The Briefing Room

Steen Bisgaard is the founder and Group CEO of GaardTech, a combat robotics company building robotic systems for the battlefield. A former Australian Army tank commander with two tours of Afghanistan, he put his entire deployment savings into the company at 26.

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026 on the Gold Coast, Steen joins Peta Ellis to tell how a booth at Land Forces led to a purchase order in two weeks, and why a robotic target the customer destroyed on every use turned out to be the perfect first product.

He explains how GaardTech has grown without external capital into three factories across Australia, the UK and the US, why incremental orders beat a giant raise, and why he still takes products to the test range himself.

Steen also makes the case for operational security over self-promotion, compares doing business in Australia, the UK, the US and the EU, and credits Team Defence Australia and Austrade for opening export doors.

GUEST LINKS

Steen Bisgaard LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steen-bisgaard-3597b110b/

GaardTech: https://www.gaardtech.com.au

HOST LINKS

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026, Gold Coast. Produced by The Podcast Boss. thepodcastboss.com

Recorded at REVEILLE 2026, shortly before Jamil joined OpenAI as Head of Global Government Cyber.

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026 on the Gold Coast, Jamil joins Peta Ellis to explain the Trusted Capital network of investors who refuse adversarial capital, and how Paladin helps its companies sell into government and critical infrastructure.

With Brisbane 2032 approaching, Jamil warns that Los Angeles has put Chinese equipment at the core of its Olympic telecoms network, argues the World Cup was lucky rather than prepared for drone threats, and sets out what Australia must do now, led by investors and industry rather than waiting for government.

He also makes the case for automated patching and AI-powered cyber defence, delivers some blunt advice for casual founders, and shares the deeply personal story of how his family went from East Africa to the Oval Office in a single generation.

GUEST LINKS

Jamil Jaffer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamil-jaffer/

Paladin Capital Group: https://www.paladincapgroup.com

HOST LINKS

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026, Gold Coast. Produced by The Podcast Boss. thepodcastboss.com

Kevin Keaton spent 34 years in the US intelligence community and was the NSA's first ever Chief of Innovation. Today he is a co-founder, CIO and CISO of Red Cell Partners, a venture studio that builds national defence, cyber and healthcare companies from day zero.

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026 on the Gold Coast, Kevin joins Peta Ellis to explain the venture studio model: surround a CEO with finance, hiring, defence-grade infrastructure and specialist accounting so they can focus on product market fit, and add people only when the need is real.

We cover what Red Cell looks for in a founder, how former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Admiral John Aquilino and other advisers rehearse founders by playing their old jobs, and a new $100 million OTA with the Chief Digital and AI Office where the government only pays if it saves money.

Kevin also explains why Ukraine is now six generations deep in drone and counter-drone warfare, why you should know who is writing your open source code, and why he would rather back a great Australian founder than look elsewhere.

GUEST LINKS

Kevin Keaton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-keaton-329767209/

Red Cell Partners: https://www.redcellpartners.com

HOST LINKS

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026, Gold Coast. Produced by The Podcast Boss. thepodcastboss.com

“You need to be close to the user, but you also need to be in Ukraine.” Samuel Burrell is a Partner at Expeditions, where he is Investment Lead for AUKUS and leads the London office. A former Royal Marine who served alongside Australians in Afghanistan, he now backs the founders building the next generation of defence and dual-use technology.

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026 on the Gold Coast, Sam joins Peta Ellis to trace his path from a four-person London startup, through generalist investing at Octopus Ventures in 2017 (when he was looking at mattress companies because defence venture did not yet exist in the UK), to leading quantum investment at NSSIF, the UK's version of In-Q-Tel.

Sam explains why Ukraine is now the proving ground every serious defence tech company needs, how Expeditions opens pathways to Ukrainian units from its offices in the UK and Poland, and how Brave1 connects global companies with Ukrainian end users. He also covers why deep tech founders must be anchored in the science, and how investors help technical teams raise.

For anyone in uniform weighing their next move, his advice is blunt: build your network before you leave, skip the MBA, and go out there and hustle. Plus the story behind This Week in Dual-Use, the newsletter he started when he could not find one, still written without AI.

