Oversubscribed with Brendan Hill

Five founders. Building with atoms and bits. Right at the heart of Australia. From robots that scan the human body to robots watching over satellites in space, one goal unites them: making Australia a better place to start a business.

Season 2 of Oversubscribed opens at BrewDog Everleigh in Sydney with Will Crowe of HEO, Joe Harris of Alloy, John Carroll of Vexev, Cibby Pulikkaseril of Zabidou, and Lachlan Bramble of Antares. Between them they're building satellites, robotic ultrasound machines, factory vision systems, launch infrastructure, and the data platform underneath all of it.

The conversation covers what's actually happening in robotics and space in 2026: why humanoid robots are further off than the headlines suggest, how HEO bought a satellite that was already in orbit instead of building one from scratch, why capital efficiency has become a competitive edge against better-funded US rivals, and how Australia's mineral wealth could make it a manufacturing base for the rest of the world. They also get into hiring, the talent war in US aerospace, and why none of them think being based in Sydney is a disadvantage.

Time Stamps

00:00 Trailer

01:08 Welcome to Season 2 at BrewDog Everleigh, Sydney

02:21 Founder Intros: HEO, Alloy, Vexev, Zabidou & Antares

05:53 Why Humanoid Robots Are Still 5+ Years Away

07:17 Sponsor: Mighty Partners

07:50 HEO's Natural Language Satellite Tasking & "Vibe Tasking" Robots

12:35 Hiring in Deep Tech: Why PhDs Aren't a Requirement Anymore

14:27 Finding & Training Young Talent in Robotics

20:52 US vs Australia: Aerospace Talent, Poaching & the Golden Dome Effect

27:50 Why US Investors Now Believe in Australian Hard Tech

30:54 "Competition Is for Losers": Building What No One Else Has

31:25 Sponsor: Vanta

32:43 How Fundraising for Hard Tech Has Changed in 5 Years

41:05 Zabidoo's Brutal Pre-Seed Deadline & Capital Efficiency

42:25 Lachlan's Antares Raise & Finding the Right Investors

45:00 Micro-Factories & Reindustrialising Regional Australia

50:14 Sponsor: TEN13

51:38 Robots That Don't Look Like Robots: Reindustrialising Australia

54:56 The Future of Health: Automating Diagnosis in Remote Australia

1:02:46 Breaking the SpaceX Monopoly: Satellites, Asteroids & In-Space Manufacturing

1:08:02 How HEO Buys Satellites Already in Orbit

1:10:11 Bringing the Future Together: The Full Supply Chain

1:14:23 The Robotics Boom: 10x More Companies & the Ethics of Robot Safety

1:19:12 Why You Should Work at HEO, Alloy, Vexev, Zabidou & Antares

1:21:58 Closing Thoughts & a Live Deal on the Podcast

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙 and Mighty Partners 💪

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at https://www.vanta.com/oversubscribed

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Mighty Partners is Australia's leading venture debt provider for high-growth software companies.

Venture debt gives founders access to growth capital while preserving equity, extending runway and creating greater flexibility between funding rounds. It's designed for ambitious technology businesses that want to keep building without giving away more ownership than necessary.

Trusted by companies including BuildPass, Deckard Technologies and Pearler, Mighty helps founders scale on their own terms.

Learn more about venture debt and how it can support your next stage of growth at https://www.mightypartners.com.au/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill and Steve Baxter are investors in HEO.

About the Host:

Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/

HEO co-founder and CTO Dr Hiranya Jayakody (HJ) started out trying to mine asteroids. Instead, he and co-founder Will Crowe built a way to photograph satellites in space using other people's cameras, pointed one at the International Space Station during COVID lockdown, and got a call from US regulators asking what they'd done. Today HEO runs 7 cameras in orbit and sells space intelligence to governments across the US, Europe and Japan.

