The Wire

Real-time updates from ANZ tech sales

4 months ago
News

TestBox CEO: Buyers make 70% of decision before first call

## The Discovery Call Is Dead B2B buyers are making 70-80% of their purchase decision before they ever talk to sales, according to Sam Senior, CEO of TestBox, a $12M-funded platform that lets buyers test-drive software. Speaking on the GTMnow Podcast, Senior laid out what is actually happening: buyers are using ChatGPT and Claude to research vendors, test use cases, and build shortlists. By the time they book a call, they are not looking to discover their needs together. They are looking to validate what they already believe about your product. The day one shortlist has shrunk from 3-4 vendors to 1-2. If you are not on it, the call is a courtesy. ## What This Means for AEs Your first call is now a validation call, not a discovery call. Buyers have already TestBoxed your use case in an LLM and got 70-80% of the result in 30 seconds. Your job is to bridge that gap to 100% and prove real value, which takes longer than it used to. Senior recommends auditing what LLMs are saying about you right now. Ask Claude or ChatGPT what your buyers are researching and see how your product shows up in those answers. He calls this CEO, the AI version of SEO. The mid-funnel is getting longer, not shorter. Buyers come in with high expectations and more context. That changes how you prep, how you position, and how you prove differentiation. ## Agent-to-Agent Procurement in 3-5 Years Senior laid out a timeline: LLM research today, AI-assisted trial evaluation in 12-18 months, agent-to-agent demos in 24-36 months, full AI-led procurement including negotiation within 3-5 years. The companies building for this now will have an advantage. The ones ignoring it will be scrambling when buyers stop booking calls altogether. TestBox runs 15 AI experiments per week across the company and ties token usage to performance reviews. Senior is clear: AI adoption is a culture problem, not a tools problem. It only works when it is a company-wide operating model, not just an engineering initiative. Worth noting: TestBox uses Google Vertex video analysis to read prospect body language on sales calls. That is where this is going. ## What to Do Now 1. Audit what LLMs are saying about your product 2. Reframe your first call as validation, not discovery 3. Build content that shows up in LLM research 4. Prep your team for longer mid-funnel cycles 5. Start running AI experiments across GTM, not just product The buying process has changed. Your sales process needs to catch up.

Sales Hacker
4 months ago
News

Phonely raises $22M, replaces 350 human agents in one month

## Phonely raises $22M, replaces 350 human agents in one month Y Combinator-backed AI receptionist Phonely closed a $22 million Series A led by Base10 Partners. The round values the San Francisco-based company at $139 million. The Melbourne University spinout launched in early 2024, raised $750,000 from YC mid-year, and has now pulled in $26 million total. Founders Will Bodewes (PhD AI researcher) and Nisal Ranasinghe built the product to answer calls, route inquiries, book appointments, and integrate with CRMs using a business's website URL. Setup takes 5 minutes. The platform now handles millions of calls monthly across thousands of businesses. Worth noting: one customer replaced 350 human agents in a month with Phonely. Three of Phonely's enterprise customers invested in the round: Etech Global Services, TSA Group, and Engage CX. TSA Group operates 4,500 human agents. Their head of AI said Phonely's agents "resolve calls better than our best people." Engage CX logged $14 million in insurance policy sales via Phonely in the first four months of 2026. ### Market context Phonely competes in a packed space. Beside AI (also an AI receptionist for small U.S. businesses) raised $32 million across seed and Series A from EQT Ventures, Index Ventures, and Slack founder Stewart Butterfield. Y Combinator has backed 141+ AI assistant startups, including Codyco (hotel reservations) and OpenCall.ai (AI call centers). The ecosystem skews U.S.-focused. No ANZ presence, headcount, or sales team details are public for Phonely. The company has not disclosed revenue, leadership structure, or plans for this capital beyond scaling the product. ### What this means for sales teams AI call handling tools like Phonely target the SDR and BDR layer: answering inbound, qualifying leads, booking meetings. If the 350-agent replacement holds at scale, this shifts headcount models for sales ops and inbound teams. Watch for pricing, integration complexity, and whether these tools handle nuanced discovery or just route calls. The $14 million insurance sales number suggests potential for outbound applications, but no specifics on whether Phonely does cold calling or just handles inbound. Comp implications: if AI handles first touch, does that compress SDR hiring or shift SDRs to higher-complexity roles? No data yet, but worth tracking as these tools mature.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Flex Capital runs 500 AI agents for deal sourcing, predicts agent-to-agent VC meetings by 2026

