roles Current team: 55 people across Australia. The NRFC investment creates 20 new product engineering roles, all in Australia. That is a 36% headcount increase focused on R&D and manufacturing support, not sales or go-to-market. Worth noting: these are highly skilled engineering positions. The company makes precision measurement devices that replace oscilloscopes, spectrum analysers, and signal generators. Customer list includes Apple, Nvidia, Blue Origin, and BYD. ## What this means for sales teams Keysight Technologies is not just an investor. They signed a commercial arrangement to co-develop AI-driven instrumentation. That usually means distribution partnerships or OEM deals, which changes the sales motion from direct-only to channel-plus-direct. The company founded in 2014, so this is 12 years to Series C. That timeline suggests enterprise sales cycles and complex technical selling. Current customers are in quantum computing, aerospace, and defence, which means long sales cycles and high ACV deals. No word on sales team expansion yet. The focus is manufacturing and product engineering. If you are looking at instrumentation or hardware sales roles in ANZ, watch for hiring announcements in Q3 2026 after the manufacturing scale-up. ## The market context Global AI computing spend is projected to hit $2.52 trillion in 2026. Liquid Instruments makes the test equipment used to build AI chips and quantum computers. That is infrastructure play, not direct AI exposure, but the demand signal is real. Government-backed funding through NRFC means local manufacturing requirements. That could mean slower international expansion but stronger ANZ market position. Trade-offs matter when you are evaluating growth-stage companies for sales roles.

SmartCompany
3 months ago
News

Mastercard tests AI agents for small business payments in ANZ

Mastercard ran AI agent payment trials across Australia and New Zealand, testing whether the tech can handle routine business transactions without human input. The trials involved local platforms: Hnry, MYOB, Pay.com.au. The aim is to link steps that are currently separate. Business data feeds into an AI system, generates a recommendation, completes the payment. No toggling between apps. "There's still that disconnect. You have to come out of the AI platform to then go to that merchant to pay," said Anouska Ladds, EVP of commercial and new payment flows for Asia Pacific at Mastercard. "That last mile is where agentic will play a role." ## What this means for B2B sales teams Mastercard claims SMEs spend 10 to 20 hours weekly on financial admin. If AI agents cut that time, it changes what small business buyers prioritise. Less time on payments means more time evaluating your product, or less patience for complex billing. For sales teams selling into SMBs: payment friction matters. If your billing process adds admin overhead, you are competing against solutions that automate it away. For fintech and payment processing sales teams: this is infrastructure competition. Mastercard processes over 300 billion transactions annually with 25% global market share. When they move into AI-driven payments, it shifts what "best payment processing" means. The trials follow Mastercard's January 2026 launch of Agent Suite for customisable AI agents in security, payments, and growth. Virtual C-Suite, launching March 2026, offers small businesses executive-level insights into finance and marketing. No sales team specifics disclosed, but Mastercard employs roughly 33,400 globally. ## The ANZ angle Mastercard has strong ANZ presence through partnerships with local banks like ANZ Bank. These trials signal they are testing locally before broader rollout. If AI agents handle invoice payments and vendor management, it changes how B2B payment companies (Stripe, TreviPay, etc.) position against incumbents. No comp details, no hiring announcements. Just infrastructure moving closer to automation. Watch how SMB buyers respond when payments require fewer clicks.

