Three quarters of the grid sits unused, and a Sydney broker built the software half his own industry now runs on
Issue 12 – Week ending 6 September 2026 – For experts building their first product, globally from day zero.
Gridsight raised US$26m this week on a number worth sitting with: as much as three quarters of electricity network capacity goes unused. Endeavour Energy used the platform to double what households can export to the grid, on the poles and wires it already owns.
FX used across this issue (4 September 2026): A$1 = US$0.72 = Β₯112. US$1 β Β₯156. NZ$1 = A$0.82.
π€ Ecosystem profile
Thom Peace – Entrepreneur, Builder and Musician.
He ran an English school in Tokyo for ten years. In 2020 he moved into consulting and supporting other entrepreneurs, and he now splits his time between Japan and the US.
@Give us your 15 second intro and what you’re working on.
“Hey, I’m Thom Pace. I’m a builder, I’m a creator, and I am also well connected and entrenched in Japan. So talk to me if you want to hear more.
Top two priorities right now are modernising my website portfolio, and getting the infrastructure in America up to the same level as the infrastructure in Japan.”
What were you doing before this, and what finally made you start?
The main project was me being an English teacher and running a school in Meidaimae and we signed up, I think, over 300, 400 students over 10 years. But I transitioned to be more of a consulting service provider, and also a supporter of other entrepreneurs in Tokyo. So that started in 2020.
In the full piece he goes on to why he ended up all in on AI after years of hand-building websites, what he thinks actually stops early founders, and the band he plays bass in.
β Read the full Q&A on Global Day Zero β
π± Bootstrapping spotlight
Quickli (Sydney, Australia). Eric Dill was a practising mortgage broker in Sydney, running his own broking firm and losing hours every week checking a single client against one lender calculator after another. He and engineer Angus Keatinge built the thing that does it in seconds across 50-odd lenders.
Broker Daily reported in February 2026 that the platform now serves more than 13,000 brokers, against a total Australian market of about 22,000. No outside equity at any point.
π―π΅ Japan raises
PeopleX(Tokyo): Β₯5.45b / A$48.7m / US$34.9m (Series A, equity and debt) AI interviewing, role-play and 1-on-1 tools for HR and sales teams, launched alongside a new agent product. Cumulative funding now Β₯7.82b since founding in April 2024. Backers include en Japan, Angel Bridge, WiL and One Capital. (PR TIMES) β
e-dash (Tokyo): Β₯3.34b / A$29.8m / US$21.4m (growth round) Cloud platform for measuring, reporting and cutting corporate CO2 emissions across Scope 1, 2 and 3. Mitsui & Co. led, with JA Mitsui Strategic Partners, West Holdings and Shinkin Capital. (PR TIMES) β
Paytner (Tokyo): Β₯2.3b / A$20.5m / US$14.7m (Series D) Same-day invoice factoring for freelancers and micro-businesses. 800,000 cumulative applications as of July 2026. Incubate Fund’s growth vehicle led, alongside Mizuho Capital, JIC Venture Growth and Nippon Life Capital. (PR TIMES) β
MetroWeather (Uji, Kyoto): Β₯1.5b / A$13.4m / US$9.6m (Series B first close) Kyoto University spinout building Doppler lidar that renders wind in real-time 3D, now extending into object detection for drone defence and critical infrastructure. Incubate Fund led with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. (PR TIMES) β
Also raised: KG Motors (Higashi-Hiroshima, Β₯470m for its single-seat mibot EV), 10pct. (Tokyo, Β₯400m Series A led by Global Brain for AI-native hotel operations), ADiXi (Tokyo, undisclosed, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital led), Kimi no Tonari (Tokyo, undisclosed Series A led by Animal Spirits), Sotas (Tokyo, undisclosed, from Rice Capital).
Takeaway: three of the four biggest Japanese rounds this week sell into a job someone is already doing badly by hand. Interviewing and 1-on-1s at PeopleX, emissions reporting at e-dash, chasing an unpaid invoice at Paytner. None of them asked the buyer to want something new.