## AI agents are already replacing initial VC meetings Auren Hoffman, General Partner at Flex Capital and founder of SafeGraph and LiveRamp, runs over 500 AI agents to source deals. His prediction: by the end of 2026, the first VC meeting will be agent-to-agent, with founders and investors talking through their agents before any human interaction happens. This is not a thought experiment. Flex Capital is already using AI agents to filter deal flow, assess companies, and handle initial conversations. The system is built around a core principle: missing a great deal is 10 times worse than making a bad one. The agents help Hoffman see more companies without filtering too early. Worth noting: Hoffman's track record includes early backing of Replit, Perplexity, Rippling, Vercel, Coinbase, Chime, and AppLovin. Flex Capital has invested in 120 to 180 companies, including exits like Aardvark (Google), Chomp (Apple), and Meebo (Google). ## What this means for B2B sales If VCs are automating initial meetings, enterprise buyers are next. The same economics apply: buyers want to filter vendors faster, sales teams want to reach more prospects, and AI agents can handle both. The comp implications are direct. SDRs and BDRs who focus on initial outreach are the most exposed. AEs who handle complex enterprise deals, negotiate contracts, and build relationships have more runway. But even that runway is shrinking. Hoffman also predicts that every software moat is gone. If you are not making your product significantly better every month, you will lose customers. That applies to sales tools too. Salesforce, LinkedIn, DocuSign are all vulnerable. The companies replacing them will likely use AI agents for customer acquisition. Another practical signal: Hoffman says companies will not sign yearly SaaS contracts anymore. The product landscape is changing too fast. That shifts sales cycles, comp structures, and quota setting. If your company is still building comp plans around 12-month contracts, that assumption may not hold. ## The funding context No recent funding details are public for Flex Capital. Hoffman's previous venture, SafeGraph, was valued at $370 million with backing from Sapphire Ventures, Peter Thiel, and Ridge Ventures. LiveRamp was acquired by Acxiom for $310 million in 2014 and later went public on NYSE with $280 million-plus revenue in 2019. The prediction on agent-to-agent meetings is not coming from a futurist. It is coming from an investor who has already deployed the technology and is betting capital on what happens next.

Sales Hacker
4 months ago
News

SaaStr closes 140% of last year with 1.25 humans, 20 AI agents

## The Numbers SaaStr hit 140% of Q1 2025 revenue this quarter with 1.25 humans managing 20 AI agents. Last year, they ran a full sales team of about 10 reps (SDRs and AEs). Founder Jason Lemkin made the shift after losing three reps during a conference. "I'm done hiring humans in sales," he declared at the time. The setup: two humans (one full-time, one part-time) handling closes. Twenty AI agents covering inbound response, outbound prospecting, and re-engagement. ## What Actually Changed Lemkin is honest about what he does not know. Three things happened at once: **Lead concentration.** Every qualified lead went to their best closers, not spread across a mixed-skill bench. No more fair distribution. Just efficient distribution. **100% coverage.** AI agents responded to every inbound lead instantly. Before: under 40% response rate, often days late. After: every lead, every time, including 2am on Saturday. **Full database outreach.** Human reps cherry-pick 500 prospects from a 10,000-contact list. AI agents worked all 10,000. Most were dead ends. The ones that were not became deals they would have missed. **Market tailwind.** SaaStr's business is AI-focused content and events. AI took off in 2025-26. Their product got dramatically more relevant at the exact moment they deployed AI agents. Lemkin cannot tell you the ratio. "What if we had kept the full human team AND had the AI tailwind AND concentrated leads in top closers? Would we have closed 180%? We'll never know." ## What This Means for Sales Teams The honest take: AI agents performed fine. Not magical. Professional and consistent. They handled qualification, follow-up sequences, and re-engagement without embarrassment. But Lemkin attributes potentially 50% or more of results to lead concentration in top closers, not AI itself. The AI enabled the restructure. The restructure may have driven the number. This is not a clean AI-versus-humans test. It is a restructure around top performers, enabled by AI coverage, during a market boom for their category. Worth noting: SaaStr is a conference and content business, not a typical SaaS sales org. Inbound volume, deal complexity, and sales cycle matter when evaluating whether this model translates. The real story is not "AI closed 140%." It is "We restructured sales around AI, concentrated leads, and hit a market tailwind. We shipped 140%. We cannot isolate what drove what." That is the most useful honesty in the entire experiment.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Caruso raises $9.3M Series A, hiring across ANZ and US

## The Round Caruso, an Auckland-founded fund administration platform, closed a $9.3M Series A led by Icehouse Ventures and GD1. Post-money valuation: $80M. Balmain, a private credit fund manager and Caruso customer, participated. This follows a $3M seed round in December 2024. ## What They Do Caruso sells AI-powered fund admin software to real estate, private credit, and private equity funds. The platform handles investor onboarding, compliance (AML/KYC), capital raising, distributions, and registry management. Current customer base: 80+ fund managers (including Centuria Capital Group and Balmain), 900 funds, 27,000+ investors. Assets under administration sit at $80-100B. Revenue up 400% in the past year (no absolute figures disclosed). ## The Hiring Push Headcount is expanding from roughly 25 to 80+ across Auckland (HQ), Sydney, and Dallas. Australian headcount will double from current levels to around 40. No specific sales roles announced. No CRO or VP Sales named publicly. Co-founders Mark Hurley (CEO) and Oliver Shaw are the listed executives. For sales professionals eyeing fintech: this is early-stage, high-growth fund admin software. If you have experience selling to fund managers or private markets, this could be worth tracking. Comp details not disclosed. ## Market Context Fund administration is a legacy-heavy space. Most platforms are clunky, manual, and fragmented. Caruso is positioning as the AI-native alternative, targeting ANZ first with APAC and North America expansion planned. Competitors in this space include Carta (equity management with fund admin features), Capdesk (equity-focused), and traditional fund admin software providers. Caruso differentiates on AI integration and serving private credit/real estate funds specifically. ## Why It Matters Series A capital typically means structured hiring plans are coming. If you are in software sales and looking at fintech, fund admin is a niche with strong margins and sticky customers. Keep an eye on Caruso's careers page over the next quarter. For now: funding secured, headcount doubling, no public sales roles yet. Worth watching if you have experience selling to financial services or fund managers.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Eucalyptus $1.6B exit highlights VC gender gap in women's health

