The Wire

Real-time updates from ANZ tech sales

30 days ago
News

Token budgets hit SaaS: AI spend forcing sales and CS headcount cuts

## Token Budgets Are the New Headcount Fight Engineering leaders are getting a new budget question: keep your 400-person team, or cut to 300 and spend the other 100 salaries on AI tokens. The numbers coming out of early adopters: Uber caps engineers at $1,500/month in token spend, roughly $18k/year or 10% on top of a $200k engineer. Brandon at McCor says they now spend more on tokens than engineering salaries with 80 engineers. The EDA software market, historically the most tool-heavy segment, runs about 13% of engineering spend on tooling. Jason Lemkin's read: the best shops push past 10%, maybe a third or more. Rory O'Driscoll thinks that math is aggressive. Nobody has run a full org at that ratio yet. ## What This Means for Sales and CS Roles The first cuts in 2024 were about survival. The second wave is about choosing tokens over marginal headcount. Bottom of the QA list, CS roles that can be automated, inbound SDRs closing $3k deals. The roles that survived the first layoff wave are now being measured against AI cost. SaaStr already made the call: cut B players, spend on tokens instead. The bet only works if your VP of Engineering can ship product with fewer people. Fast-growing companies say yes. Slow-growing companies say it cannot be done. ## Why Comp Matters Here If corporate America settles at 10% token spend relative to engineering cost, you get to the Anthropic and OpenAI growth curves without mass layoffs. At 33%, you are looking at one in three or one in four roles across product and engineering getting replaced. Sales and CS roles that touch product or require technical context are in the blast radius. The other data point: Anthropic raised $65b and filed to go public in the same week. ARR up 28% since the last quarter. When the best company of the decade goes zero to trillion in five years, it warps the bar for everyone else. VCs are now screening for billion-dollar positions, not billion-dollar outcomes. That means faster growth, bigger TAMs, and less tolerance for blockers like small teams or capped markets. ## The Takeaway for Sales Professionals If you are in a technical sales role, ask your leadership what the token-to-salary ratio is for your engineering team. That number is your leading indicator for where headcount lands in 2027. If your company is slow-growing and the ratio is climbing, start looking. If you are fast-growing and leadership is betting on tokens, make sure your role is tied to revenue, not process. Comp transparency matters more now. Real OTE, realistic attainment, ramp periods. The market is resetting fast, and the roles that survive are the ones that prove they drive pipeline, not the ones that just touch it.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

Adelaide AI email startup Nitrosend raises $700k seed

## Adelaide AI email startup Nitrosend raises $700k seed Nitrosend, an Adelaide-based AI email marketing platform, closed a $700,000 seed round led by Eastend Ventures, with participation from Archangel Ventures and Aussie Angels. The company was founded by brothers Edward and George Hartley, who previously built SmartrMail, an email automation tool that scaled to 6 billion emails sent before being acquired by Relay Commerce in 2022. They brought back their former CTO, Kam Low, as a founding team member for the new venture. ### What they are building Nitrosend positions itself as an AI-native email platform. Instead of drag-and-drop template editors, users describe campaign goals in natural language (via Claude, ChatGPT, or the Nitrosend platform), and the system handles writing, design, sending, and performance reporting. The platform also automates workflows like welcome sequences, cart abandonment, and customer segmentation. Target market: SMBs that lack dedicated marketing resources or agency budgets. ### Early traction The company signed 190 users since April 2026, including early-stage startups Elita Genetics and Fast Lane. No public customer count, revenue, or sales headcount disclosed. ### Market context Nitrosend sits in the crowded AI email marketing segment alongside Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, and newer AI-native tools. Their differentiation: 10 years of email infrastructure experience combined with AI workflow automation. For sales teams evaluating martech stacks, the platform could reduce reliance on marketing ops resources for campaign execution, though enterprise buyers will want to see more proof of scale. Eastend Ventures founding partner Josh Garratt: "Experienced founders going after a market they already understand better than anyone, at exactly the moment that market is being reshaped by AI." Worth noting: the company appears to be operating with a founder-led commercial motion rather than a dedicated sales org at this stage. No sales hiring announced.