π¦πΊ Australia raises
GRIDSIGHT (Sydney, Australia): A$36m / US$26m / Β₯4.03b (Series B) AI capacity management for electricity distribution networks. Insight Partners led, with Galvanize Climate Solutions, Airtree, Energy Transition Ventures and Aera VC. Already deployed at Xcel Energy and United Illuminating in the US and Endeavour Energy at home. (PR Newswire) β
pearler (Sydney, Australia): A$16m / US$11.5m / Β₯1.79b (Series A) Long-term retail investing platform covering ETF trading, super and first-home deposit accounts. Portage led again, having led the 2022 seed, with TEN13, Altered Capital and Chris Cuffe. (Startup Daily) β
Apate.ai (Sydney, Australia): A$11.4m / US$8.15m / Β₯1.28b (seed) Fleets of AI agents that pose as scam victims, waste scammers’ time and hand the intelligence back to banks and telcos. Lobby Capital led, with OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures and Baobab Ventures. HQ moving to the US with a London office planned. (Startup Daily) β
Drumbeat (Auckland, New Zealand): A$1.6m / US$1.2m / Β₯184m (seed, announced as NZ$2m) Martech platform that helps founders run their own brand storytelling and media relations. Icehouse Ventures led, with Brand Fund, Adam Ferrier of Thinkerbell and Henry Innis of Mutinex. (Startup Daily) β
Also raised: GonGlobal (Melbourne, A$1.2m from Innovation Victoria and RMIT for an inhaled alternative to injectable IVF hormones), and ENA Respiratory (Melbourne, A$2.98m of non-dilutive Biointelect Venturer funding for a Phase 1b trial of its nasal spray antiviral, so a grant rather than a round).
Takeaway: Gridsight has been working with Endeavour Energy since 2021 and raised this Series B in 2026. Five years between the first serious customer and the round that made the news. The week’s biggest Australian raise is also its slowest story.
π Around the world
Wonderful (Tel Aviv, Israel): US$550m / A$764m / Β₯85.8b (Series C at a US$5b valuation) Model-agnostic operating system for deploying and managing enterprise AI agents. Insight Partners led, with Salesforce, Index Ventures, IVP and Bessemer joining. (Calcalist) β
VAST (Tripo AI) (Beijing, China): US$446m / A$620m / Β₯69.6b (Series B and B+) 3D generative models that turn text or a single 2D image into production-ready 3D assets in seconds. MPCi led, with Perfect World, CICC, CMC Capital Partners and ThunderSoft. (DealStreetAsia) β
FΓ©lix (Miami, USA): US$200m / A$278m / Β₯31.2b (Series C, US$87m equity and US$113m debt) Remittances from the US into 11 Latin American markets, sent through WhatsApp rather than an app anyone has to download. Andreessen Horowitz led the equity, General Catalyst the debt. (Crunchbase News) β
iPRONICS (Valencia, Spain): US$125m / A$174m / Β₯19.5b (Series B) Silicon photonics optical circuit switching for AI data centre networking. Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital co-led, with NVIDIA, Bosch Ventures and the EIC Fund. (EU-Startups) β
Ultrahuman (Bengaluru, India): US$70m / A$97m / Β₯10.9b (Series C at ~US$363m post-money) Smart ring maker turning continuous health and metabolic data into a platform other products build on. Qualcomm Ventures led, with Alpha Wave, Nexus, Blume and Labcorp. (Entrackr) β
Takeaway: Insight Partners led both Gridsight in Sydney and Wonderful in Tel Aviv in the same week, at US$26m and US$550m. The same firm, the same seven days, a twenty-fold difference in cheque size. Stage matters more than geography when you are working out who to talk to.
π Global headlines
- Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for US$12.93b, putting a landlord over the platform that hosts 3 million open models and 18 million developers. Hugging Face turned down a US$500m offer from the same buyer last year. (TechCrunch) β (3 Sep)
- John Ternus took over as Apple CEO, ending Tim Cook’s 15-year run. Cook moves to executive chairman. (Al Jazeera) β (1 Sep)
- WPP is cutting up to 1,000 more roles by year end, on top of roughly 11,000 gone since early 2025, as AI reshapes what an advertising holding company is for. (Mumbrella) β (1 Sep)
- China’s Cyberspace Administration deleted 5.61 million pieces of AI-generated content and suspended 49,000 accounts across Douyin, Kuaishou, RedNote and WeChat. (South China Morning Post) β (2 Sep)
- Reliance Jio opened JioPC to every Indian consumer, not just its broadband subscribers, turning an old device or a TV into a cloud computer from Rs 1,000. (TelecomTalk) β (2 Sep)
π οΈ Global tech on display
TwinDEX, by X Square Robot (θͺειζΊε¨δΊΊ) (Shenzhen, China).
A wearable three-finger exoskeleton glove, paired with a robot hand built to exactly the same geometry. You put the glove on and do the task with your own hands. Because the human side and the robot side share the same shape, the recording drops straight into the robot’s joint space with no retargeting, no teleoperation rig and no robot in the room.
The company reports 5.3 times the data collection throughput of conventional on-robot teleoperation, and says a policy trained on a few hundred glove-recorded episodes, with zero on-robot data, ran a chemistry experiment of roughly two dozen steps: twisting caps, using a pipette, stirring, both hands coordinating at millimetre precision. Worth knowing that every figure here is X Square Robot’s own benchmark and the paper is listed as coming soon, so treat the multiple as a claim rather than a result.
(Humanoids Daily) β and watch the demo β
π§ The bit nobody taught you
You know your industry. You have probably never had to find a customer. One thing a week on product, marketing or sales, for people who have done neither.