## The Exit Eucalyptus sold to US-based Hims & Hers for up to US$1.15 billion (A$1.6 billion). CEO Tim Doyle holds an estimated 10% stake, worth around US$160 million. The company hit 775,000 customers and US$450 million ARR run-rate by 2025. Four male founders. Zero women. Growth driven largely by GLP-1 weight-loss prescriptions to women. ## The Numbers That Matter In Australia, obesity rates sit at 31% for men, 32% for women. Clinical need is roughly equal. But women are 1.7x more likely to use GLP-1s in the US market, and Australian GP data shows women drive non-diabetic weight-loss prescriptions. Eucalyptus raised $50 million at A$520 million valuation in 2023. That valuation tripled via acquisition. Meanwhile, female founders in health tech report raising seed rounds at a fraction of that scale. ## The Pattern Catherine Slogrove, founder of women's microbiome health startup Amelia Bio, pointed out the disconnect. When Flo (period tracking app, all-male founding team) hit unicorn status, the backlash was immediate. Eucalyptus gets applause. Both built products primarily for women. Both had no women founders. Different reception. ## Why It Matters for Sales Teams If you are selling into health tech, enterprise buyers are starting to ask about founding team composition. DEI is moving from HR checkbox to procurement criteria. Companies building for women without women in leadership face tougher questions in enterprise deals. For sales professionals eyeing health tech roles: check who is on the founding team and who holds equity. Comp might look similar across companies, but long-term equity value depends on sustainable market positioning. Cultural pressure-driven growth has limits. ## The Comp Side No public data on Eucalyptus sales team size or CRO. The company scaled via marketing-led growth (founders came from ad agencies and Koala furniture). ARR over $450 million suggests a sizable team, now expanding under Hims & Hers. Doyle transitions to Senior Vice President of International post-acquisition. Co-founder Charlie Gearside departed early 2025. Equity distribution across the founding team remains undisclosed beyond Doyle's estimated 10%. ## Bottom Line Strong exit. Real numbers. Worth celebrating. Also worth asking why male founders building for female customers raise easier, exit bigger, and face less scrutiny than their female counterparts in the same market.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Eucalyptus $1.6B exit driven by women customers, four male founders

## The Numbers Eucalyptus sold to Hims & Hers for up to $1.6B. Four male co-founders. Zero women. The platform's growth engine: Juniper, targeting women seeking GLP-1 weight loss treatments. Women use these medications 1.7x more than men (15% vs 9% in the US). Australian obesity rates are nearly identical: 31% men, 32% women. The clinical need is equal. The demand is not. ## The Pattern This is the Flo playbook. Male founding team. Female customer base. Period tracking, weight loss, fertility: women's health built by men attracts capital. Women building for women struggle to raise. The data backs this up. Female founders receive roughly 2% of VC funding globally. In health tech, the gap widens. Investors fund solutions to problems they understand. Most VCs are men. ## Why This Matters for Go-to-Market Eucalyptus reached $450M ARR and 775,000 customers before the exit. The product worked. The team executed. The market was there. But representation shapes product, which shapes retention, which shapes revenue. Cultural pressure drives women to GLP-1s at higher rates than clinical need would predict. A founding team that lived that pressure might have built differently. The comp also matters. Co-founder Tim Doyle held 10% equity, worth roughly $160M from the deal. He becomes SVP International at Hims & Hers post-acquisition. Co-founder Charlie Gearside departed early 2025, pre-announcement. ## The Question Should founding team composition matter when the primary customer is a specific demographic? The ecosystem celebrated this exit without asking. When Flo hit unicorn status with zero female founders, the criticism was immediate. Eucalyptus shipped numbers. Triple-digit YoY ARR growth in 2025. The market validated the approach. But the funding gap persists: women building for women face higher scrutiny, lower valuations, longer fundraising cycles. Worth noting: Eucalyptus was not yet profitable. After-tax loss of $15.2M in FY2024. The $1.6B valuation is structured as $240M at close, $910M in deferred payments and earnouts through early 2029. Performance-based. The real payout depends on hitting targets. ## What Sales Teams Should Watch Telehealth is scaling fast. Eucalyptus went from founding in 2019 to $450M ARR in six years. That is enterprise software velocity in a healthcare wrapper. The buyer was Hims & Hers, a US public company expanding into ANZ. Watch for hiring. International expansion usually means local sales teams, territory planning, and market education. Doyle's SVP role suggests aggressive ANZ growth plans. For anyone selling into health tech or building GTM for women's health products: the money is there. The customers are there. The representation gap remains.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Pay.com.au scraps $850m IPO, takes $20m private raise instead

Pay.com.au has shelved its planned ASX IPO and raised $20 million privately instead, blaming geopolitical uncertainty from the Iran war for spooking public market sentiment. The business was eyeing an $850 million valuation on the ASX this month. The private raise valued it at $750 million, according to a company spokesperson. That is a $100 million haircut for choosing private capital over public markets. In a term sheet to investors, directors said an immediate IPO is "not in the best interests of shareholders" given current macro conditions. The business will keep watching for ASX listing opportunities, but no timeline provided. ## What this means for sales teams IPO delays usually mean hiring freezes or slower expansion. Pay.com.au has not disclosed sales headcount, recent hires, or whether the pivot changes their go-to-market plans. Worth noting: the business won Smart50 in 2024 and was reportedly planning to raise $85 million pre-IPO before the market turned. The fintech operates in B2B payments, founded by Damien Waller, Edward Alder, and Grant Austin. No public data on sales team size, CRO, or enterprise versus SMB split. ## Broader fintech context Pay.com.au joins a long list of fintechs postponing IPOs in 2025. Stripe and Klarna have both pushed back public market plans. SoftBank's PayPay and Walmart-backed PhonePe delayed roadshows citing similar geopolitical shocks. ANZ fintech has seen hiring freezes and comp cuts across the sector in 2024-2025, particularly for SDR and AE roles. When IPO plans get shelved, expansion hiring usually follows. Whether Pay.com.au is pausing sales hiring alongside the IPO delay remains unclear. The spokesperson said the business is in a "strong financial position" and choosing private capital "preserves momentum without the constraints of public market timing." Translation: they can still grow, but probably slower than an $850 million float would have funded.

