Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
a16z Growth's latest market report shows horizontal B2B software now valued at 2.7x revenue, down from infrastructure's 9.1x. New AI-native startups are scaling at 500% growth while mature B2B slowed to 19%. More than half of unicorns have less than two years of cash runway.
The $69M ARR ecommerce CX platform tested its AI agent against named competitors on 8,356 live conversations and published the full methodology. Ranked first overall, but showed Yuma beating them in one category. This is how vendor evals should work.
Global acquirers are snapping up Australian SMEs in infrastructure, defence, and energy. Target range: $1m-$50m enterprise value. Buyers want established teams, local relationships, and market access without building from scratch. Seven deals closed in 2026 so far.
ServiceTitan shut off a partner with $100M in AI agent ARR and lost zero customers. That is what owning the system of record buys you. What it did not buy: faster growth. The trades software company grew 25% last quarter while competitors in the data layer grew 80%. Retention is defensive. Growth comes from somewhere else.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Apple executives at Cupertino to discuss AI regulation, child safety features, and Australia's under-16 social media ban. The one-hour meeting covered international AI frameworks and algorithm transparency. Australia is pushing for global standards while Apple rolls out safety features influenced by ANZ policy.
ICONIQ Growth dropped new benchmarks that throw out the old SaaS playbook. Median growth at $100M ARR is 115%, not 50%. Gross margins start at 55%, not 80%. Here is what changed and why your board deck just got harder to defend.
Government-backed push to consolidate Australian defence suppliers could mirror the old automotive supply chain model. Top 40 contractors turned over $15.7B in FY23/24, led by BAE ($2.0B) and Boeing ($1.2B). For sales teams: opportunity sits in sustainment, robotics, and advanced manufacturing, not mass production.
Wesfarmers is running autonomous robots in Kmart and Bunnings stores after hours to scan inventory, check pricing, and identify out-of-stocks. This is not a pilot: Tory operates across all Kmart large-format stores in Australia and New Zealand, while Bunnings has trialled Zippedi. Worth noting: Bunnings did $20.4bn in FY2026 revenue with 20,399 employees, Kmart Group $11.8bn with 5,444 people. Any efficiency gains at that scale matter.
The ATO is treating cross-border software payments as taxable royalties, targeting Apple's $13B ANZ revenue and Google's $2.1B local operation. The ruling affects how multinational tech groups structure billing between Australian subsidiaries and offshore headquarters, with implications for vendor contracts and enterprise procurement across ANZ.
Nearly four in ten Australian small business owners paid themselves less than $40,000 or nothing at all in FY25, according to ACCI's latest survey. The sector generated $590 billion in revenue (one-third of GDP) while sales grew 6.5% year-on-year, but owner compensation is lagging. Three-quarters of full-time self-employed owners earn less than the average full-time wage.
82 of the top 100 AI startups are led by technical CEOs, up from 49% in 2013. Databricks hit $190B with a Berkeley professor. Snowflake replaced Slootman with an engineer and growth jumped from 26% to 34%. The sales-guy CEO archetype that built enterprise software for two decades is being replaced by founders who ship product.
Xero issued back-to-back apologies after sending automated analytics emails directly to SMB clients instead of their accountants, days after a sponsored Instagram post suggested businesses could cut accounting fees using AI. The missteps highlight channel partner tension as the NZ$2.75bn platform expands into payments and North American markets.