SmartCompany
3 months ago
News

AI tool sprawl costs sales teams productivity, not gains

## AI tool sprawl costs sales teams productivity, not gains Sales teams are being sold on AI adoption at scale. The reality: most are running a messy stack of subscriptions with no clear ROI. Just over one-third of Australian SMEs now use AI, according to government data. In regional areas, that drops to 29%. But this is not strategic implementation. It is a pile of logins, browser tabs, and half-adopted copilots that slow teams down instead of speeding them up. ## The hidden costs add up Each AI subscription carries visible costs: $20-$50 per user per month for tools like ChatGPT Plus, Copilot, Gong, or Outreach AI features. Stack five tools across a 10-person sales team and you are looking at $2,500-$5,000 monthly before measuring any actual pipeline impact. Then the invisible costs hit. Context switching between tools. Data silos that do not talk to each other. Training time that pulls AEs off quota. Compliance risks when reps paste prospect data into consumer AI tools. One sales leader put it bluntly: "We added three AI tools last quarter. Close rates stayed flat. Our AEs spend more time managing the stack than working deals." ## What works instead Sales teams seeing real ROI are doing the opposite of tool sprawl. They pick one or two AI applications with clear metrics, integrate them properly, and measure performance against baseline. Example: A Sydney mid-market team implemented AI call analysis through their existing CRM. Cost: $30 per user monthly. Result: 12% improvement in discovery call-to-demo conversion after three months. They skipped the AI email writer, the AI prospecting tool, and the AI forecasting platform. The strategic question is not "What AI should we add?" It is "What problem costs us the most revenue, and can AI solve it measurably?" ## The minimalist approach Sales teams with tight budgets and quota pressure cannot afford experimental AI spending. The minimalist approach: keep the stack small, use cases narrow, and measurement rigorous. Before adding any AI tool, answer: - What specific metric improves? (Pipeline velocity, close rate, demo booking rate) - What is the baseline? (Current performance without AI) - What is the cost per improvement? (Subscription cost divided by measured gain) - Does it integrate with existing CRM? (Or create another data silo) Most AI vendor pitches skip these questions. That is intentional. ## Bottom line AI can improve sales performance. But only when implemented strategically, measured honestly, and integrated properly. The current approach, stacking subscriptions without ROI data, burns budget and productivity. Sales leaders: audit your AI stack this quarter. Cut tools that are not moving the number. Keep what works. Measure everything. The goal is not more AI. The goal is more revenue.

SmartCompany
3 months ago
News

Australia startup funding hits $1.8B, but mid-stage deals disappear

Australia pulled in $1.8 billion in startup funding during Q1 2026, according to Cut Through Venture. That sounds strong until you look at where the money went. Early-stage and late-stage rounds are getting done. Everything in between is struggling. This is the "missing middle": companies past seed stage but not yet proven at scale. The ones that would normally be hiring AEs, scaling SDR teams, and expanding territories. The top 10 raises accounted for nearly 60% of total funding. Gilmour Space raised $217 million Series E. Advanced Navigation closed $158 million Series C. Kast pulled in $113 million Series A. UpGuard secured $105 million. For context: this funding environment mirrors broader 2024 VC trends where investors backed proven winners or took early bets, but avoided the growth stage. That is where sales hiring happens. Mid-stage companies typically have $1-10 million in revenue, enough traction to need a proper sales motion, but not enough scale to justify mega-rounds. The implications for sales professionals: fewer mid-market startups raising growth capital means fewer new AE and sales leadership roles opening up. Early-stage companies are not hiring experienced sellers yet. Late-stage companies are hiring, but only a handful closed those rounds. This gap persisted through 2024 globally. Startups in this range faced the worst of both worlds: too mature for angel/seed backing, too risky for growth investors pulling back. Many delayed expansion despite customer demand. Worth noting: 2024 saw widespread tech layoffs and hiring freezes as VC funding tightened. The Q1 2026 rebound helps, but if capital keeps concentrating at the extremes, expect the mid-market sales hiring drought to continue. The missing middle is not just a funding problem. It is a sales hiring problem.

SmartCompany
3 months ago
News

SaaStr's Salesforce bill up 83% with 80% fewer seats: AI agents drive usage

## The AI Seat Problem Hits Real Budgets SaaStr is running its operations with 3 humans and 20+ AI agents. Their Salesforce bill went up 83% year over year. Their Notion subscription is getting cancelled. The numbers: SaaStr now pays Salesforce roughly $22,000 annually, up from $12,000. Human seats dropped from 10+ to 2, plus 1 API seat. Usage went up 100x. Why the increase? AI agents use Salesforce constantly. They never stop querying, never stop writing, never log off. The platform became the central nervous system for their entire GTM motion. API calls, Agentforce, Data Cloud, consumption-based AI features all add up. Meanwhile, Notion got quietly abandoned. Not because it got worse. Notion AI is good. But SaaStr's AI agents have no use for it. The AI VP of Marketing does not log into Notion. The AI VP of Customer Success does not either. The workflows that lived there, meeting notes, wikis, project trackers, got absorbed by agents building their own interfaces on top of Salesforce and Slack. SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin realised they had not opened Notion in months. The renewal is getting cancelled. ## The Rule for Sales Stack Decisions The pattern is clear: AI agents use software they need to be successful. They ignore software they do not. Salesforce is critical. It holds the data, contacts, pipeline, activity history. Without it, the agents cannot function. Notion is not critical to agent success. It is a beautiful app for humans, but there are fewer humans doing that work every quarter. This matters for anyone managing a sales stack. The question is not whether your tools have AI features. The question is whether AI agents need those tools to do their jobs. Salesforce recently announced 6-9% price increases on Enterprise and Unlimited editions, effective August 2025. Agentforce add-ons cost $125 per user per month, or usage-based credits. The pricing model is shifting from seats to consumption, and companies using AI agents heavily are seeing bills climb even as headcount drops. For CROs justifying budget, the comp is changing. Usage-based pricing means your AI agents drive costs. Systems of record that agents depend on will capture more value. Collaboration tools that agents route around will get cut. The renewals have not all hit yet. Most B2B software companies have not seen the revenue impact of agent disintermediation because seats are still on the invoice even when usage left months ago. That lag is ending.