GUEST LINKS

Expeditions: https://expeditionsfund.com

This Week in Dual-Use: https://www.samuelburrell.com

HOST LINKS

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Recorded live at REVEILLE 2026, Gold Coast. Produced by The Podcast Boss. thepodcastboss.com

Lauren Dailey started her career inside Army acquisition headquarters at the Pentagon, moved to Silicon Valley in 2015 as the acquisition lead at the Defense Innovation Unit - where she invented the Commercial Solutions Opening, the contracting mechanism that put Shield AI, Anduril, and others on contract at the speed of a startup - then stepped into the COO seat at Second Front Systems before moving to Deloitte GPS where she now helps defence clients redesign how they work with commercial technology.

In this episode, Sean Singleton and Peta Ellis sit down with Lauren to unpack what the CSO was actually designed to solve, why the funding cycle is still the longest pole in the tent even after contracting speed improved, why diversifying outside defence makes a startup more attractive to the Department of War rather than less, why venture capitalists need more acquisitions officers and fewer door-kickers, and what the Australian government could do right now to help founders survive the valley of death between a warm handshake and an actual contract.

Lauren Dailey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-dailey-883aa431/

Deloitte GPS: https://www.deloitte.com

Produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

Charlie McGillis is a retired USAF Colonel with a 26-year career, finishing as Director of Intelligence for the 14th Air Force (Space), where she led intelligence efforts supporting Air Force space forces and national objectives. She brings more than 30 years in defence and space leadership, including driving advances in space simulation and operator training across military and commercial sectors.

Charlie now serves as a Non-Executive Director on the Zendir board, sits on the BZV Investment Committee, and is a member of the Department of Commerce TraCSS Independent Review Board. She has been named one of the Top 30 Space Executives to Watch, advises Project Air Power, and mentors with CDL Space. She is Founder and CEO of 2 Polaris and Beyond, LLC.

In this episode, Charlie joins Peta and Sean for a wide-ranging conversation on what space actually looks like as a contested domain today versus when she retired in 2014 (2,000 active satellites then, over 16,000 now), how the threat picture has shifted from static infrastructure to maneuvering satellites, rendezvous operations, and what she calls dog fighting in space, and why the decision timelines for operators have compressed dramatically as a result.

We dig into Zendir and the live-virtual-constructive training gap: there is currently no certification required to fly a satellite, and Charlie makes a compelling case for why that has to change and why physics-true simulation is the only way to close it. She explains what made Zendir the board seat she said yes to, and why workshops like the one she facilitated at Catalyst Campus in Colorado Springs are how the light-bulb moments actually happen.

The conversation also covers what she calls the conversations the industry is not having: jamming that goes unreported every day, the legal gray zone around debris collection and orbital maneuvering, satellite theft by adversaries, and her case for space nuclear as a capability the industry must be willing to discuss openly. Charlie closes with direct advice for Australian founders looking to enter the U.S. space market: understand the mission, integrate into what already exists, get your CMMC level two in order, and do not wait for the U.S. to lead. Australia needs to build sovereign space capability and bring something distinct to the fight.

🔗  GUEST LINKS

Host Links:

Production:

Produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

 Recorded on Riverside FM.  thepodcastboss.com

Dr Craig Cummings, Co-Founder and General Partner at Moonshots Capital, joins Peta Ellis and Sean Singleton for a conversation spanning 30 years of defence, academia, entrepreneurship and venture capital.

Craig served 17 years as a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, deployed to Afghanistan with JSOC and earned the Bronze Star, and co-founded two companies, including RideScout, which was acquired by Mercedes. He then built Moonshots Capital into one of the most active dual-use VC firms in the United States.

In this episode: why Austin became the centre of gravity for U.S. defence innovation, what changed when Army Futures Command moved into Capital Factory, why Craig looks for contracting expertise in every team he backs, and why the entire defence innovation ecosystem is still only at Series A.

We also cover Skill Bridge, DARPA accelerators, veteran-to-venture pathways, and what it would take to build a Capital Factory-style ecosystem in Australia.