That story opens up the bigger question this episode keeps returning to: do you have to be "damaged" to build something big? Encour founder Jessy Wu makes the case that investors quietly prefer founders who stay triggered and hungry for vindication. Beaten Zone Venture Partners and TEN13 founder Steve Baxter isn't having it, his view is that a lot of what gets called founder intensity is just people being arseholes and dressing it up. HJ, who grew up through war and a tsunami in Sri Lanka, offers a third answer none of them saw coming.

Host Brendan Hill takes the Oversubscribed Season 1 finale through defence tech and why Steve calls it "irrationally unloved," the real difference between US and Australian hiring culture, ESG, AUKUS, and the story of how Steve actually landed his Shark Tank gig. Stay to the end for the asteroid still sitting on HEO's roadmap.

Time Stamps

00:00 Intro

03:52 How HEO Began: Two PhDs Who Wanted to Mine Asteroids

05:00 What Non-Earth Imaging Actually Is

08:15 Steve's "Uber for Secret Space Cameras" Pitch

09:55 Sponsor: Vanta

10:23 Imaging the ISS & the Call From US Regulators

15:35 What You Actually See Up There

17:30 Australia's Sovereign Space Capability & AUKUS

22:29 Space Weapons & Why Orbital War Is Madness

24:50 The Department of War & the US Defence Market

29:55 Sponsor: TEN13

30:46 The Branding Problem of Defence Tech

36:00 Why Steve Hates ESG Investing

39:57 Steelmanning the Case Against Building Weapons

43:00 Arms Balance, Not Arms Control, Keeps the Peace

45:30 Dual-Use Tech: Debris Removal to Blood Delivery

48:37 How the New US Administration Changed Defence Investing

50:47 The "Damaged Founder" Debate Begins

54:28 "Arseholes Can Make Any Excuse to Be Arseholes"

1:00:04 Australia vs the US on Hiring & Firing Culture

1:03:32 HJ on Tunnel Vision & the Self-Checkout Story

1:09:43 Childhood, Trauma & Founders

1:10:30 HJ's Sri Lanka: War, Tsunami & Going Numb

1:14:00 Jessy Wu on Reinvention & Building Encour

1:19:45 Steve's Path: Army, Telecom, Google & Angel Investing

1:26:09 How Steve Landed the Shark Tank Gig

1:35:12 Launching TEN13 & Going Harder Through COVID

1:38:35 Why Join HEO (And the Asteroid Still on the Roadmap)

1:40:13 The Cliff From Canva Timer & Sign-Offs

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rZ9SajGVXkO8oxuvEHAsk?si=I2yR92GgRZa-Fdqbp8T4bw

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oversubscribed/id1848789610

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill and Steve Baxter are investors in HEO.

About the Host:

Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/

Marc Hermann's dad died of a heart attack in his mid-forties. Fit, healthy, no warning signs. Then a doctor told him 99% of heart disease is preventable. We just don't catch it in time.

That conversation became Everlab.

Twelve months ago, Everlab had one doctor. Today they have 66. They've built their own patient management system from scratch, landed Bain, BHP and the AFL as corporate clients, and closed one of Australia's biggest seed rounds, $10M USD led by a New York investor who flew to Sydney on Easter Sunday and didn't leave without a term sheet.

This week Brendan sits down with Marc Hermann, Australia's leading COO Gillian Findlay, and investor Rohen Sood, all angel investors in Everlab, to get into the real story. How do you hire obsessives, not just smart people? Why did a US fund get it before Australian investors did? And is B2B SaaS actually cooked?

Gillian just launched Third Room, a community for the operators who actually scale these companies. Rohen breaks down why the gradient beats the y-intercept every time. And Marc is brutally honest about what it actually looks like inside a fast-growing startup. It's a shitshow. That's the point.