Startup Daily
about 1 month ago
News

SaaStr updates VP of Sales interview guide: AI fluency now mandatory

# SaaStr updates VP of Sales interview guide: AI fluency now mandatory Jason Lemkin has updated his widely-shared VP of Sales interview framework for 2026, and the changes reflect what is happening on sales floors right now: AI agents are handling meaningful pipeline volume, title inflation is worse than ever, and the VPs who do not know their Clay from their Artisan are getting left behind. The original advice still holds. Do not hire a VP of Sales until you have proven the motion yourself, either by making 1 to 2 reps successful first, or by hitting $1M to $2M ARR with founder-led sales plus AI SDRs. If you skip this step, you will fire whoever you hire in 9 months. No exceptions. But the screening questions have evolved. The classic filters are still there: team size estimation, deal size fit, direct management experience, recruiting ability, tool stack opinions. If a candidate cannot answer those fluently, pass. What is new for 2026: two critical additions that separate modern sales leaders from people who just have the title on LinkedIn. **Question 5: How are you using AI agents in your current sales motion?** If they hedge, say "we are exploring it," or defer to ops, pass. The right answer sounds like specifics: Artisan for outbound, Qualified for inbound chat, Gong for call analytics, Clay for enrichment, Agentforce for win-back. If your candidate is not fluent here, they are going to be an expensive observer of what your competitors are doing. **Question 6: How has your ideal rep profile changed in the last three years?** Listen for evolution. The best VPs are hiring fewer SDRs because agents handle prospecting. They are hiring AEs who can run their own AI workflows. They are cutting the bottom 20% faster because AI raises the floor on what an average rep can produce. If they describe the same rep they hired in 2022, they have not been paying attention. The underlying reality: team sizes are often smaller than they would have been in 2023. If a candidate is pitching you 20 SDRs when 4 SDRs plus an Artisan deployment would do the same job, that is a tell. They are playing the old playbook. The full 15-question framework is worth reading if you are hiring or evaluating a VP of Sales role. The questions are designed to create dialogue and surface whether you have a real VP candidate or someone who just has the title. Give them enough data ahead of time so they can answer with substance. If they did not do the homework before the interview, that is your answer right there. One constant that has not changed: 50% of the job of VP of Sales is recruiting. AI does not recruit your reps for you. Your VP does. If a candidate cannot describe the reps they hired and where they found them, they are not a real leader. They are a manager who got promoted into something they do not actually do. Worth noting: this guidance aligns with what sales recruiters and sales ops leaders are seeing in the market. The bar for VP of Sales has moved. AI fluency is not a nice-to-have. It is table stakes.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

SiteMinder share price jumps after 20-year pivot to AI booking channels

## The Setup SiteMinder, the Sydney hotel commerce platform founded in 2006, just announced integration with AI booking channels via Model Context Protocol. Share price is up. The company supports 41,000+ hotels across 150 countries, primarily independent and SME properties using their channel manager to distribute inventory across OTAs. The timing matters: SiteMinder got caught in the early 2026 software sell-off alongside every other SaaS company that wasn't immediately profitable. Their valuation dropped despite consistent revenue growth. Now they are pivoting product strategy while the market reassesses. ## What Changed SiteMinder is positioning beyond traditional channel management into what they call an "open hotel commerce platform." The Model Context Protocol integration means hotels can surface inventory through AI-powered booking agents, not just Booking.com and Expedia. The company has been delivering growth year-over-year. The question now: can they convert that growth into profitability while expanding into AI distribution? ## The Sales Angle For ANZ sales professionals, SiteMinder represents a rare local success story in hotel tech. Founded in Sydney by Mike Ford and Mike Prewitt, the company built a genuine global footprint in a category they essentially pioneered. What we don't have: current headcount data, recent ANZ hiring numbers, or specific comp ranges for their enterprise sales roles. Public sources confirm the founders but not the current CRO or VP Sales. That leadership matters when evaluating a "next growth phase" story. Worth noting: SiteMinder competes with integrated PMS vendors (Cloudbeds, Hotelogix) and standalone distribution tools. Their positioning has always been strongest with independent hotels that need channel management without full PMS replacement. ## The Numbers We Need The original article promises a financial teardown but the available sources don't provide ARR, revenue multiples, or EBITDA figures. For a SaaS comeback story, those metrics matter more than share price movements. If SiteMinder is genuinely entering a growth-plus-profit phase, the sales team structure and quota models would be shifting. Enterprise AE roles at a 20-year-old company moving toward profitability look different than at a growth-at-all-costs startup. ## What To Watch AI booking channels could expand SiteMinder's addressable market or commoditise their core channel management play. Either way, it changes the sales motion. If you are evaluating enterprise sales roles in hotel tech, the competitive landscape just got more interesting. For now: strong distribution footprint, proven founder story, unclear path to profitability. The AI pivot is worth monitoring but show us the attainment data.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

Meta AI chatbot let hackers reset Instagram passwords by asking nicely

## The hack that required no hacking Over the weekend, attackers took over multiple high-profile Instagram accounts by chatting with Meta's AI support bot. Targets included Barack Obama's former White House account, Sephora, and the US Space Force Chief Master Sergeant. The method: open a chat with Meta AI, ask it to add a new email address to the target account, paste the verification code the bot sends, then click "reset password." In some cases, attackers used a VPN to match the victim's region. At no point did they need access to the legitimate email already on the account. Meta says the issue is fixed and affected accounts are being secured. The structural problem has not changed: an AI agent with the authority to modify emails and reset passwords is a security control point, and this one failed. ## Why this matters beyond Meta Many ANZ SMBs use Instagram for customer acquisition, paid social, and brand presence. Account compromise interrupts lead generation and damages trust. The reporting shows that users hit by takeovers struggled to escalate to a human, which underscores the operational risk of relying on automated support for mission-critical recovery workflows. Meta rolled out AI-assisted support across Facebook and Instagram to handle account recovery tasks at scale. That decision made the chatbot a high-impact control point. When guardrails are weak, AI support does not just scale service: it scales risk. ## The support angle This is being framed as a hacking story. It is also a support story. Meta's AI agent had the permissions to change account ownership without sufficient verification. The same automation designed to reduce support load became the vector for account takeover. For sales and marketing teams that depend on social platforms for pipeline and customer engagement, the lesson is clear: verify what access your support automation actually has, and whether the trade-off between efficiency and control makes sense for your business. Meta's AI-assisted support is now being judged not only against social platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, but also against the trust standard set by identity providers and customer-support automation tools. This incident will be referenced in procurement conversations for months.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