Craig Cummings LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigwcummings/

Moonshots Capital: https://www.moonshots.capital/

Host Links (for YouTube description / pinned comment):

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

Sean Singleton (Co-host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-singleton-b616292/

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Colonel Enrique Oti was employee number one at the Defense Innovation Unit - and he watched it nearly fail before it found its footing. In this episode, Sean Singleton and Peta Ellis sit down with Enrique, now Chief Strategy Officer at Second Front Systems, to trace a 23-year Air Force career that took him from special operations in Honduras and Afghanistan to two years as an Olmsted Scholar inside China's universities, to Silicon Valley at exactly the moment Washington and the tech sector had stopped talking to each other. Enrique shares what the original DIU got wrong, why every Ministry of Defence in the world is making the same mistake right now, why the difference between dual-use and defence tech matters more than most founders admit, and why Australian companies need to prove traction at home before showing up at the Pentagon door. He also breaks down what Second Front Systems is building to make AUKUS Pillar Two a real, frictionless reality across US, UK and Australian military networks.

🔗  GUEST LINKS

Enrique OtiLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enrique-oti

Second Front Systems: https://www.secondfront.com

Host Links:

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

Sean Singleton (Co-host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-singleton-b616292

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

Rob Castaneda grew up in Toongabie in Western Sydney, snuck into UTS to do computer science, and landed a help desk internship at a Silicon Valley company when he was 17. From that first role he never stopped moving forward. In 2001 he founded ServiceRocket in Sydney. In 2008, when everyone told him he was crazy, he moved the company to Palo Alto during the global financial crisis. Today ServiceRocket has around 240 people across 10 countries and Rob is an LP in Beaten Zone Venture Partners.

In this episode Peta Ellis sits down with Rob to unpack why it is genuinely easier to grow a tech company in the US than in Australia, why the founder has to be the one who moves, how a self-funded company still runs tight board accountability, and what he looks for in the next generation of talent.

GUEST LINKS

Rob Castaneda LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertcastaneda/

ServiceRocket: https://www.servicerocket.com/

Leadership Behaviours Substack: https://leadershipbehaviors.org/

Host Links:

Peta Ellis (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/petaellis

BZV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BeatenZoneVenturePartners/videos

BZV Website: https://beatenzone.vc

Production: Produced at The Podcast Boss podcast studio in Brisbane. thepodcastboss.com

Ross Osborne is the Chief Engineer and Technical Director at SYPAQ Systems, a Melbourne-based company founded in 1992 that has grown from professional services and consulting in defence and government into one of Australia's most capable autonomous systems developers and manufacturers. Ross has been with SYPAQ for 16 years, joining after a graduate engineering program at BAE Systems where his focus was already on autonomous systems.

In this episode we trace the full arc of SYPAQ's most celebrated product: the Corvo PPDS, widely known as the cardboard drone. Ross explains how the concept came from a three-day sprint in 2018, prototyped on day one, flown on day two, bid written on day three. The idea was pitched at an Army Innovation Day, secured a contract, went through 10 months of engineering development, was shelved during COVID, and then, when the Ukraine conflict began in 2022, went from sitting on a shelf to full-rate production of 100 systems in five weeks.

We also discuss the Corvo X, SYPAQ's fixed-wing VTOL surveillance drone now delivered into Australian Army service through a formal acquisition program, a journey that took close to a decade. Ross explains the difference between running a rapid innovation program and navigating a full defence acquisition cycle, why both matter, and what makes SYPAQ's engineering culture different: nearly a quarter of the workforce are veterans, the team draws from automotive, medical, aerospace, and software backgrounds, and the engineering environment is built around multidisciplinary collaboration.

Ross shares his thinking on sovereign manufacturing, why the small premium to produce in Australia is worth it, how SYPAQ is now turning its decade of drone-building experience toward counter-drone technology, and why the 5,000 square metre Melbourne facility that felt large five years ago is already bursting at the seams.

🔗  GUEST LINKS

Host Links:

Recorded and produced at ⁠The Podcast Boss⁠ ⁠podcast studio in Brisbane

thepodcastboss.com