SmartCompany
4 months ago
News

Anthropic hits $30B revenue with 5,000 staff: 6x more efficient than Google

## The Numbers Anthropic hit $30 billion annualized revenue in Q1 2026 with an estimated 5,000 employees. That is $6 million revenue per employee. Google needed 32,000 people to reach $30B. Salesforce needed 79,000. The revenue ramp: - End of 2024: $1B ARR - Mid 2025: $4B - End of 2025: $9B - March 2026: $30B That is 30x growth in 15 months. Investor Brad Gerstner noted Anthropic added the equivalent of Databricks plus Palantir combined in revenue in a single month. ## What This Means for Sales Teams No public data on Anthropic's sales org structure. No named CRO or VP Sales in available records. The company runs research-heavy with teams focused on Interpretability, Alignment, and Societal Impacts. Product leadership saw Tom Krieger move to Anthropic Labs in January 2026, replaced by Ami Vora. OpenAI sits at $24B revenue with 4,500 employees, planning to double headcount to 8,000 by end of 2026. Still far leaner than traditional enterprise software. Comp data: Not publicly available for Anthropic sales roles. No confirmed ANZ presence or operations. Activity centers in San Francisco. ## The Efficiency Model Anthropic's lean structure comes from focus. No multimodal sprawl, no hardware, no data centers. They picked coding and enterprise, went deep. Compute costs are relatively fixed whether revenue is $1B or $80B, so gross margins expand as revenue scales. Inference costs down 90% year over year. ## What Changes If AI companies can hit $30B with 5,000 people, enterprise software sales models shift. Traditional SaaS companies scaled headcount with revenue. Salesforce added thousands of AEs, SEs, CSMs to reach $30B. That model does not apply when your primary cost input is compute, not people. For sales professionals: Fewer seats, higher productivity expectations, different comp structures. When a company can generate $6M per employee instead of $380k (Salesforce's ratio at $30B), quota and OTE calculations change. Worth noting: Anthropic's efficiency comes from product-led motion and enterprise co-work focus, not traditional outbound sales teams. The playbook does not translate directly to most B2B companies. But the direction is clear: leaner teams, AI-assisted workflows, higher revenue per head. No data yet on how this affects quota attainment, ramp periods, or territory design for the sales roles that do exist.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

AI agent rollouts hitting wall: FDE shortage stalling enterprise deployments

## The Bottleneck No One Saw Coming Every company rolling out AI agents at scale is running into the same problem: forward deployed engineers are impossible to hire. The shortage is not just a hiring challenge. It is a structural issue about what it actually takes to get AI working inside a real enterprise. FDEs sit at the intersection of product, engineering, and customer success. They go on-site, understand actual workflows, and configure the product to work inside those workflows. They are not building from scratch. They are not doing basic support. They are doing the hard middle work of making software actually land in the real world. Palantir built their entire go-to-market around this model. You needed their people inside your organisation, configuring and training the system for your specific context. That model worked. It was expensive and it did not scale the way SaaS was supposed to scale. But it worked, because complex software in complex environments requires human judgement to deploy well. Now almost every serious AI product has the same requirement. And almost no one has enough people who can do it. ## Why CS Cannot Fill This Gap The instinct at most companies: solve this with customer success. CS is already post-sale, already focused on adoption. Just upskill them, right? Wrong. Traditional CS was built for a different era. The job was: help customers use software they have already decided to buy, make sure they hit their renewal metrics, escalate bugs. It was reactive, relationship-driven, and optimised for retention. FDE work is different in almost every way. It is proactive, technical, and optimised for deployment. You are going in before the problem exists and configuring the system so the problem never happens. The skill set required is closer to a solutions engineer or a junior product manager with strong customer empathy than it is to a traditional CS rep. Most CS teams do not have it. Retraining takes longer than most companies want to admit. ## Agents Cannot Deploy Themselves. Yet. The whole premise of AI agents is that they automate work. But deploying an AI agent is itself significant work, and it is work the agent cannot do for you. Not yet. Someone has to understand the customer's workflows deeply enough to know where the agent fits. Someone has to train the agent on the right data, the right context, the right edge cases. Someone has to test it, catch where it breaks, and iterate. Someone has to get internal buy-in from the people whose jobs will change when the agent goes live. That is FDE work. And it is manual, high-judgement, human work. Palantir announced recently that they have gotten deployment times down over 90% using forward deployed engineers. That is remarkable. It also means the best-in-class operator in this model is still deploying manually, just faster. 90% reduction in deployment time is not the same as automating deployment. The human is still in the loop. ## What This Means for Sales Teams Every serious AI vendor is now competing for the same small pool of people who can do this work. The companies that came up through Palantir, the solutions engineers from the major cloud platforms, the implementation consultants from the enterprise software world: everyone wants them, and there are not enough of them. Meanwhile the demand is exploding. Every enterprise that decides to deploy AI agents needs FDE-calibre people to make it work. For sales teams, this creates a few realities: **Longer sales cycles.** If you cannot deploy the product, you cannot prove value. If you cannot prove value, the deal stalls. **Higher implementation costs.** Companies are paying premium rates for FDEs. That cost gets passed somewhere, usually to the customer or to margin. **New comp structures.** Some vendors are tying commission to successful deployment, not just closed deals. If the product does not land, the rep does not get paid out fully. The companies winning at deployment are building serious enablement programmes: not just documentation, but hands-on training that gives customer-side operators the skills to configure and train agents themselves. If you are selling AI tools, ask your leadership what the deployment plan actually looks like. If the answer is "CS will handle it," the answer is wrong.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Future Fund cutting 10 roles, banking $15m from tech automation