Florida sues OpenAI, names Altman personally in first state lawsuit

Florida became the first US state to sue OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman personally, alleging the company knowingly released ChatGPT while concealing serious risks. Attorney General James Uthmeier claims OpenAI suppressed internal safety warnings and deceived users. The lawsuit references two shootings where alleged gunmen asked ChatGPT questions while planning attacks. Florida opened a criminal investigation in April after a shooting at Florida State University. OpenAI maintains its models "repeatedly encouraged the individuals to seek real-world support, including from mental health professionals." The company says it co-operated with law enforcement in both cases and that ChatGPT is "used by hundreds of millions of people every day for legitimate purposes." ## What This Means for Enterprise Sales If you are selling AI tools or using ChatGPT in your sales process, the regulatory environment just got more complicated. This is the first state-led action against OpenAI, but it follows existing EU GDPR concerns and enterprise compliance questions. Key considerations: **Procurement risk**: Enterprise buyers are now dealing with a vendor under active litigation. Security and legal teams will ask harder questions during eval cycles. Expect longer deal cycles and additional compliance requirements in contracts. **Competitive positioning**: If you are selling against ChatGPT Enterprise or using it internally, this creates an opening. Competitors with cleaner regulatory records can lean into compliance and safety positioning. If you are an AE selling Anthropic, Google, or other alternatives, this lawsuit is relevant context for your discovery calls. **Internal usage policy**: Sales teams using ChatGPT for email drafts, research, or prospecting need clear company policy. Legal and IT will be reviewing what data goes into these tools and what comes out. Florida alleges OpenAI prioritised speed and commercial gain over safety. Whether that claim holds up in court, the message to enterprise buyers is clear: regulatory pressure on AI vendors is real and escalating. Factor that into your tech stack decisions and procurement conversations. OpenAI remains one of the dominant AI providers globally, competing with Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, and xAI. The company has not disclosed revenue or headcount, but ChatGPT has mass-market reach. For ANZ enterprise buyers, this is another data point in the ongoing conversation about AI vendor risk and compliance requirements.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

SaaStr runs 4 AI SDR agents, not one: Artisan, Qualified, Agentforce, Monaco

## The Stack SaaStr is running four AI SDR agents in production. Not one platform doing everything. Four vendors, four contracts, four different jobs. **Artisan for outbound.** Three instances running parallel. Different personas, different ICPs. 40,000+ messages sent. Does cold outbound at scale, does it well. **Qualified for inbound.** 100,000+ sessions processed. Over $1M closed through the inbound motion. When someone hits the site, Qualified qualifies, books, routes. Purpose-built for that moment. **Agentforce for Salesforce-native reactivation.** Close to 200,000 messages sent. 72% open rates on win-back campaigns. Lives inside Salesforce, has every data point already. No integration mess. **Monaco for net new logos.** Different ICP data, different outreach pattern than farming the install base. Four agents. Four admin consoles. Jason Lemkin (SaaStr founder, ex-EchoSign) says they would do it again. ## The Case for Specialised All-in-one platforms promise simplicity. Reality: mediocrity across every function. Each motion (outbound prospecting, inbound qualification, reactivation, new logo land) has a different shape. Different data, different success metrics, different optimal behaviours. Outbound is volume with tight personalisation. Inbound is speed with intent signal interpretation. Reactivation is context with deep CRM history. New logo is research with ICP precision. No platform today does all four at A+ quality. A platform that is 60% good at all four costs you more than four platforms that are 95% good at their one thing. The cost shows up in pipeline, conversion rates, closed-won dollars. ## The Real Cost Running four platforms costs more than one. Four contracts, four minimum commits, four implementation cycles. Real dollars, not just work. You pay in operational surface area: four sets of credentials, four data flows, four sets of prompts to optimise, four vendor relationships, four security reviews. You need headcount. At least one person, ideally two, dedicated to managing deployment. AI agents are not zero-headcount tools. One person cannot hold tribal knowledge of how four platforms are configured. Why pay it? Because the quality gap between specialised and generalist AI agents is big enough that the extra cost pays for itself in pipeline. Difference between $1M closed and $300K closed. Difference between 72% open rates and 22%. ## If You Are Starting Out Most companies do not need four AI SDR agents to start. For 90%+ of B2B companies deploying their first AI SDR, one vendor can make material gains. Two at most: one for outbound, one for inbound. SaaStr runs four because they have pushed each motion into highly segmented territory after 10+ months of production. Roughly 100 effective segments across 1,000 contacts at a time. At that level of segmentation, no single platform handles all of it well. If you are standing up your first AI SDR, do not start here. Pick the one platform that covers your biggest motion and go deep. Prove that motion works. Then layer in a second tool when the first is producing real pipeline. Starting with four will get you four mediocre deployments instead of one great one. The tool matters far less than the strategy you bring to it. ## What This Means The AI SDR market is splitting. All-in-one platforms for teams getting started. Specialised tools for teams at scale with segmented motions. If you are evaluating AI SDR tools, the question is not which single platform wins. The question is: what is your biggest motion, and which tool does that one thing best? Once that motion is working, you can layer. Until then, the complexity of managing multiple agents is not worth it. The specialisation advantage only kicks in once you have outgrown the generalist answer.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

