Capital Brief

Adam Gilmour has ambitious plans to raise $150 million in a Series E round next year. All he needs to do first is launch a rocket. Gilmour Space Technologies is eyeing a late-January launch for its Eris spacecraft, the culmination of 13 years of development. The rocket is ready to go, Gilmour says, with the company just awaiting approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. "If we get it done [this] week, we’ll set the launch window on the last week or last 10 days of January," Gilmour told Daniel Van Boom. Read the story 👉 https://lnkd.in/ggUuAynF

Employment Hero’s mission is to simplify HR for businesses. But former staff say its own workplace is marked by confusion, pressure and sudden departures. In today's story, Bronwen Clune wraps up her extensive reporting on Employment Hero's culture issues, providing more examples from current and former staff about concerns within the company, including: - Manipulation of reviews on Glassdoor - Frequent strategy changes and unclear priorities - Arbitrary and unrealistic targets - Customer support as "an afterthought" - Sudden departures with little to no communication Read the latest story 👉 https://lnkd.in/gf4-85db Or read the previous stories in the series here 👉 https://lnkd.in/g8AVFDKF

After a year-long acquisition spree, investment platform Superhero is focusing on scaling its superannuation offering, as a tougher share trading market squeezes the competition. Despite a record month for share trading volumes in November — driven by the so-called ‘Trump bump’ — CEO John Winters said expanding Superhero's wealth products is crucial for sustainability. “You have to have a diversified revenue base. Running a purely transactional business is hard, because then you're at the whim of the market,” Winters told Jack Derwin. Read the story 👉 https://lnkd.in/gTcuBvVF

Australian nuclear fusion startup HB11 Energy has signed a deal to supply laser targets to ELI ERIC, one of the world’s largest laser research and development labs. Although Sydney-based HB11 is decades away from building nuclear fusion plants, it aims to generate revenue long before then — initially by selling laser targets to research institutions and, eventually, by selling lasers themselves. The deal with ELI ERIC, a consortium of EU-backed laser facilities in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, is the first step in turning that plan into a reality. The agreement was signed in the presence of Czech Republic President Petr Pave. “This announcement is essentially the highest profile laser facility in the world signing us up to where we become a supplier of [laser] targets,” HB11 founder Warren McKenzie said. Read the story from Daniel Van Boom 👉 https://lnkd.in/gvHypZdR

Sometimes, the best business ideas emerge from solving your own problems. That’s precisely how Hnry, a digital accounting service for sole traders, came to life. It began when James Fuller and his wife, Claire Fuller, created a simple spreadsheet to manage his contracting finances. What started as a personal solution quickly gained traction among friends, prompting the couple to launch Hnry in Wellington in 2017. Since then, the company has evolved from a bootstrapped startup with just $10,000 to processing 1% of New Zealand’s tax revenue. Bronwen Clune spoke to James for the latest instalment of our 'In the arena' interview series. Read it here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gQAM8_ux

The Albanese government has revealed its policy to push tech giants to fund Australian news publishers through offsets and penalties, as an evolution of the Morrison-era media bargaining code 👇

From mapping minerals beneath Earth’s crust to exploring the Moon’s subsurface, Fleet Space Technologies Space Technologies is broadening its ambitions with a substantial raise. The Australian company has raised $150 million in a Series D funding round led by Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the venture arm of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, with participation from existing investors including Blackbird, Hostplus, Horizons Ventures, Artesian (Alternative Investments) and Alumni Ventures. The new capital will expand Fleet Space’s global end-to-end exploration platform, ExoSphere, accelerating the discovery of critical minerals essential for a clean energy future. Looking beyond Earth, Fleet Space plans to deploy SPIDER, a lunar variant of its terrestrial sensor system, to the Moon in 2026. "The convergence of innovation in space, AI, and 3D subsurface imaging represents a foundational pillar of the core technology set that will enable humanity to build permanent research stations on the Moon, Mars, and beyond," said Fleet Space chief exploration officer and co-founder Matthew Pearson. Read the story from Bronwen Clune 👉 https://lnkd.in/gdN2hA-K

Marc Benioff has repeatedly slammed Microsoft's Copilot, describing it as “disappointing” and “Clippy 2.0”. But Microsoft's chief commercial officer Judson Althoff told Daniel Van Boom in an exclusive interview that the Salesforce founder is just being defensive. “Marc is just being Marc,” Althoff said. “He says contentious things to get a lot of attention, and it works for him.” Read more in today's Edition newsletter 👇 https://lnkd.in/gRnXXN42

Registry and fund administration platform Caruso has secured a $3.2 million strategic investment from Balmain — one of Australia’s leading private credit firms. "We weren't actually actively out here capital raising, so it's been opportunistic," said Mark Hurley, co-CEO and co-founder of Caruso. Caruso, founded in 2023 in New Zealand but now largely based in Australia, is used to manage over $15 billion in assets across more than 400 funds and 27,000 investors. "We originally started talking to Caruso as a software provider for investor management, but after seeing what Mark and Oliver [Shaw, co-founder] had built, and continue to grow, we simply had to invest," said Balmain CEO Andrew Griffin. Read the full story by Bronwen Clune 👉 https://lnkd.in/gi7WY--y

How can law firms keep young lawyers in Australia when there are greater and more lucrative opportunities overseas? Global firm DLA Piper's new country managing partner in Australia Shane Bilardi, who's taking over from Amber Matthews, told Laurel Henning that Australia is "not a market that allows for the sort of remuneration that can be paid in other markets and so there's always the attraction of both travel and a pay bump to go offshore". But he says firms in Australia can compete on "the quality of the work experience". "You know, come to work, you do good work, you enjoy the people you work with. They look after you, they train you, they look after your career advancement. They make sure that it's not just all about work." Bilardi also spoke about DLA Piper's interest in ASIC's scrutiny of private capital, and why he isn't worried about a new merger law regime, in this interview for our series The Firm 👇