Time Stamps

00:00 Trailer, Intro & Guests

02:53 What Even Is Autonomous Healthcare

05:30 Jill & Rowan's Everlab Experience

07:36 Why Marc Built Everlab, The Personal Story

10:27 Sponsor: Vanta

12:05 Inside the Platform: 100 Biomarkers & Minus 8 Years Biological Age

13:14 Why They Built Their Own Patient Management System

17:05 Everything Is Breaking, How Do You Even Start

19:11 Hiring Obsessives, Not Just Smart People

22:54 Referral Hiring & Why Pedigree Is a Trap

24:34 Sponsor: Ten13 Ventures

25:50 Why Marc Quit His Post-Exit Life & Moved to Australia

29:53 Is B2B SaaS Cooked

37:57 How Leftlane Flew to Sydney on Easter Sunday & Left With a Deal

42:42 US vs Australia, Why Local Investors Didn't Get It First

49:27 Safety Culture's US Expansion & The Kansas City Lesson

51:51 Jill Launches Third Room, Community for Operators

55:24 Everlab Corporate: Bain, BHP, AFL & the B2B2C Flywheel

1:03:40 What Does Marc Actually Think of Bryan Johnson

1:05:23 Is AI Killing Junior Hiring

1:07:13 Why Every Founder Needs a Chief of Staff

1:10:54 What a Chief of Staff Actually Does vs a Glorified EA

1:13:35 Why You Should Work at Everlab

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Guest Founders:

Everlab: https://www.everlab.com.au/

Connect with Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-hermann-3132ab5b/

Third Room: https://thirdroom.au/

Connect with Gillian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gillian-findlay-7a792429/

Enduring Investment Partners: https://www.enduringinvestments.com.au/

Connect with Rohen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohen-s-b747a429/

Stay Updated:

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rZ9SajGVXkO8oxuvEHAsk?si=I2yR92GgRZa-Fdqbp8T4bw

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oversubscribed/id1848789610

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill is an investor in Everlab, Relevance AI and A1Base.

About the Host:

Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/

How do AI companies scale this fast without breaking?

Eight figure revenue in competitive markets. Products that double revenue in a single month. Customers who tattoo your logo on their body. Not growth hacks. Not hype. Real traction, earned the hard way.

Brendan Hill sits down with Daniel Slater from Relume, Liam Millward from Instant, and Sally Yu from King River Capital to unpack what actually drives breakout AI companies in 2025. The answer is not building more features. It is obsession with distribution, ruthless focus on speed to value, and teams that move faster than their competitors think is possible.

Relume did not start as an AI startup. It started as an agency. Building websites manually, feeling the pain firsthand, and removing the work that should never have existed. Instant did not find product market fit once. It found it three times, killing products, rebuilding teams, and learning the hard way that revenue without stickiness is a mirage. And from Silicon Valley, Sally Yu shares what she sees across the fastest growing AI companies in the world, why community is becoming the real moat, and why founders with unwavering conviction now win disproportionately.

They talk candidly about churn, mistakes, hiring A players, monthly execution cycles, and why most AI products fail not because the tech is bad, but because the company moves too slowly. This is a conversation about momentum. About earning distribution. About building products people would fight to keep.

If you want to understand how modern AI companies actually scale, and what it takes to stay ahead once you do, this episode is for you.

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Guest Founders:

Relume: relume.io

Connect with Daniel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-james-slater-13079288/

Instant: instant.one

Connect with Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liammillward/

King River Capital:http://www.kingriver.co/

Connect with Sally: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-tech/

Stay Updated:

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rZ9SajGVXkO8oxuvEHAsk?si=I2yR92GgRZa-Fdqbp8T4bw

Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oversubscribed/id1848789610

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill is an investor in Everlab, Relevance AI and A1Base.

About the Host:

Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/

What does it take to build world class AI companies out of Australia, and why does San Francisco still move 6 to 9 months faster? In this episode, Brendan sits down with three of the most ambitious technical founders in the country: Pasha Rayan (CEO & Co-Founder at A1Base), Anshul Jain (Co-Founder at Everlab) and Jacky Koh (Founder at Relevance AI).

They break down the rise of agentic AI, how engineering culture in SF accelerates innovation, and why the next generation of founders need to think in $100B outcomes. They dive into everything from 10 to 20 times engineering productivity gains, to building autonomous healthcare, to creating the communication layer for AI coworkers that everyday people will talk to like friends.