## Future Fund cutting 10 roles, banking $15m from tech automation The Future Fund is reviewing 10 roles across investment and operations teams after investing in data systems and automation. The cuts follow a tech overhaul that CEO Raphael Arndt says will save $10-15 million in FY2026/27. The $335 billion sovereign wealth fund, which manages public sector super liabilities, expects the technology investment to shave 5-7% off operating costs next year. Further savings are projected for subsequent years. "We're baking in the benefits and maximising the efficiencies of our technology overhaul," Arndt said. The fund has around 140-150 total headcount, concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney. The role reviews cover both investment professionals and support functions. The fund said it is consulting with affected staff before finalising decisions. ### Finance sector automation trend The Future Fund joins a growing list of financial institutions cutting roles after deploying AI and automation. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank announced hundreds of job cuts in April after signing two technology deals. Unlike traditional B2B companies, the Future Fund operates without sales teams or commercial revenue targets. It invests globally in equities, fixed income, property, and alternatives. The fund does not have a CRO or VP Sales: its structure centers on portfolio managers and investment analysts. Arndt said the tech investment has been "critical to investment performance" and positions the fund for what he calls a "new investment order" reshaping markets. The savings come from improved data systems and renegotiated external service contracts. Costs and staffing remain "appropriate for the scale and complexity" of the fund's mandate, Arndt said, but the organisation will continue assessing resource needs. Worth noting: this is a government entity with no traditional sales function, but the automation trend mirrors what commercial enterprises are doing. When large, well-funded organisations start cutting roles to automation, the rest of the market usually follows.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Deteqt raises $5M seed, no sales team yet

Deteqt, a University of Sydney spinout, closed a $5 million seed round today. Main Sequence led, with ATP Fund, BOKA Capital, Beaten Zone Venture Partners, Uniseed, and the university participating. The company builds chip-scale quantum magnetometers using diamond-on-silicon tech. Target markets: GPS-denied navigation for defense (drones, submarines), autonomous vehicles, and potentially portable MRI. They already have an Australian Defence Force contract. Founded in 2025 by CEO Dr. Jim Rabeau and Professor Omid Kavehei, with Rupal Ismin as COO. This follows a $750k pre-seed in March 2025. ## What This Means for Sales No sales team details disclosed. No CRO, no VP Sales, no AE count. This is pre-revenue, pre-GTM team. Defense tech sales roles at quantum startups typically look different from SaaS: - Longer sales cycles (12-24 months for defense contracts) - Heavy on government procurement experience - Equity compensation often outweighs base (early-stage defense tech) - Remote roles rare due to security clearance requirements For context: aerospace and defense contractor sales roles in ANZ are heating up. Quantum sensing sits at the intersection of deep tech and defense, a niche but growing market. Companies like Infleqtion (US-based quantum tech) offer remote roles, but most defense-focused positions require on-site presence. ## The Numbers Total raised: $5.75M ($5M seed + $750k pre-seed). Funds go to product development, diamond chip manufacturing scale-up, and team growth. No revenue disclosed. No current sales headcount disclosed. Deteqt is Sydney-based, targeting Australia-US-UK investor and customer networks. Named a 2025 InnovationAus Awards finalist in Defence and Dual Use. ## Bottom Line Early-stage deep tech with defense applications. If they build a sales team in the next 12 months, expect equity-heavy comp and a focus on government procurement experience. Not hiring yet, but worth tracking if you are in defense tech sales.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

Canva hits $4B ARR but AI tools are eating power users

## The Numbers Look Great. The Usage Pattern Does Not. Canva went from $23M ARR in 2018 to $4B at end of 2025. That is 173x growth in seven years. They have 265 million monthly active users, 31 million paid subscribers, and their B2B segment alone is $500M ARR, doubling year over year. By every traditional metric, they are crushing it. Profitable for eight consecutive years. Sydney-based, built a global design platform that competes with Adobe. But here is the problem: power users are going quiet. ## What Stealth Churn Actually Looks Like No single competitor replaced Canva. Instead, specialty AI tools are eating individual use cases. Reve handles thumbnails. Opus Pro cuts video clips. Higgsfield does short-form video. Each tool does one thing better than Canva's all-in-one approach. The power user who drove the original purchase, who would have championed expansion, stops logging in. The team still uses Canva for social graphics and event collateral. Usage metrics look fine. NPS stays high. The account renews. But the person who would fight for budget at renewal just checked out. Quietly. Without even noticing. ## Why This Matters for B2B Sales When your topline is growing 100% year over year, you cannot see this pattern in your numbers. New revenue masks quiet disengagement at the edges. By the time it shows up in retention metrics, you have lost 12 to 18 months of leading indicators. Your most engaged customers are exactly the ones most likely to discover purpose-built AI alternatives. They care about output quality. They are early adopters. They are your expansion revenue. Your casual users stick around because switching costs still matter and $12 per month is not worth the effort to cancel. But inertia-based retention is the worst kind of retention. It means your product became a rounding error in someone's budget. Not essential. Just cheap enough to ignore. ## The Category Risk This is not a Canva problem. Canva will probably be fine. $4B ARR, strong execution, massive distribution. But every horizontal B2B tool faces this dynamic right now. When AI tools can do one specific job better than your all-in-one platform, power users will find them. Your metrics will not warn you until it is too late. Worth asking: who are your power users, and what are they actually using right now?