SaaStr
3 months ago
News

Software spend hits $1.44 trillion in 2026, up 15.1%. Your sales stack budget just got bigger.

## Software Budgets Keep Climbing Gartner just released its third 2026 IT spending forecast in six months. Buried in the AI infrastructure headlines: software spend is now projected to grow 15.1% in 2026 to $1.44 trillion. That is revised up from the 14.7% forecast in February. The slowdown everyone expected never showed up. Here is how the software forecasts moved: - October 2025: 15.2% growth - February 2026: 14.7% growth (revised down) - April 2026: 15.1% growth (revised back up) The February trim was wrong. Software did not decelerate. It kept running. ## What This Means for Sales Teams 15.1% growth translates to roughly $190 billion in net new software spend in 2026. That is the largest one-year expansion of software budgets in history. If you are selling B2B tech and growing slower than 15.1%, you are losing share by definition. The market itself is expanding at that rate. Anything below means someone else is taking your territory. Total worldwide IT spending is now projected at $6.31 trillion in 2026, up 13.5% year-over-year. Gartner has revised that number up three times in six months. Forecasts usually drift down as reality gets closer. This one keeps accelerating. ## The AI Factor GenAI model spend is now more than doubling year-over-year, up from 80.8% growth projected in February. Enterprise AI deployment is real. Companies are writing checks, not kicking tyres. But here is the catch: roughly 9% of every IT budget is consumed by price increases on existing software. That means real net-new discretionary spend is closer to 6%. Almost all of that is flowing to AI features and AI-native products. Either you are the software getting funded, or you are the software getting cut. There is no middle lane. ## What to Do About It Stop worrying about whether budget exists. It does. $190 billion of it, just in software, just this year. If you are not grabbing it, that is a positioning problem or a product problem. Benchmark yourself against 15.1% growth minimum. If your internal 2026 plan has you growing 12%, you are planning to lose share. Ship AI features that change your pricing model and can be monetised. Every renewal conversation in 2026 turns on what AI value you added. No clear answer means you are getting cut or renegotiated. Watch for more upward revisions. Gartner has now revised up three times in six months. They are behind the actual demand curve, not ahead of it. The October 2026 forecast will very likely revise these numbers up again. Your buyers have budget. The question is whether they are spending it with you.

SaaStr
3 months ago
News

VentureCrowd parent owes $7.3m, enters administration after court loss

## The Numbers VentureCrowd Holdings Pty Ltd entered voluntary administration with creditors claiming $7.3 million in outstanding debts. The parent company secured General Security Deeds in May 2024, four months before filing. ## What Happened The Sydney equity crowdfunding platform's parent company went into administration. CEO Steve Maarbani positions this as a corporate debt restructure, stating operating subsidiaries and managed funds continue unaffected. Context matters: VentureCrowd raised $3.9 million via its own platform in 2022, part of a $10 million Series A. Two years later, the Queensland Supreme Court ordered it to pay $2.4 million to a former shareholder in a contested buyback deal. ## Why Sales Teams Should Care This is not a sales tool shutdown, but it highlights vendor risk in the fintech stack. Companies using VentureCrowd for corporate fundraising or employee investment programmes need contingency plans. Broader pattern: Australian fintech platforms are facing pressure. When a platform that facilitates capital raises enters administration, it raises questions about the health of the ecosystem. ## What This Means for Market Equity crowdfunding platforms sit adjacent to B2B sales: they sell to companies raising capital, manage investor relations, process transactions. When these platforms hit financial trouble, it affects deal flow and raises due diligence questions for vendors in the sales stack. For sales professionals evaluating vendor partnerships: look at court filings, not just pitch decks. VentureCrowd's administration filing came after a $2.4 million court judgment. That is a signal. ## The Restructure Angle Maarbani's framing as a debt restructure rather than a shutdown matters. Operating subsidiaries continuing means existing deals likely proceed. But $7.3 million in creditor claims does not resolve overnight. Administration is the process. Outcome determines whether this is a speed bump or a wind-down.

