Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
Three major companies cut 6,300 jobs in one week, all citing AI as the reason. WiseTech CEO says manual coding is over. Block CEO says smaller teams with AI tools do more. Stock prices rose. This is not a blip, it is a signal.
Canva pushed back on reports that its Leonardo AI integration would trigger job losses. The company says it is not exploring redundancies as it folds the 150-person Sydney team into its AI roadmap. Worth noting: this comes as tech layoffs continue across ANZ, with AI integration often cited as the reason.
AI sales data startup Firmable closed $14 million Series A led by Airtree. The round funds US market entry and hiring across sales and product. The Melbourne-based company now has 1,000 customers across ANZ and APAC, competing in the crowded sales intelligence space against Apollo, ZoomInfo, and other prospecting platforms.
Richard White-backed Vinyl Group acquired Val Morgan Digital from Hoyts for $10.5 million ($7m cash, $3.5m shares). The deal adds $10.7m in revenue and brands like BuzzFeed and PopSugar to Vinyl's portfolio. For sales teams: watch for integration of two digital ad platforms and potential territory reshuffles.
Divvy Homes sold for $1 billion. Founders and employees got nothing. The culprit: $735M in venture debt that sat above all equity in the waterfall. Here is what this means if your lender is pitching 'non-dilutive capital.'
Jason Lemkin's team had 3 reps, two refusing to log into Salesforce even when paid $200/month to do so. Then they deployed AI agents for SDR work, call transcription, and inbound qualification. Now Salesforce is their AI hub, routing data between Momentum, Artisan, Monaco, Qualified, and Agentforce. One rep quit when auto-logging launched.
Afterpay parent Block is cutting 40% of its workforce, around 4,000 roles, citing AI productivity gains. CEO Jack Dorsey says most companies will follow. Shares surged 23% despite strong revenue growth. The move signals what could hit sales orgs across tech.
Australian telehealth startup Eucalyptus sold to US-based Hims & Hers for up to $1.15 billion, with CEO Tim Doyle moving to SVP International. Meanwhile, WiseTech Global slashed 2000 coding roles, replacing them with AI. Worth noting: both moves signal major shifts in ANZ tech hiring.
Daniel Dines returned to UiPath CEO role just four months after stepping down, while Workday's Aneel Bhusri came back as AI agents threaten SaaS per-seat models. Both founder comebacks signal existential pivots: when AI disrupts your category, professional operators are not enough.
UpGuard closed a $105 million Series C led by New York PE firm Springcoast Partners. The 14-year-old Hobart startup is scaling go-to-market and eyeing acquisitions. Worth noting: cyber risk management platforms typically hire enterprise AEs in waves post-Series C.
Sydney logistics startup Sendle entered liquidation six weeks after abrupt shutdown. The company raised over $100 million, expanded to US in 2019, then collapsed when August 2025 merger partner ACI Logistix failed to pay. No public data on sales team size or revenue exists. SMB customers now hunting alternatives like Shippit.
AI-native B2B startups are achieving $700k ARR per employee versus $610k for mature SaaS companies, driven by fundamentally different sales models. Traditional B2B vendors are loading up on CSMs while AI-natives deploy Forward Deployed Engineers. The gap is not just revenue efficiency: it is how these companies structure, scale, and compensate their go-to-market teams.