DataMasque raises $5.6M: NZ data privacy play targets enterprise AI spend

**DataMasque closed $5.6 million** led by Wavemaker Partners, with OIF Ventures and Icehouse Ventures participating. The New Zealand startup builds data masking software for enterprises that need to use sensitive customer information for AI training, testing, and analytics without compliance headaches. **The pitch:** synthetically identical data that preserves relationships and statistical properties while stripping personally identifiable information. CEO Grant de Leeuw describes it as changing a date of birth but keeping the age intact, so AI models train on realistic data without touching real customer records. **Deployment model matters here.** DataMasque runs inside the customer's environment (cloud, hybrid, on-prem) rather than shipping data externally. That addresses a common enterprise objection around exfiltration risk, particularly for regulated industries where data residency and compliance drive procurement. **Growth metrics:** six times ARR growth and triple headcount. Actual revenue and team size were not disclosed. The company appears to sell direct to enterprise and has leveraged AWS Marketplace for distribution, suggesting a partner-assisted enterprise motion alongside direct sales. **Market context:** this sits in the data security posture management and synthetic data category, competing with broader privacy platforms and specialist vendors. The regulatory compliance angle (particularly in banking and healthcare) is driving enterprise spend here. Gartner tracks this space under data security platforms and DSPM vendors. **Previous funding:** DataMasque raised $2.7 million from OIF Ventures and Icehouse Ventures previously. Whether the $5.6 million is cumulative or a fresh round was not specified. **What this means for sales teams:** if you are selling into regulated enterprises (financial services, healthcare, government), expect data privacy and AI compliance questions in procurement. Solutions like this enable deals that would otherwise stall on data governance concerns. Also worth tracking which competitors are building similar capabilities into existing platforms versus buying point solutions like DataMasque.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

Entrata IPO at $575m ARR, 23% growth tests PE software exit market

Entrata filed its S-1 on May 28 to list on the NYSE under ticker ENT. The multifamily property management platform is at $575m ARR, growing 23%, with 16% operating margins and real GAAP profitability. Silver Lake has held majority control since 2022. The numbers are solid but not exceptional. Growth held flat at 23% year-over-year in Q1 2026. Net revenue retention sits at 117%, also flat across 2024 and 2025. Rule of 40 score is 47 on a non-GAAP basis. This is efficient growth, not breakout growth. What makes Entrata notable is timing. The company is the leading edge of a backlog of PE-backed software trying to exit, and private equity tends to move first when the window opens. The problem: public markets have decided efficient growth is not enough anymore, and almost none of the companies lined up behind Entrata are accelerating. Entrata's core business is property management software for multifamily operators. The platform consolidates roughly seven systems: leasing, accounting, payments, insurance, screening, utilities, resident apps. The company has 233 customers spending more than $500k annually, accounting for 84% of ARR. Average customer pays $216 per unit, up from $175 two years ago. Top customers pay $580 per unit. Payments is mandatory. Every customer using the platform must process payments through Entrata. That forced attach is why the company still posts 60% gross margins despite booking payment processing fees gross, the same way Toast does. Three years ago, Entrata ran breakeven. In 2022 and 2023, GAAP operating margins were negative 1% and negative 2%. In Q1 2026, operating margin hit 26%. Revenue nearly doubled while the company flipped to $50m+ in annual GAAP net income. Before filing, Entrata paid itself a $356m dividend funded with a $400m term loan. The company now carries about $270m of net debt into its IPO. Part of the offering proceeds will pay that loan back down. Standard sponsor-backed IPO structure. For ANZ sales professionals watching software exit timelines, Entrata is the test case. If a $575m ARR company at 23% growth can price well, the PE-backed software backlog has a path. If it does not, expect the exit queue to get longer. No confirmed ANZ presence or sales team details available at this stage.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

Scalare Partners buys Fishburners for undisclosed sum after administration

## The Deal Scalare Partners (ASX: SCP) acquired Fishburners in a cash-only transaction completed today. Terms were not disclosed. The ASX filing says the deal is "not material" to Scalare's financial position. What they bought: Fishburners brand, programs, IP, and community assets. What they did not buy: employees, physical assets, or liabilities. Clean acquisition of a distressed brand. ## Why This Matters Fishburners entered voluntary administration last month after failing to resolve $2 million in rental arrears owed to the NSW government. The Sydney Startup Hub location (now closed) cost more than $1.5 million a year in rent. The numbers did not work. Scalare is building a portfolio of founder-facing infrastructure: Tank Stream Labs (seven coworking locations across Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide), Planet Startup, InHouse Ventures, The Founders Union. This is their fourth acquisition since listing on the ASX. Pattern recognition: they are consolidating startup support services, not just writing cheques. ## What It Means for Sales Teams Fishburners has supported 35,000 founders since 2011. Those founders need sales tools, SDR platforms, CRM systems, and go-to-market advice. Scalare CEO Carolyn Breeze now controls access to that community across multiple brands and locations. If you sell to early-stage tech companies in ANZ, Scalare's roll-up strategy matters. One buyer, multiple touchpoints, consolidated decision-making on vendor relationships and ecosystem partnerships. The administration write-down likely made this acquisition cheaper than building equivalent brand recognition from scratch. Worth noting: no staff were included in the deal. Any future Fishburners hiring will be new roles under Scalare's structure. ## The Broader Picture This is the second major Sydney startup infrastructure deal in recent months. Tank Stream Labs sold to Scalare for $5.5 million. The NSW government shut down Sydney Startup Hub last year, forcing Fishburners to relocate to Tech Central before the administration. Startup support services are consolidating. If you are targeting early-stage founders in ANZ, your potential buyer landscape just got smaller and more concentrated.

