Car_t

The Australian biotechs racing toward the next billion-dollar cancer drug

There’s a revolution going on in cancer treatment with more than 1,000 clinical trials underway into CAR-T therapies promising an immune response up to 1,000 times stronger than ordinary immune cells. Chasing a market worth billions, we take a look at three Australian biotechs with their elbows out. “We take your immune cells, we engineer […]

QuickBooks

Australian small business leaving $35 billion on the table

QuickBooks has launched a new “virtual team” of AI agents in Australia to help small businesses recover billions in unrealised growth, with new research showing inefficiency costs the sector an average of $209,000 per firm each year. Key Takeaways Key background Intuit QuickBooks, the dominant global player in small-business accounting software, is pushing harder into […]

Robin Khuda AirTrunk

AirTrunk eyes world’s biggest data centre as AI boom accelerates

Less than a decade after launching AirTrunk, Robin Khuda is building data centres on a scale once unimaginable — and says the next decade’s AI infrastructure build-out will be “the biggest gold rush in human history”. AirTrunk founder and CEO Robin Khuda is set to announce a one-gigawatt data centre in the Asia Pacific in […]

Panzera

The ‘stupid idea’ that became Australia’s watch success story

What began as two mates drinking at the Opera Bar wondering how to afford their watch habits turned into Panzera – a Sydney-based brand making Swiss and Australian timepieces selling around the world. By his own admission, Andrew Herman had no business starting a watch company. He wasn’t a watchmaker, he wasn’t Swiss, and he […]

Synchron

Synchron raises $308m to leapfrog Neuralink – with $54m from Australian taxpayer

Once a Melbourne university spin-out, now a billion-dollar U.S. medtech, Synchron has secured $308 million to accelerate brain-computer interfaces — and Australia’s government is paying to bring it home. Key Takeaways Key Background Synchron’s brain computer interface was developed by founders Tom Oxley, a neurologist and brain surgeon, and Nick Opie, a professor of bio-medical […]

Hullbot

Hullbot raises $16m from the bottom of the harbour

Sydney-based Hullbot, maker of autonomous underwater robots that scrub ship hulls, has raised $16 million in a Series A round led by climate-focused funds. Key Takeaways Key Background Hullbot CEO Tom Loefler founded the company based on recognising that biofouling was a persistent, costly problem in global shipping. Traditionally, vessels are cleaned infrequently in dry […]

Anduril

Submarines and Silicon Valley: Inside Anduril’s Australian gambit

Anduril, the company that opened a submarine factory in Sydney today, sits somewhere between a sovereign capability saviour and a sci-fi character. Anduril’s Asia Pacific CEO David Goodrich asked his board to start building a submarine factory in Sydney 18 months before any contract was signed. “I had a lot of sleepless nights,” he says […]

From start-ups to super mansions: Brad Moran’s big Tallai bet

Brad Moran has applied the same lessons he picked up as an AFL footy player and start-up founder to property redevelopment, the culmination being a Queensland mega-mansion built to delight.  This story appears in Issue 19 of Forbes Australia, out now. Tap here to secure your copy. “What I have is a very stimulated brain that […]

Why Australia’s biggest firms are buying ideas instead of building them

Innovation isn’t always born in a laboratory – it can be bought off the shelf. Data journalist Juliette O’Brien shows how companies with deep pockets are skipping the long grind of research and development by acquiring ready-made ideas, teams and technologies.  This story appears in Issue 19 of Forbes Australia, out now. Tap here to secure […]