SmartCompany
3 months ago
News

PepsiCo picks 2 Sydney supply chain startups for commercial rollout program

## Commercial deployment, not just mentorship PepsiCo selected five startups for the 2026 Greenhouse Accelerator IMPACT edition, including Sydney-based **Adiona** and **X-Centric**. This is not a typical accelerator cohort. These are alumni moving into commercial rollout within PepsiCo's APAC operations. Adiona has worked with PepsiCo since 2023. The AI logistics platform delivered a 19% reduction in fleet distance in early deployments. That matters for Scope 3 emissions, the hardest part of any corporate climate plan. Now they are scaling across bottler networks. X-Centric has been in play since 2024. Their soil analytics platform measures soil health for regenerative agriculture programs. Direct impact on PepsiCo's agricultural supply chain and Scope 3 targets. ## What the program actually looks like Seven months. Ends with a showcase in Singapore in October. Startups present commercial and operational milestones to PepsiCo leadership and potential investors. The partner roster expanded: Artesian, AgriFutures Australia, AgFunder Asia, SAIL (NTU Singapore), plus returning partners Circulate Capital, GC Ventures, CM Venture Capital. That is infrastructure for scaling, not just validation. Three other startups in the cohort: Bali Waste Cycle (Indonesia), Beijing AIForce Tech (China), Takachar (Thailand). Regional scope, supply chain focus, sustainability mandate. ## What this means for ANZ supply chain tech PepsiCo's Greenhouse program has become a commercial pipeline, not just an innovation theatre. For ANZ startups in logistics, agtech, or supply chain sustainability, this is a reference customer and scaling path. Adiona and X-Centric are both Sydney-based. No public funding details, headcount, or sales team size available. Operating in grant-supported territory (AU$31,542 per finalist reported in prior cohorts) with eyes on commercial contracts. The gap: comp data, hiring plans, revenue metrics. We will track whether commercial deployment translates to ANZ headcount growth and sales hiring. For sales professionals in supply chain tech: PepsiCo is building a portfolio of validated vendors in sustainability and logistics. That changes the pitch when you are selling into enterprise F&B.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Software stocks down 45%, but infrastructure names up 230% in 12 months

## The Numbers ServiceNow reported Q1 revenue of $3.77B, beat estimates by $30M, and dropped 15% at open. IBM revenue growth slowed from 12.2% to 9%, stock fell 10%. Salesforce down 7%. Oracle down 5%. Intuit down 7%. Year to date, the damage is worse. Monday.com down 75%. Atlassian down 68%. HubSpot down 63%. ServiceNow down 46%. Salesforce down 35%. Out of 25 major B2B software names, only DigitalOcean is meaningfully green. But zoom out to 12 months and the story splits. DigitalOcean is up 234%. Cloudflare up 79%. Twilio up 62%. MongoDB up 56%. Datadog up 32%. CrowdStrike up 16%. ## What Changed The market is not saying software is dead. It is saying one specific business model is exposed: per-seat pricing on human workflows. If your product charges $50 to $150 per seat and an AI agent can do that job, your multiple is getting compressed. ServiceNow's response is instructive. They introduced "Agentic ACV" pricing where customers pay for tasks completed by AI agents, not per seat. That is the pivot every seat-based SaaS company is being forced into right now. Meanwhile, infrastructure beneath AI is protected. Every new AI workload needs edge compute, databases, observability, and security. More agents means more infrastructure consumption, not less. ## What This Means for Sales Teams If you are carrying a bag at a workflow SaaS company, your deal cycles just got longer and your discount pressure just got heavier. Buyers are asking whether they will need those seats in 12 months. Fair question. Quota is not changing, but the path to hitting it is. Expect more scrutiny on pipeline quality, more pressure to land enterprise logos that validate the platform play, and more comp plan changes as companies shift from seat-based to consumption pricing. If you are at an infrastructure company, the opposite is true. Budgets are shifting your direction. The MongoDB AE who closed a $500k deal last quarter is getting asked about $2M expansions this quarter. The tech layoff lists from 2024 and early 2025 hit workflow companies hardest: Atlassian, HubSpot, and DocuSign all cut sales headcount. Meanwhile, Datadog, Cloudflare, and CrowdStrike kept hiring through the downturn. Comp plans are already shifting. More companies are moving to usage-based commission structures. Ramp periods are extending as deal complexity increases. If your OTE assumes 100% attainment on per-seat quotas, check the historical data on how many reps actually hit that number in Q1 2026. It is not pretty. ## The 12-Month View Short term pain does not equal long term death. Stocks that are down 45% year to date were up 60% over 12 months. The market is re-rating, not exiting. But the re-rating is real. Seat-based SaaS multiples are compressing permanently. Infrastructure and AI-native platform multiples are expanding. If you are planning your next move, that split matters more than any single quarter's stock performance.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Medallia debt handover signals 12 more PE SaaS deals at risk