Startup Daily
about 1 month ago
News

Anthropic runs Clay, Salesforce, Gong: Claude updates the CRM, not the AEs

Anthropic is not running on some self-built, AI-native sales platform. The company uses the same six tools most enterprise SaaS companies run: Clay, LeanData, Salesforce, Gong, Ironclad, and Slack. Claude is the substrate, but it connects to the core B2B stack. The difference is what they do with each tool. **Clay is the funnel gate.** Most teams use Clay to enrich inbound leads. Anthropic uses Clay plus Claude to qualify every lead at the moment of capture and route it to either the AE-led path or the self-serve path within seconds. No human review. Result: 54% of new enterprise logos in 2026 came through self-serve. **LeanData routes to humans and AI.** The router no longer just decides which AE gets the lead. It decides whether a human gets it at all. Leads can route to a BDR queue, an AE directly, or to the Intercom Fin guided self-serve flow. **Salesforce is where Claude updates.** AEs do not manually log calls or update opportunity records. Claude does. The morning briefing reconciles opportunity records against context pulled from Gong calls, emails, and Slack threads. AEs inspect and approve. The forecast call is no longer a data-scrubbing exercise. It is a discussion about where AEs need help, because the data is already current. **Gong is the highest-value context source.** Claude pulls Gong transcripts into the morning briefing, the call prep workflow, the proposal-drafting workflow, and the weekly coaching loop. When a rep types `/call prep` before a meeting, Claude reads Gong transcripts of every prior call with that account to generate the briefing. The coaching loop is dynamic: Claude surfaces six coaching moments per week based on call analysis. **Context for ANZ sales leaders:** Anthropic is hiring a Head of GTM Systems to own CRM, CPQ, Salesforce architecture, billing, order management, and revenue-recognition workflows. The company is also building out international GTM with a Head of Enterprise Sales for Industries in ANZ and a broader Head of International GTM Strategy and Operations role. That signals Anthropic is building a conventional enterprise sales organization even as it markets itself as an AI-native company. The stack is not new. The connective tissue is. If you are running Salesforce, Gong, and Clay today, the question is not whether to replace them. It is what happens when AI can read, write, and route across all of them without waiting for a rep to log in.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

Dashdot liquidates, cuts 40 jobs, blames CGT changes for investor collapse

## What Happened Property investment advisory Dashdot collapsed into voluntary liquidation last week, cutting more than 40 jobs. The seven-year-old Australian startup appointed Teneo's Rebecca Gill and Martin Ford as liquidators. CEO Gabi Billings (co-founder alongside former cricketer Glenn McGrath) blamed federal budget capital gains tax reforms, Meta advertising platform changes, and broader economic conditions for tanking investor demand. Customers who paid thousands in upfront advisory fees are now waiting to see what happens to their money and their property deals. ## Why It Matters This is a demand-collapse story, not a product failure. Dashdot's business model relied on steady investor appetite for property advisory services. When federal tax changes spooked the market, the customer pipeline dried up faster than the company could adjust its cost base. Forty-plus jobs gone suggests either a small total headcount or a service-heavy model with high people costs relative to revenue. Either way, when your revenue is tied to investor confidence and policy changes tank that confidence, you are exposed. ## What Sales Teams Should Note If you are selling to property investors or adjacent markets (mortgage brokers, wealth advisors, tax accountants), watch for ripple effects. Dashdot's collapse signals that retail property investment is cooling, which means related B2B sales pipelines could slow. For anyone in advisory or service businesses with big upfront payment models: this is what happens when demand drops and you cannot pivot fast enough. Dashdot bet on continued investor appetite. That bet did not land. Worth noting: Meta ad changes got cited alongside tax reforms. If your customer acquisition depends heavily on Facebook and Instagram ads, you are vulnerable to platform risk. Diversify your channels or accept that exposure. The liquidators are from Teneo, a major restructuring firm. That means creditors (including staff owed entitlements and customers owed refunds) will be queuing up. Unsecured creditors rarely get much back.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

