Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
Joe Aston's 18-month-old business publication closed a $2.3m round at $29m valuation. Five investors in, but no public data on sales headcount, comp structure, or revenue team. Worth noting: profitable since launch, but still building commercial model.
Jason Lemkin, SaaStr founder and former EchoSign CEO, tested 30+ APIs for production use. Exactly one vendor followed up to ask if the product worked. The gap between API sales motions and what technical buyers actually need is wider than most vendors think.
Sydney's Canva slashed its 2026 growth target from 30% to 20% after AI task costs ballooned. CEO Melanie Perkins said they were relying too heavily on frontier models like OpenAI. The company has since cut AI serving costs by 90% but it slowed product rollout and hit near-term growth.
Bending Spoons is acquiring the no-code platform for $1.285B enterprise value, roughly $2.25B equity value including cash. That is 2.7x ARR on $480M revenue, growing 20% year over year. The company raised $1.4B and was valued at $11.7B in 2021. This is what the SaaS valuation reset looks like at scale.
LemonLime founder Jordan Zietz apologised after seven people got tattoos at a San Francisco recruiting event in exchange for instant interviews. The stunt drew criticism over power dynamics in hiring. The company is covering tattoo removal costs.
Palantir posted revenue growth that breaks every mental model about B2B software at scale: 93% YoY to $1.9B, 157% NRR, Rule of 40 at 155%. U.S. commercial grew 149% YoY. The company raised full-year guidance by $500M mid-year. For sales teams, this is the new benchmark for what enterprise AI motion can deliver.
ASX-listed Scalare secured $5m in convertible notes after buying Fishburners out of administration for an undisclosed sum. The deal adds 40,000 founders to Scalare's database but came with no staff or liabilities. Worth noting: customer receipts hit $5.3m in Q4, up from $639k a year ago.
Sydney-founded Canva pulled 10.5 billion visits in 12 months, behind only ChatGPT (64.7 billion) and ahead of Gemini, Claude, and Grok. The traffic data reflects Canva's embedded AI features in design workflows, not pure chatbot usage. Context for sales teams: this is about where your buyers are spending time, not which AI agent closes deals.
Strip out SpaceX's $1.77 trillion listing and 2026's IPO market is one of the weakest on record for enterprise software. Not a single B2B SaaS company has gone public or even filed. Databricks CEO called it 'a terrible year to go public' despite $5.4B ARR growing 65%. Why this matters for your quota: when the exit window stays shut, hiring plans stall.
Matt Berriman called time on his US legal battle against Google after the Ninth Circuit rejected his appeal. Unlockd, the Sydney adtech startup that raised $60m and was valued at $200m, collapsed in 2018 after Google banned it from the Play Store. Eight years of litigation later, Google won.
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll is reportedly considering carve-outs for small businesses in the state's work-from-home legislation, which would give eligible employees the right to work remotely two days a week. Business groups have pushed back on compliance costs and liability exposure, particularly for the 1.3 million Victorians employed by SMEs.
SaaStr deployed 20+ AI agents, cut headcount from 20+ humans to 3, grew revenue 47% YoY. The catch: AI multiplies your existing playbook. If your messaging doesn't work at human scale, 10x zero is still zero.