Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
Federal government increases venture capital tax incentive caps starting July 2027. ESVCLP fund size lifts from $200M to $270M, investee business assets from $50M to $80M. Startups stay eligible longer, meaning more funded growth, which means more sales hiring. Worth noting: caps haven't moved in 20 years.
Federal Budget 2026 overhauled R&D Tax Incentive from July 2028: refundable offsets now available to $50M turnover firms (up from $20M), $200M expenditure cap (up from $150M), and 4.5% rate increase for core R&D. Changes mean faster cash for early-stage tech startups hiring engineering and sales teams, though the $200M cap fell short of industry push to remove it entirely.
The federal government is signaling possible exemptions for startups in its capital gains tax overhaul after loud protests from founders and investors. The changes replace the 50% CGT discount with inflation-based indexation, but buried exemption language suggests startup equity may get different treatment.
Federal Budget 2026 brings back COVID-era tax relief for companies under $1B turnover. Startups and SMEs can carry back current losses to offset profits from the previous two years, getting cash refunds. Worth $2.3B over five years. Similar scheme was repealed in 2022 after 12 months.
Xero went down for five consecutive days during Australian tax return week, hitting 4.4 million subscribers globally. The outage exposed how software reliability issues impact the accounting software sales cycle, especially for teams selling into SMBs that depend on uptime during compliance deadlines.
Monday.com reported Q1 2026 revenue of $351M, up 24% YoY, and raised full-year guidance to $1.47B ARR. Net dollar retention hit 116% in customers over $50K ARR, reversing two years of compression across B2B SaaS. The $500K+ customer cohort grew 74% YoY to 99 accounts. Stock jumped 28% on guidance raise and enterprise momentum.
Brisbane construction tech startup closed Series B at $110M valuation. QIC Ventures led, customer Bouygues joined cap table. Company plans 100 hires over 24 months: product, engineering, and go-to-market roles across Brisbane, London, Dubai, and new US office.
Brisbane construction procurement startup closes US$11M led by QIC Ventures. French construction giant Bouygues shifts from customer to investor. Company plans 100 hires over 24 months across product, engineering, and go-to-market, plus first US office.
Microsoft's pouring $25 billion into Australian data centres and AI compute. The infrastructure is coming, but there is no clear pathway for local startups to actually use it. If access costs stay high or slots go to enterprise customers first, ANZ founders building AI sales tools will be priced out or forced offshore.
Melbourne construction software company BuildPass is posting 50% month-on-month US growth after opening its Austin office in late 2024. The company now has 1,000 customers and 400,000 users across four countries, backed by venture debt from Mighty Partners to fund US hiring and go-to-market.
SaaStr's custom AI marketing orchestration system, nicknamed '10K', replaced 1.5 to 2 marketing execution FTEs while driving the company to its first $10M revenue year. The system costs $254/month to run, handles daily marketing operations and reporting, but cannot do strategy, hiring, or cross-functional politics. Founder Jason Lemkin says existing AI tools could write content but not determine which content to create or how it connects to revenue outcomes.
Five major B2B SaaS firms just posted acceleration: Twilio jumped from 4% to 20% growth, Datadog crossed $1B quarterly revenue for the first time, Atlassian hit 32%, Cloudflare 34% (while cutting 1,100 roles), and Palantir 85%. HubSpot and Shopify posted solid quarters but missed acceleration marks, markets punished accordingly. The signal: AI is driving real revenue for infrastructure plays, but the gains are selective.