WiseTech cuts 2,000 jobs, blocks staff from joining four rivals for 12 months

## The Numbers WiseTech Global announced 2,000 redundancies in February, roughly 30% of its workforce. The ASX-listed logistics software company ($1.19 billion revenue, 975 employees in controlled subsidiaries per IBISWorld) is now inserting non-compete clauses into severance agreements that ban affected workers from joining four named competitors for 12 months: Expedient Software, Clear.AI Systems, Yojee, and Trade Window. Professionals Australia, the union representing affected employees, wants the clauses removed. WiseTech is holding firm. ## Why This Matters for Sales Teams If you are in enterprise software sales in ANZ, this is your market reality check. WiseTech sells CargoWise, mission-critical logistics platform software to freight forwarders globally. The company has framed these cuts as an AI transformation. Staff reportedly sat through months of uncertainty while leadership talked up AI doing work "faster, cheaper, and with less human constraint." Now the severance terms are restricting where people can work next. That is unusual for redundancy packages in Australia, where non-competes during employment are common but post-termination restraints face higher legal scrutiny. ## What Sales Professionals Should Know Severance terms are negotiable, even when HR says they are not. Non-compete clauses in redundancy agreements can be challenged, especially if: - The restriction is broader than necessary to protect legitimate business interests - You were made redundant (you did not resign or get fired for cause) - The payout does not compensate you for the income restriction WiseTech has not publicly disclosed the severance quantum or whether additional compensation offsets the 12-month restraint. That matters. If you are being asked to sign away your ability to work in your field, the package should reflect that cost. ## The Broader Pattern This is WiseTech's second workforce story in a month. CEO Zubin Appoo reportedly received a threatening letter as redundancy consultations began. Founder and Executive Chair Richard White called in police. The company has been writing a narrative of leadership choices under pressure: AI pivot, mass redundancies, long consultation periods, now restrictive post-employment terms. For sales professionals watching from the sidelines: when a company makes you redundant, it is saying your role is no longer needed. Blocking you from using your skills elsewhere for a year is a different conversation. One that usually costs more than standard redundancy pay. ## What You Can Do If you are facing redundancy with a non-compete: 1. Get the severance offer in writing 2. Calculate what 12 months of lost opportunity costs you (not just base, but OTE and career progression) 3. Ask for legal advice (many employment lawyers offer free initial consults) 4. Negotiate. Severance terms are not take-it-or-leave-it, despite what the first offer implies WiseTech is a founder-led company (Richard White co-founded it in 1994). That can mean strong culture and vision. It can also mean decisions get made top-down without the usual HR checks. Either way, if you are holding a severance agreement that limits where you can work, you have more leverage than you think.

Startup Daily
about 1 month ago
News

AI agent booked 614 meetings from one event. Here is the actual workflow.

## The Numbers Qualified ran an AI agent at SaaStr AI Annual 2026. From that single event: - 2.2M website sessions handled - 442,000 individual chats - 614 qualified meetings booked - Average sponsor ASP around $85,000 No human SDR team could have handled that volume without burning out or missing leads. The alternative would have been 3 to 10 BDRs, probably churning every 3 to 6 months. Instead: one agent, connected to Salesforce, trained on the full context. ## Where the ROI Actually Lives The play is not A leads. Enterprise inbound closes itself. Your slowest AE will respond to a $1M opportunity in 60 seconds. The money is in B leads: real signal, real ICP fit, but not worth a human rep's time per-lead. SaaStr's outbound agent recovered $500,000 in sponsor revenue this year from B leads that would have sat in Salesforce otherwise. If you are running an AI startup with a "Contact Us" form in 2026, you are leaving pipeline on the table. Replace the form. Today. ## How Agents Actually Get Built None of SaaStr's 20+ agents started as agents. They started as boring tools: - 10K (AI VP of Marketing) started as a dashboard to stop copy-pasting numbers from Marketo into Notion. - QBee (AI VP of Customer Success) started as a project management tool. - Annie (event producer) started as a Squarespace replacement. Each became an agent through 600 to 1,000 commits over a few months. The pattern: pick something broken in your stack, rebuild it so you can vibe code it, then keep adding context and tools until it starts acting like an agent. ## The Headless CRM Move If you do one thing after reading this: spin up Replit or Lovable or v0. Connect it to Salesforce via API. Build a dashboard or workflow you cannot do natively. SaaStr's founder has not logged into Salesforce in two companies. He queries it in real time instead: ticket sales by hour, VC attendees by region, look-alike sponsor scoring. None of that works in native Salesforce. Whoever owns your CRM owns the maximum context for your agents. Use it. ## Time Investment, Not Fire-and-Forget The narrative that autonomous agents work on their own is dangerous. The number one lesson from running 20+ agents in production: the more time you spend with them, the better they get. Last week, SaaStr's marketing agent started writing better re-engagement emails than any human marketer they could hire. The answer is not magic architecture. It is hours of interaction and context building. Your best human rep gets better when you spend time with them each week. Agents are exactly the same. ## What This Means for ANZ Sales Teams The signal here is not that Qualified ran an event in the US. It is that AI agents are now being used to qualify demand at event scale. That affects: - SDR workflows (what gets routed to humans vs. agents) - Lead routing (A leads vs. B leads) - Event follow-up automation (442,000 chats is not a human-scalable number) If your team is still running "Contact Us" forms or manually qualifying event leads, you are competing against teams that are not. The ROI is sitting in your CRM right now, in the B leads your reps will not touch because the per-lead expected value does not justify their time. Wire up an agent. The math works.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