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Public software stocks down 50% in six months, AI spend hits sales budgets

# Public Software Stocks Down 50% in Six Months The SaaStr.ai Index of the top 25 public B2B software companies hit a 50.5% decline over six months, from October 2025 to April 2026. Half the market cap, gone. This is not a 20% correction. This is a structural re-rating of software as an asset class. For the first time ever, public software companies trade at a P/E discount to the S&P 500. Not at parity. Below. Forward P/E multiples for application software collapsed from 84x in 2021 to 22.7x today. The market's implied long-term growth rate for public SaaS dropped from 4.7% three months ago to 1.1% now. The market is saying: software is no longer a premium business. ## What This Means for Sales Teams Two forces are hitting simultaneously: **Budget displacement.** When Anthropic hits $19B in annualised run rate, growing $6B in a single month, that spend comes from somewhere. Approximately 75% of new hyperscaler infrastructure spending in 2026, over $450 billion, targets AI infrastructure. That money used to buy Salesforce seats, ServiceNow modules, HubSpot licenses. Not anymore. **Substitution fear.** AI agents might replace seats instead of complementing them. Seat-based revenue models depend on headcount growth. If agents replace headcount, the model reverses. Investors are pricing this into terminal value, which explains why current earnings do not explain the decline magnitude. Category leaders are getting crushed: - **Atlassian (TEAM):** Down 57.91% in the recent quarter, 67.84% over the past year. Founded in Sydney in 2002, the company that built Jira for every engineering org is now 71.80% below its May 2025 high. - **HubSpot (HUBS):** Down 50%+ over the past year. $2B+ ARR, one of the best go-to-market motions in B2B history. - **Salesforce (CRM):** Down 30%+ in Q1. The defining CRM platform of the last 20 years. - **ServiceNow (NOW):** Down 30%+ in Q1, despite actually accelerating. - **Adobe (ADBE):** Down from $638 to under $350. These are not speculative bets. These are cash-generating, deeply embedded businesses. The market is treating them like they face existential risk. ## ANZ Context Atlassian maintains ~500-1,000 headcount across Sydney HQ and Auckland offices, focusing on enterprise sales to government and finance sectors. The company reports no major 2026 hires or cuts amid the downturn, relying on inbound and partner-led models over large direct sales teams. Sales organisation emphasises efficiency under President Anutthara Gose, promoted in 2024. Broader SaaS firms report stalled net retention at ~90% gross as AI shifts divert budgets. Sales teams are feeling this in quota design, comp structures, and territory planning. When your product category loses half its market cap in six months, quota relief conversations get harder. ## What Is Holding Up Not everything is down equally. Companies performing better share characteristics: **Palantir (PLTR):** +135% in 2025, cooling now but still outperforming. Rule of 40 score hit 127 in Q4 2025. Revenue growth at 70% YoY. They are not a seat-based SaaS vendor. **Cloudflare (NET):** Guided 2026 at $2.79B revenue, 28-29% growth. AI agents generate an order of magnitude more outbound requests than user-driven apps. All of that flows through Cloudflare infrastructure. **DigitalOcean (DOCN):** Up nearly 50% YTD in an index down 50%. Simpler stack, smaller companies. The bifurcation is clear: infrastructure that enables AI outperforms applications that AI might replace. For sales professionals, this matters. Comp packages are tied to equity. Territory planning assumes growth. Quota is built on market assumptions. When the market re-rates your entire sector by 50% in six months, every one of those assumptions changes. Worth noting: if you are carrying a bag at a company down 50%, your equity-based OTE just got a lot less attractive.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

SaaStr AI agents: $4.8M pipeline, 3 humans, 90 days of daily management

## The Numbers SaaStr deployed 20+ AI agents across SDR, support, and GTM functions. Headcount dropped from 20+ employees to 3 humans. Revenue growth shifted from negative 19% to positive 47% year over year. AI-attributed pipeline hit $4.8M, closed-won $2.4M. Outbound volume reached 60,000+ personalised emails with 5 to 7% response rates against an industry average of 2 to 4%. Jason Lemkin, SaaStr founder and former EchoSign co-founder (acquired by Adobe, scaled to $100M+ ARR), shared why most AI agent implementations fail. The pattern: teams deploy AI SDRs, check back in two weeks, see 0.02% conversion, and blame the tool. ## What Actually Works SaaStr's Chief AI Officer spends 30% of her time managing agents. The team invests 60 to 90 minutes daily: reviewing output, refining prompts, QA-ing emails, iterating on what converts. Lemkin is clear: give it 90 days of this discipline before drawing conclusions. The failures follow predictable patterns. Teams deploy AI on top of broken processes (bad messaging does not improve at 10x speed). CRM data quality collapses under AI load (agents need clean data, humans can work around it). Segmentation stays lazy (generic outreach scales into generic spam). SaaStr runs 15+ email variants across segments: company stage (seed through public), role (CEO, CRO, VP Sales), past event engagement, vertical, deal size. A Series A CEO who has never attended SaaStr gets different outreach than a returning enterprise sponsor's VP of Marketing. ## The AI Implementation Failure Rate Most AI projects fail because teams treat agents like software: deploy once, let it run. That works for static tools. It does not work for AI that needs training, feedback loops, and constant refinement. The companies succeeding with AI agents are managing them like junior reps, just with higher volume potential. Lemkin's advice: audit your CRM before deployment, fix your messaging with humans first, budget real time for daily management, and segment radically. If your best human SDR cannot book meetings with current messaging, your AI SDR will not either. AI scales what works. It does not fix what is broken. Worth noting: SaaStr's results came after months of painful iteration. The 47% revenue growth and $4.8M pipeline did not happen in week one. Most teams churn before they get there.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Swyftx cuts 45 roles, replaces CEO after $100M acquisition spree