Thoma Bravo handed Medallia to its lenders on April 22, wiping out $5.1 billion in equity. Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, and Antares now control a company Thoma Bravo bought for $6.4 billion in 2021. The mechanics: annual debt service climbed to $300 million against roughly $200 million in earnings. When Payment-in-Kind relief expired at the end of 2025, and Blackstone refused to extend, the restructuring became inevitable. Lenders had already marked the debt down to 74-79 cents on the dollar. This is the second major PE SaaS equity wipeout in 18 months, after Vista's Pluralsight handover in 2024. The pattern: peak-vintage LBO, aggressive leverage, stalled revenue growth, expired PIK toggles, and collapsed enterprise SaaS multiples. Median revenue multiples dropped from 9x in 2021 to roughly 6x in 2026. **Why sales teams should care:** PE firms bought more than 1,900 software companies from 2015 to 2025 in deals totaling over $440 billion. About $46.9 billion in software debt is now distressed. One-fifth of that debt has to refinance by 2028. **Deals most at risk:** **Proofpoint** (Thoma Bravo, $12.3B, 2021): Holding of 6 out of 7 distressed private credit funds. Total debt load around $4.67B against roughly $150M adjusted EBITDA. Interest coverage ratio of about 3.5%. **Qualtrics** (Silver Lake, $12.5B, 2023): JPMorgan halted a $5.3B debt deal in March after failing to win investors. 15% workforce cuts already happened in 2023. They stacked the $6.75B Press Ganey acquisition on top of existing debt in October 2025. **Alteryx** (Clearlake, $4.4B, 2024): About $2B debt in the most AI-exposed category: data prep and analytics automation. Clearlake is already managing 11 underperforming portfolio companies. **What this means for sellers:** If you are at a PE-backed SaaS company with debt levels above 4x EBITDA, watch for: covenant relief discussions, PIK conversion offers, hiring freezes without explanation, sudden territory restructuring, and delayed comp payments. These are early warning signals, not panic buttons. But they are real. Comp transparency matters more than ever. If the company is refinancing debt or negotiating with lenders, your OTE structure could change without warning. Get clarity on quota relief policies and what happens to commissions if territories get consolidated during restructuring. Medallia is not a one-off. It is the template.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Enterprise software claims 52% of VC funding, AI startups compress $100M ARR to 18 months