Salesforce reaccelerates to 13% growth at $45B ARR, core apps grow 7%

Salesforce grew revenue 13% to $11.1B in Q1 FY27, reaccelerating subscription growth from 9% to 12% at $45B+ run rate. At this size, that is rare. Most enterprise SaaS companies this large are decelerating into the teens. The headline hides the mix. Salesforce split its revenue reporting this quarter into two buckets: core apps with Agentforce embedded (7% growth in constant currency) and data platform plus other products (23% growth). The 13% total is the blend, plus roughly 3 points from acquiring Informatica. **The growth came from three levers at once:** Agentforce crossed $1.2B ARR, up 205% year over year. That is the fastest-scaling product in Salesforce history. The company delivered 1.6B agentic work units in Q1, up 111% quarter over quarter. More than 50% of Agentforce bookings came from existing customers, meaning they are buying agents on top of seats, not replacing them. The data and platform layer (Data 360, headless platform) grew 23%, three times faster than core apps. Strip out Informatica and the combined Agentforce plus Data 360 ARR is $2.3B, still up more than 100%. Informatica added roughly $1.1B in cloud ARR from the acquisition. That is bought growth, not organic, but it counts. **What this means for sales teams:** The seat compression fear has not shown up yet. Core apps still grew 7%, and revenue attrition held at 8%. If AI agents were cannibalizing seats, you would see flat or shrinking core revenue and rising churn. Neither happened in Q1. But 7% core growth is not booming. The enterprise SaaS playbook at $40B+ scale is now layering consumption and outcome-based pricing on top of seats, not replacing the seat model outright. Salesforce is running that playbook: agents, data infrastructure, and acquisitions all feeding the growth engine. For ANZ enterprise sales teams selling into the same accounts, this matters. Salesforce has meaningful regional presence across financial services, telecom, government, and retail. When they expand wallet share with agents and data products, that is budget you are competing for. The broader takeaway: reaccelerating at this scale took the entire kitchen sink. AI product line, acquisition, margin expansion, and a full revenue reporting overhaul. One lever does not move the number when you are this big.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

AI-generated PR pitches killing startup media coverage, says Jason Lemkin

## The Problem Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr, says AI-generated PR pitches have become so common he now blocks domains daily. Before AI, he did not block anyone. The volume increased sharply over 12 months. PR firms and in-house comms teams adopted AI tools for media outreach. Muck Rack data shows generative AI usage in PR workflows jumped from 23% to 64% in a year. That scale created a new problem: pitches are well-written but generic. Good enough to open, not good enough to respond to. ## What Changed Lemkin used to reply to mediocre human pitches with feedback: here is what we actually want for SaaStr speakers or podcast guests. That feedback loop helped PR reps learn. Sometimes they came back months later with something great. He stopped doing that. Two reasons: giving feedback to an AI is pointless, and the same firm sends the same templated pitch the following week with a different founder name swapped in. Gergely Orosz, who also receives high volumes of PR outreach, says he reads then blocks the entire domain. Some senders now use throwaway domains to get around blocks. ## Why This Matters for Startups If you are using AI tools to scale PR outreach, you are likely damaging credibility with the journalists you need. Volume does not equal coverage. Reporters already receive huge volumes of pitches. AI made it easier to send more, which made it easier for them to ignore all of it. Effective PR still depends on relevance, specificity, and trusted relationships. Industry guidance from Cision and others says use AI for research, timing, and analytics. Keep final judgment, tone, and fact-checking human-led. The startups getting coverage are not the ones blasting templated pitches. They are the ones doing the work to understand what each journalist actually covers and why their story matters to that beat. ## The Parallel to Sales This mirrors what happened with SDR outreach. AI tools made it easier to send 1,000 emails. Response rates collapsed because everyone else also sent 1,000 emails. The reps who still get meetings are the ones doing account research, writing specific openers, and earning replies. Same principle applies here. AI can help with the scaffolding. It cannot replace the work of making your pitch actually relevant.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

Australia back in global top 10 startup ecosystems, Melbourne growth outpaces Sydney

Australia is back in the global top 10 startup ecosystems for the first time since 2023, climbing three spots to ninth place in the 2026 StartupBlink report. The local ecosystem grew 22.9% in 2025, more than double the 10.3% global average. Australia also ranked fifth globally for return on investment and sixth for attracting talent and capital. ## What this means for sales teams Ecosystem rankings track venture funding, exits, and infrastructure. When Australia climbs, it signals more capital flowing to local startups, which historically translates to hiring. Q1 2025 saw A$1.3 billion raised across 100 deals, maintaining momentum after the 2022-2024 slowdown. Sydney remains the commercial anchor with 3,000+ tech startups and ranks 30th globally among cities. Melbourne is growing faster (37.8% versus Sydney's 11.7%) but sits at 34th. For AEs and sales managers, this means Sydney still has the deepest enterprise patch, but Melbourne's growth could shift where the best opportunities land in 2026-2027. Australia produces 1.22 unicorns per US$1 billion of VC investment, the highest rate globally according to ecosystem reports. That capital efficiency matters because it suggests local startups can scale on smaller rounds, which impacts how quickly they build out sales teams. ## The hiring context Ecosystem strength concentrates in enterprise SaaS, fintech, deep tech, and climate startups. Major players include Canva, Airwallex, and Morse Micro. When these companies scale, they pull sales talent from across ANZ and increasingly hire remote. The practical signal: Australia's ecosystem recovery is real, backed by funding data and growth metrics. If you are tracking ANZ sales opportunities, watch Melbourne's momentum. Sydney remains the largest market, but the gap is narrowing. Worth noting: Australia had negative momentum and fell out of the top 10 before this rebound. This is a recovery story, not a structural leap. The concentration in two cities also means regional sales opportunities remain limited compared to other top 10 ecosystems.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