They also unpack what Australia must do to stay competitive, how to build teams that love hard problems, and why ambition, pace and hands-on founders matter more than ever. It’s a rare inside look at the operators defining the next era of AI infrastructure, agent orchestration and human health.

If you want to understand where AI agents are really going, and how Australia can catch up to the frontier, get subscribed.

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Is AI in the Physical World the next $100 Trillion Opportunity?

In this episode of Oversubscribed, we go deep into the "Hard Tech" revolution. From defence-grade autonomy to data infrastructure for robots, we dive deep into the frontier of hard tech with the founders building it.

Brendan Hill sits down with Michael Irwin (Co-Founder at Breaker), Joe Harris (Founder at Alloy), and returning guest Charlie Gearside (Co-Founder at Eucalyptus / Build Australia) for a wild conversation about robotics, physical AI, national ambition, and why Australia needs to start making things again.

They talk building AI that lives on the edge, the ethics of defence, hiring A-players for impossible problems, and why the next industrial revolution might start right here. It’s an unfiltered look at the people shaping Australia’s place in the age of autonomy.

00:00 – Intro: Founders, frontier tech, and Australia’s new wave of builders

02:00 – Breaker’s origin story: building robots that act on human intent

05:00 – From drones to defense: autonomy, privacy, and life on the edge

08:20 – The hardest problems left to solve (and why easy ones are gone)

10:40 – Sponsor: Vanta – building trust and compliance for startups

12:00 – Alloy’s story: from Eucalyptus to building the data brain for robots

16:00 – Why Joe left a rocket ship to start from zero

19:30 – Building for the age of robotics: data, telemetry, and the next frontier

23:00 – Finding A-players: how ambitious missions attract ambitious people

25:00 – Culture, conviction, and what passion really looks like inside startups

27:00 – The defense dilemma: ethics, values, and the post-Ukraine mindset

30:00 – Going global: why Australia’s best founders build beyond its borders

34:00 – Build Australia: a new movement for ambition and national pride

38:00 – Manufacturing, energy, and why we stopped making things

43:00 – How robotics could solve Australia’s affordability crisis

46:00 – The humanoid debate: specialized vs. general intelligence

50:00 – Life in 2035: what robots at home might really look like

52:00 – Data, autonomy, and the next AI arms race

56:00 – How Breaker and Alloy could power each other’s missions

59:00 – Skynet, manipulation, and the ethics of AI power

1:03:00 – Competition, collaboration, and the Cambrian explosion of robotics

1:06:00 – Founder stories: from CB radios to humanoids in hack houses

1:09:00 – Building the next industrial revolution from Australia

1:10:00 – Final pitches: why you should join Breaker, Alloy, and Build Australia

1:11:00 – Outro: Vanta, Ten13, and building what comes next

Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙

Vanta is the all-in-one solution for startups to become compliant quickly and build a security foundation with ease. Startup customers get $1000 off Vanta at vanta.com/oversubscribed

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Every great startup is an act of alchemy, turning panic into progress, chaos into clarity, and conviction into something that can’t be killed.

Welcome to the first episode of Oversubscribed, where Brendan Hill brings together Thomas Kelly (Co-Founder and CEO at Heidi Health), Liam Millward (Co-Founder and CEO at Instant), and Charlie Gearside (Co-Founder at Eucalyptus), to dissect the decisions that separate endurance from extinction. They talk about near-death pivots, hiring A-players, and why distribution so often beats product. No theory. No vanity metrics. Just the real psychology of building under pressure.

The Day One Network

Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

In venture capital, being oversubscribed means everyone wants in, too much demand, not enough room. It’s what happens when a vision, a founder, or a company becomes undeniably magnetic.

That’s the energy behind this show, Where Australia’s most ambitious founders and investors sit down for unfiltered, in-person conversations about building through chaos, from near-death moments and brutal pivots to the art of hiring killers, raising capital, and scaling conviction.

Think All-In, Flagrant, and Full Send, but for the next generation of Australian startups. No theory. No polished PR. Just raw, honest insight from the people actually doing the work.

This is Oversubscribed with Brendan Hill