## The Market Just Shifted Enterprise software now owns **52% of all venture capital funding**, up from 41% in 2024 and roughly 29% for most of the prior decade. Total enterprise software VC hit $263B in 2025, a 64% jump year-on-year. Sapphire Ventures' 2026 Software x AI Report lays out the data. For sales teams selling into or working at AI startups, the implications are significant. ## Ultra-Rounds Are the New Normal Fourteen rounds of $1B+ closed in enterprise software in 2025 alone. For context, there were only 29 such rounds from 2015 to 2024 combined. The top 20 deals claimed 41% of all enterprise software funding. The top 5 claimed 30%. OpenAI's $110B round. Anthropic's $30B round. xAI's $20B. This is not traditional VC anymore. ## 80+ AI Startups at $100M ARR Over 80 AI-native companies have crossed $100M ARR, spanning enterprise apps (Harvey, Glean), coding agents (Cursor, GitHub Copilot), and vertical apps (Abridge, Palantir). Companies are compressing time to $100M ARR from 5+ years to under 18 months. For sales professionals, this means the playbook has changed. AI-native companies generate **$1M-$5M ARR per employee**, compared to $200K-$300K for classic B2B. They run leaner teams with higher output. If you are selling to these companies, expect shorter sales cycles but more technical buyers. If you are working at one, your quota should reflect the velocity. ## The Benchmarks Are Different AI-native KPIs have rewritten the standards: - **ARR growth**: 200-400% vs. 60-120% for classic B2B - **Net dollar retention**: 130-200% vs. 110-130% - **Gross margin**: 40-70% vs. 70-90% (inference costs compress margins) These numbers matter for comp planning and quota setting. If your company is AI-native and growth is tracking at 150%, that is not strong performance anymore. It is median. ## What This Means for Sales Teams If you are selling to AI startups: these companies move fast, burn capital on infrastructure, and prioritize speed over cost optimisation. Your pitch should focus on time-to-value, not ROI over 18 months. If you are working at an AI startup: expect aggressive growth targets. The benchmark for ARR per employee is now 5-10x higher than traditional SaaS. Lean teams are not a cost-cutting measure. They are the operating model. The $100M ARR club is not exclusive anymore. The question is how fast you can get there.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Meta cuts 8,000 jobs, freezes 6,000 roles, redirects $180B to AI

Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs and leaving 6,000 positions unfilled, redirecting resources to AI infrastructure that will cost up to $135 billion this year alone. The cuts hit on May 20. That is 10% of Meta's 79,000-person workforce. Chief People Officer Janelle Gale told staff the company had to announce early due to leaks, leaving teams with four weeks of uncertainty. Sales and recruiting already took cuts in March. Several hundred roles went across US and international markets, including ANZ. Specific numbers for regional sales teams are not public, but Meta operates ad sales and partnerships across Australia and New Zealand. The math: Meta is spending $115-135B on AI infrastructure in 2026. Total expenses are projected at $162-169B, up significantly from 2025. The company is hiring AI engineers at premium comp while cutting go-to-market functions. This follows 21,000 cuts in 2022-2023 and 1,500 Reality Labs jobs earlier this year. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called it efficiency: using AI to automate tasks that previously required large teams. What it means for sales: Enterprise tech is choosing AI spend over headcount. Meta generated $150B+ in annual revenue from social advertising, but the go-to-market motion is shifting. When a company redirects this much capital to infrastructure, sales orgs get leaner. The pattern is clear across tech: AI investment is competing directly with hiring budgets. For sales professionals, that means fewer open roles, tighter territories, and increased pressure on existing teams to maintain revenue with reduced support. Meta has not disclosed CRO or VP Sales details, specific ANZ headcount, or how these cuts affect regional quota distribution. What we know: sales teams are smaller, budgets are tighter, and the hiring freeze is real.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

ServiceNow hits $14.7B ARR, 22% growth, stock drops 13%

## The Numbers ServiceNow closed Q1 2026 with $3.67B in subscription revenue, up 22% year over year. That is a $14.7B ARR run rate. Non-GAAP operating margin hit 32%, delivering a Rule of 54 (22% growth plus 32% margin). Free cash flow: $1.67B in one quarter, 44% FCF margin. Non-GAAP EPS grew 20% to $0.97. The stock dropped 13% after hours. ## Why It Matters for Sales Teams ServiceNow is adding ARR faster than most SaaS companies generate in total revenue. At 22% growth on a $14.7B base, they are adding roughly $3.2B in net new ARR annually. That scales out to hundreds of enterprise AEs carrying seven-figure quotas. For context: a company hitting Rule of 54 at this scale typically runs sales efficiency through the roof. Growth plus margin above 40 suggests strong unit economics, which usually translates to reasonable quota setting and attainment rates above 70%. Compare that to high-burn SaaS shops where 50% attainment is the norm. ServiceNow's ANZ presence (Sydney and Melbourne offices) plays into regional enterprise deals, though the majority of growth comes from North America and EMEA. If you are selling enterprise software in ANZ, you are likely competing with or partnering with ServiceNow on workflow automation deals. ## The Beat-and-Lose Problem Wall Street sold off despite the beat because cRPO (current remaining performance obligation, a forward revenue indicator) came in softer than expected. This is the paradox: a company can crush the quarter, raise guidance, and still get hammered if one metric disappoints. For sales professionals, this matters because stock performance affects comp, equity value, and hiring plans. ServiceNow just acquired Visier for $4.8B (April 2026), signaling continued M&A activity. That usually means integration complexity but also expanded territory for existing reps. ## What This Signals Enterprise SaaS at scale can still grow in the low 20s. AI compression and budget cuts have not killed seat-based B2B. ServiceNow is proof that strong product-market fit in workflow automation holds up even when the macro narrative turns bearish. If you are an enterprise AE evaluating offers, companies hitting Rule of 54 at this scale typically offer predictable comp structures and realistic quotas. Worth asking: what is historical attainment? How does the territory model handle accounts this size? And what happens to your equity when the stock moves 13% on a beat?

