Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
Canberra's Liquid Instruments secured $70M Series C, bringing manufacturing back to Australia. The round included $28M from the National Reconstruction Fund and was co-led by US firm Keysight Technologies. Marloo, Aigentsphere, and Manifest raised the remaining $20M combined.
Gold Coast startup HiSmile scaled from A$20k to A$700M in sales with zero funding. Founders Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic built the teeth whitening brand on influencer distribution, high margins, and product-led growth. Here is what the DTC model looks like when it actually ships.
Jason Lemkin's team cut Salesforce seats but the bill jumped 80%. Their AI marketing agent ships campaigns autonomously while Marketo failed to honour unsubscribes for 10 days. The fix took 20 minutes in Replit. This is what happens when legacy SaaS pricing hits AI-era ops.
Jon Addison restructured Okta's GTM around product specialisation and partner-led deals, driving a $1.6B operating income swing. New product deals now close 40% higher ACV. The playbook: 95% of top 100 deals are partner-influenced, and the AI agent security gap opened a new TAM.
VentureCrowd Pty Ltd is in administration with creditors chasing $7.3 million. The equity crowdfunding platform's operating subsidiaries continue trading, but the parent company that raised $3.9 million in 2022 now faces liquidation. Worth noting: this follows a $2.4 million court judgment last year.
Q1 2026 funding rebounded hard, but 60% went to just 10 deals. Early-stage and late-stage rounds are getting done. Mid-stage startups ($1-10M revenue) are stuck in the gap, which means fewer expansion hires and territory builds.
Mastercard ran live trials in ANZ where AI agents analysed business data, made payment decisions, and executed transactions without requiring human sign-off. The trials involved Hnry, MYOB, and Pay.com.au. Target market: SMEs spending 10-20 hours weekly on payment admin.
Andreessen Horowitz carved out $1.7 billion from its $15 billion raise specifically for AI infrastructure investments. General Partner Jennifer Li is leading the bet, with portfolio companies including ElevenLabs (valued at $11 billion), OpenAI, and Cursor. The firm is rebuilding the entire tech stack: storage, compute, orchestration, and memory built for AI workloads, not cloud legacy.
One-third of Australian SMEs now use AI, but most are juggling chaotic piles of logins and half-adopted copilots instead of strategic workflows. The pitch: less AI, not more, might actually drive better outcomes for small sales teams drowning in subscriptions.
Real data from SaaStr: 2 human seats plus AI agents drove Salesforce spend from $12k to $22k annually. Same company stopped using Notion entirely. The pattern: agents pay for systems of record, ignore collaboration tools. This is what the shift to AI-driven GTM actually looks like in the budget.
Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth will announce a new forum bringing unions and employers together to manage AI's workforce impact. New government data shows filing clerks and keyboard operators are seeing slower growth, but graduate hiring remains steady. Translation: admin-heavy roles like SDR are in the crosshairs.
Gartner revised its 2026 software forecast up for the third time in six months. Total software spend now projected at $1.44 trillion, growing 15.1%. That is $190 billion in net new budget this year. If your company is growing slower than 15%, you are losing share.