## Leadership Out, Layoffs In Swyftx replaced CEO Jason Titman after less than two years and is cutting 15% of staff, roughly 45 roles from a 300-person headcount. Cofounder Alex Harper and CFO Andrea Yuen (hired early 2025) are now acting co-CEOs. The Brisbane-based crypto exchange, founded in 2019, serves 1.5 million users and processes over A$1 billion in monthly trades. It is the largest crypto platform in ANZ. ## Post-Acquisition Cleanup The cuts follow an aggressive M&A run: Easy Crypto (NZ, $33M, March 2025) and Caleb & Brown (US-focused, $100M+, July 2025). The Caleb & Brown deal was the largest crypto M&A in ANZ history and pushed headcount to 300. Swyftx says it is removing duplication and simplifying operations after the business "increased in size and complexity." Translation: two acquisitions in six months created overlap. Now they are fixing it. ## What We Don't Know No details on which roles are affected. Sales teams? Engineering? Support? The company started "discussions" last month but has not finalised the list. No severance details, no timeline, no clarity on whether this hits revenue-generating roles or back office. For context: crypto exchanges typically run lean sales teams (mostly inbound, partnerships, and enterprise/institutional). If Swyftx is cutting 45 roles post-acquisition, the real question is whether they are consolidating sales coverage across ANZ, NZ, and US markets or just trimming support functions. ## Market Context This fits the broader crypto layoff trend. Multiple exchanges and Web3 startups cut staff through 2024-2025 as the crypto-friendly regulatory environment failed to materialise as expected. Swyftx avoided specifics on regulatory pressure but mentioned "prioritising investment in innovation," which usually means cutting headcount to fund product. Worth noting: Swyftx tried to merge with Superhero in 2022 to create a fintech unicorn. That deal collapsed six months later. Now they are back to running the business, except bigger and with fresh redundancies. ## Bottom Line CEO out, 45 roles gone, two cofounders running the show. If you are in crypto sales in ANZ, this is another data point: growth through M&A often means short-term headcount cuts. The specifics matter, and Swyftx has not shared them yet.

Startup Daily
4 months ago
News

MYOB locks five-year Microsoft AI deal, chases Xero in accounting arms race

## MYOB locks five-year Microsoft AI deal, chases Xero in accounting arms race MYOB confirmed a five-year Microsoft partnership to build AI agents into its accounting platform, announced April 8. The deal comes days after rival Xero revealed its Anthropic collaboration, marking an escalation in the accounting software AI arms race. The partnership gives MYOB access to Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio, and Agent 365 to accelerate AI feature deployment. Microsoft is providing dedicated engineering support to MYOB's team. Initial focus: intelligent AI agents for cash-flow forecasting and compliance automation across MYOB's platform. ### What this means for the market MYOB serves 3.2 million SME customers across ANZ, competing directly with Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage. The Microsoft deal positions MYOB to defend its dominant ANZ market share as AI adoption accelerates. Current SME AI adoption sits at 29%, according to available data, leaving significant upside for platforms that ship useful AI features first. The companies are jointly funding the expansion. No financial terms disclosed. MYOB was acquired by Bain Capital in 2019 for A$3.4 billion and remains privately held, so no recent revenue figures are public. ### The sales angle MYOB is running an "AI Everyday" program to train internal teams, including likely sales, on AI productivity tools. The goal: enhance customer experiences and accelerate product adoption. Team size and recent sales hires are not disclosed in available sources. For sales professionals selling into SMEs or accounting firms: the AI accounting software category is moving fast. MYOB and Xero are both racing to ship AI features that automate reconciliation, forecasting, and compliance. If you are selling adjacent tools or services, expect your buyers to ask how you integrate with AI-native accounting workflows. Jane Livesey, president of Microsoft ANZ, said the partnership will "embed AI directly into the workflows Australian and New Zealand businesses already rely on." Translation: Microsoft is betting MYOB's regional dominance and compliance expertise will accelerate enterprise AI adoption across ANZ SMEs. The deal runs five years. Watch for feature velocity as the key metric: who ships useful AI agents faster wins the next wave of SME accounting market share.