Gartner: AI software spend hits $453B in 2026, up 60%

## The Numbers Global AI software spending will hit **$453 billion in 2026**, up 60% year on year, according to Gartner's updated worldwide AI spending forecast released last week. The research firm projects another 41% growth in 2027, taking the category to $638 billion. That is the largest single-year jump in B2B software spending on record. By the end of 2027, AI software alone will be bigger than every existing B2B software category combined was just a few years ago. Total AI-related spending across all categories is forecast to reach $2.59 trillion in 2026, up 47% year over year, with software driving the bulk of growth. ## What This Means for Sales Teams If your software company is growing at 30% while the AI software category grows at 60%, you are losing budget share. The new benchmark is category growth rate, and anything below that means CIOs are spending more on AI but a larger share is going to competitors. The math is harsher in faster segments. AI cybersecurity is growing 98% in 2026. AI models: 110%. AI data: 278%. A vendor growing at 50% in a segment expanding at 98% is getting outflanked. For sales teams, this creates two realities. First, if you are selling AI-adjacent products, this is the largest tailwind in B2B software history. Second, if you are not, you are fighting for a shrinking slice. Overall IT budgets are not growing 60%, which means non-AI software spend is getting rationalised to fund AI purchases. ## ROI Is the New Battleground The vendors that win will be those that help CIOs prove ROI to their boards. This is a customer success problem disguised as a product problem. Deployment playbooks, time-to-value metrics, and post-sale support will determine who captures this spend. For ANZ sales professionals, Gartner's forecast signals enterprise budget expansion in AI software, sales enablement tools, and automation platforms. If you are carrying quota in these segments, the tailwind is real. If you are not, the pressure to shift focus or product positioning is about to increase. Worth noting: Gartner, the 45-year-old Stamford-based research firm, remains one of the most influential sources for CIO budgeting and vendor planning decisions. When Gartner forecasts category growth at this scale, enterprise procurement teams take notice.

SaaStr
about 1 month ago
News

Chalmers consulting on CGT hit to zero-cost startups, founders

## Chalmers consulting on CGT hit to zero-cost startups, founders Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the government is consulting on how its capital gains tax overhaul will affect businesses with "low or zero cost base", narrowing the focus of potential carveouts for startups. The Budget replaces the 50% CGT discount with an inflation-based discount and a minimum 30% tax on gains from 1 July 2027. The changes apply only to gains arising after that date. For startups and small businesses that launch with almost nothing, this is where the pain sits. The reform taxes real gains above inflation, so a founder who bootstraps from zero and later sells their business creates only taxable gains. No cost base means no offset, which could mean larger tax bills on exit. Chalmers introduced the legislation on Thursday. Labor wants it passed before Parliament breaks on 2 July. The government argues the change makes the tax system fairer by aligning how capital gains and wages are taxed. The startup sector argues it discourages risk-taking and makes Australia less competitive for early-stage investment. The Budget does include measures aimed at early-stage businesses: loss refundability for eligible companies from 2026–27, and from 2028–29 a refund mechanism for small startups in their first two years, subject to caps linked to fringe benefits tax and withholding tax paid on wages. Treasury says this is meant to support new startups and improve cash flow. The $20,000 instant asset write-off is now permanent for businesses with turnover up to $10 million. Chalmers told media the reforms would let businesses make decisions based on economics rather than tax outcomes. Consultations with the startup sector are continuing. Worth noting: the policy debate is not just about CGT mechanics. It is about whether the changes alter incentives for founders, investors, and small-business formation in a market that already lags the US on risk capital and exit multiples. The clock is running. Parliament breaks in five weeks.

SmartCompany
about 1 month ago
News

Three Aussie startups raise $15.5 million: Oli, AlleSense, Cable close rounds

Three Australian startups raised $15.5 million in new funding this week, with medtech and energy companies leading the activity. ## Oli: $6.5 million Series A3 Sydney medtech Oli closed a $6.5 million Series A3 for its maternal and fetal monitoring technology. Scale Investors, Clare Ventures, and the University of Sydney backed the round. Total private capital now sits at $13 million across three Series A rounds: $4.7 million in 2022, $1.8 million in 2024, and this week's $6.5 million. The company has also secured over $9.5 million in non-dilutive grants. No sales team expansion announced yet. The capital is earmarked for product development, not go-to-market build-out. ## AlleSense and Cable: $9 million combined Medtech AlleSense and energy startup Cable closed the other two rounds, combining for roughly $9 million. Specific round sizes and investor details were not disclosed. ## What it means for sales These raises fit the current ANZ funding pattern: deep tech, medtech, and climate startups are securing capital while traditional SaaS activity stays quiet. Series A3 is an unusual structure. Most companies either raise a larger A or move to Series B. Multiple A extensions can signal either strong investor support or difficulty closing a full B round. For sales professionals evaluating Oli, check whether the repeated A rounds reflect intentional capital efficiency or fundraising challenges. Watch for hiring announcements in the next 60 to 90 days. Series A capital typically triggers AE and SDR hiring once product milestones clear. If you are tracking ANZ medtech opportunities, Oli's total capital and grant funding suggest they are building for scale, but timing matters. No comp details available. Standard Sydney medtech AE roles currently sit around $110k to $130k base, $170k to $200k OTE, depending on stage and segment.

SmartCompany
Load More