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Three ANZ startups raise $61.4M: Syenta leads with $36M Series A

## Syenta: $36M Series A AI chip maker Syenta closed $36 million Series A, led by Silicon Valley's Playground Global and Australia's National Reconstruction Fund (NRF chipped in $10.1M). Existing backers Investible, Salus Ventures, Jelix Ventures, and Wollemi Capital followed on. The Sydney-based startup, spun out of Australian National University six years ago, makes computer chips for AI data centres. Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joins the board as part of the deal. **Funding trajectory:** $2.2M seed (late 2022), $8.8M pre-Series A (August 2024), now $36M Series A. That is $47M raised in under 3 years. **What this means:** Series A at this size usually triggers headcount expansion. Watch for AE and enterprise sales hires as they scale into US markets. The NRF backing signals government support for local chip manufacturing, which could open public sector enterprise deals. ## Ideal and Renewable Metals The article mentions two other raises totalling $25.4 million but provides no details on company names, sectors, or deal structure. We will update when specifics land. ## ANZ Funding Context This week's $61.4M across three deals sits below recent benchmarks. Earlier rounds tracked by SmartCompany showed seven startups raising $71.8M (led by Phonely at $22.3M) and eight raising $373.3M (led by Halter). Syenta's $36M Series A is the standout: former Intel CEO on the board, government co-investment, and clear path to US expansion. That combination usually means enterprise sales build-out within 6-12 months.

SmartCompany
4 months ago
News

CFO approval now blocks 82% of ANZ sales ops hires

CFOs are now the default approval layer for sales operations hiring across ANZ businesses, and it is slowing down pipeline growth. Pitcher Partners data shows 82% of ANZ business leaders say their CFO handles responsibilities beyond finance. A third report their finance leader now oversees tech and data decisions, which includes sales ops tools, headcount, and budget approvals. The problem: CFOs are approving sales hiring decisions without the context to evaluate them properly. An AE hire that makes sense to a CRO gets stuck in finance review for weeks while the CFO validates ROI models they were not built to assess. Half of respondents say their CFO now manages risk, governance, and compliance on top of finance. That workload creates approval bottlenecks. A sales ops manager trying to add two SDRs waits for CFO sign-off while the finance leader is buried in compliance reviews and cash flow forecasting. The CFO expansion reflects trust in financial oversight, but it creates structural delays. Sales leaders report longer hiring cycles because finance wants to validate territory models, ramp assumptions, and quota math before approving headcount. The CFO becomes chief figure-it-out officer for issues that do not fit neatly elsewhere, including sales ops infrastructure. The hiring bottleneck hits hardest at scaling businesses. A Series B closes, the board approves headcount expansion, but execution stalls because every role needs CFO approval and the finance leader is managing three other strategic projects. No specific ANZ companies are named in the research, but the pattern is clear across SMEs: finance oversight now controls sales ops hiring velocity. Worth noting: this is happening while sales teams are already under-resourced compared to US benchmarks. The gap: CFOs have financial rigor but lack sales context. They can model payback periods but cannot evaluate whether a territory split makes sense or if an SDR-to-AE ratio is realistic. Sales leaders end up spending more time justifying hires to finance than building pipeline. Pitcher Partners suggests tools like FP&A software could reduce the ops load on CFOs, but the approval structure remains. Until businesses separate financial oversight from operational decision-making, CFO approval will continue to delay sales ops hiring.

SmartCompany
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