SmartCompany
4 months ago
News

Five Aussie startups raise $30M: Haast leads with $17M Series A

Five Australian startups raised $30.1M this week, with Sydney-based Haast leading at $17M Series A. ## The Deals **Haast: $17M Series A** Peak XV Partners led, with DST Global Partners, Airtree, Aura Ventures, and Black Sheep Capital participating. The Sydney compliance automation platform embeds policy frameworks into enterprise tools. Founded by Kunal Vankadara, it plans to scale "agentic workflow products" and expand globally. No sales team size disclosed. No hiring numbers. No revenue metrics. **Kimia: $7M seed** Airtree led, Blackbird and Skip Capital joined. The chemical industry AI platform helps commercial teams access technical knowledge. Co-founders Farid Mirmohseni and Sajjad Azami are targeting fragmented information workflows in chemicals. Again: no team size, no hiring plans, no comp data. **Also This Week:** - **Rosella**: $5.7M AUD pre-seed for AI insurance brokerage (US-focused, minimal ANZ presence) - **Future Maintenance Technologies**: $8M first external round for industrial robotics (Brisbane, ~$40M valuation) - **Arlula**: $3.4M for defence-focused space tech ## What It Means for Sales Series A and seed rounds typically trigger hiring. Haast's enterprise focus suggests AE and CSM builds. Kimia's commercial team positioning implies sales enablement roles. But here is the pattern: five funding announcements, zero hiring specifics, zero comp transparency. The usual "we are scaling" language with no actual numbers. Meanwhile, **Koala** (mattress DTC) hit ASX via $20M IPO at $380M+ market cap. That is a scaled operation with real revenue, but still no CRO or sales leadership details public. ## ANZ Funding Context Strong 2025-26 Aussie funding environment continues. Airtree and Blackbird remain active in early-stage B2B. Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India/SEA) co-leading Haast signals international investor confidence in ANZ enterprise software. But for sales professionals evaluating opportunities: funding announcements mean nothing without team-building plans and comp structures. Call the founders directly if you want real numbers.

SmartCompany
4 months ago
News

HubSpot switches to pay-per-resolution AI pricing, following Sierra and Intercom

HubSpot is switching its Breeze AI pricing to pay-per-resolution from April 14. Customer Agent drops from $1.00 per conversation to $0.50 per resolved conversation. Prospecting Agent moves from flat monthly per contact to $1.00 per lead recommended for outreach. Chief Customer Officer Jon Dick framed it simply: "You pay when it works, full stop." The numbers so far: Breeze Customer Agent resolves 65% of conversations across 8,000+ customers, cuts resolution time by 39%. Prospecting Agent activations up 57% quarter-over-quarter. HubSpot is not first here. Sierra launched with outcome-based pricing in early 2024 and hit $150M ARR by February 2026. One in four customers has revenue over $10 billion. Founder Bret Taylor has been vocal about why this model gives startups an edge: legacy providers on seat-based pricing face a conflict when their AI gets better and clients need fewer seats. Intercom's Fin agent ran the same playbook. Launched at $0.99 per resolution, grew from $1M to $100M ARR. Now resolves 2 million customer issues per week. Resolution rates climbed from 27% at launch to 66-67% across the customer base. Intercom backed it with a $1M performance guarantee: hit 65% resolution or they pay you $1M. That kind of bet forces the product to work. Salesforce went a different direction with Agentforce: three pricing models at once. Per-conversation, per-login session, and subscription. Covers more buyer preferences but adds complexity. For ANZ sales teams evaluating CRM stack, the pricing shift matters less than the trend it represents. Every major platform is moving towards agents and outcomes. HubSpot's $2.7B ARR and 17% year-over-year growth gives it scale to absorb the transition risk. The 5,000+ ANZ customers on HubSpot will see the new pricing roll out the same as global. Real question: does outcome-based pricing change your CRM decision in 12 months when Salesforce, HubSpot, and every other platform offers the same model? Or does it just become table stakes and you are back to evaluating on feature depth, integration quality, and whether the AI actually lifts close rates? HubSpot says Prospecting Agent users see 10% close rate improvement. That number matters more than the pricing structure. Show me attainment data, not billing innovation.

SaaStr
4 months ago
News

Haast raises $17M Series A, relocates to US

## Haast raises $17M Series A, relocates to US Sydney-founded compliance startup Haast closed a US$12 million (A$17M) Series A led by Peak XV Partners, with DST Global Partners and existing backers Airtree, Aura Ventures, and Black Sheep Capital participating. The company has now raised US$17.05M total since launching in 2023. Here is what changed: Haast relocated to New York. The US is now the primary market. ### The pitch Haast automates marketing and content compliance for enterprises in regulated industries: financial services, pharma, FMCG, retail. The problem they are solving: legal and compliance teams cannot keep pace with AI-driven content production. Manual review processes create bottlenecks. CEO Kunal Vankadara says the platform embeds policy and risk standards directly into workflows, letting teams move at AI speed without breaking governance rules. Translation: marketing and sales teams get their content approved faster, compliance teams stop being the blocker. ### The traction Haast reports 4.5x revenue growth in 12 months and zero customer churn. Client list includes Telstra, Zurich ANZ, Aviva, and Future Super. Worth noting: no public revenue figures, so scale remains unclear. The company claims the platform reduces manual compliance review by up to 80% and accelerates approval timelines by 3x. If those numbers hold across enterprise deployments, that is a meaningful operational unlock for sales and marketing teams stuck waiting on legal sign-off. ### What this means for sales teams For ANZ sales professionals in regulated industries, this matters if your comp is tied to campaign velocity or content-driven pipeline. Compliance friction directly impacts time-to-market. If Haast's automation actually works at scale, it removes a bottleneck that sales teams cannot control but constantly blame for missed numbers. The Series A and US move signal they are chasing enterprise scale, not ANZ mid-market. That usually means longer sales cycles, bigger deals, and if you are selling into these accounts, expect procurement processes that reflect the compliance obsession this product is built around.

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