This week, on sales.
Read what Endeavour Energy’s chief executive said about Gridsight this week: “We’ve doubled customers’ solar export capacity within our existing poles and wires.” Not a word about AI, grid physics or the foundational model the press release leads with. He described a result in the language of the thing he is responsible for. Households went from exporting 5 kW to 10 kW, which Endeavour expects to be worth more than $100 million in value for customers and 600 MW of extra solar capacity for the grid.
A first-timer with fifteen years of expertise does the opposite. You explain the mechanism, because the mechanism is the part you are proud of and the part nobody else in the room understands. The buyer nods, says it is interesting, and never has a sentence they can repeat to the person above them.
So write that sentence first. One line, in the buyer’s units, about a number they already have to report. Then work backwards to what you build. And give it time: Gridsight started with Endeavour in 2021 and announced this round in 2026.
What number does the person who would buy from you already have to report upwards every month?
π Joke of the week
“Vibe coding is easy. Vibe debugging is the hard part.”
Posted by @catalinmpit and since catalogued as one of the defining vibe-coding jokes. (Know Your Meme) β
π Thought of the week
This may seem obvious, but “your idea is fantastic” or “I’d definitely use your product” is not a clear yes.
Don’t get us wrong, it sounds encouraging, and it feels like data, which is exactly the problem, because it cost them nothing to say.
People are lovely. They will tell you what you want to hear, especially if they know you.
A yes is money in your account. A signature on something. A date locked in to start.
Take the nice comments as a sign someone wants to work with you, by all means. But it isn’t real until you can see funds in the bank π
So how many actual yeses have you had?
β Watch the reel on LinkedIn β
If you want to answer that question with a number, the Day Zero Readiness Scorecard is eleven questions and about four minutes. It scores you out of 100 across customer proof, clarity, build discipline, offer readiness and portability. Customer proof carries 40 of the 100 points, which is the argument above expressed as a weighting. The score comes back straight away and the email is only needed if you want the written breakdown.
ποΈ Free programs
Two recorded sessions, both free, both on demand.
Three things that kill an idea like yours, and none of them is the idea itself.
A 32 minute pre-recorded session for people with ten to twenty years in one industry who have an idea, or something they have already built, sitting there unshown. It covers the one sentence that explains what you do to someone outside your field, how to stop building and start showing it, and how to get to 25 conversations with people in your market so you can see the pattern rather than one person’s opinion. A worksheet comes with it.
No cost, watch it whenever you like and pause it as often as you need.
β Watch it on Global Day Zero β
How to enter Japan in 2026: market entry for tech and AI founders, after the visa changes.
In October 2025 the Business Manager visa capital requirement went from Β₯5m to Β₯30m, roughly A$45k to A$268k, or US$32k to US$192k. It arrived with a mandatory full-time local hire, a private office and business-level Japanese. Applications have fallen about 94% since.
Recorded with Tyson Batino , 22 years in Japan and 80-plus company setups: what actually changed, why the startup visa is mostly a dead end now, which products are landing in 2026, GK against KK against a branch office, how Japanese buyers really research a purchase, why a minimalist sales deck fails there, and the cases where the honest answer is not yet.
Runs a little over an hour, fully timestamped. Free on YouTube with nothing to sign up for.
π Upcoming sessions & events
Two live sessions this month, both online, both worth their time in gold.
Founders Across Borders: when is the right time to go global?
Thursday 17 September, 7pm Sydney / 6pm Tokyo. One hour, with GlobalDeal. Most people ask where before they have answered when. The session works through what “ready” actually looks like, the traction and capital signals that matter against the ones people mistake for readiness, and what going too early costs, with Japan as the worked example. Regulated sectors get their own timing question.
β Register β
Upgrade your buyer, upgrade your offer.
Thursday 24 September, 7:30pm Sydney / 6:30pm Tokyo. Ninety minutes. Most people can describe what they are building. Far fewer can describe who it is for in a way you could act on this afternoon. The session narrows the buyer from a category to a person, then upgrades from whoever has the problem to whoever is bleeding from it and can pay to stop, in that person’s own words rather than the vocabulary twenty years in an industry gives you.
You leave with one page: the result you are promising, the three things in the way, and what gets done about each. Worked live in the room. Bring whatever you have, however rough.
β Register β
π― Programs open for application
The Global Day Zero Sprint. Eight weeks, a small group, for people with a long career in one industry and an idea or a vibe-coded product they have not yet put in front of anyone.
You keep your job while you do it. The point is to find out whether the idea holds up before you risk anything on it.
There is no equity in it. It is a paid program, which is deliberate, because that is what makes people take it seriously.
Applications close Monday 28 September.
β See what we’re all about and if it looks good we’d invite you to apply β
Not the right fit if you already have paying customers, or you want someone to build it for you.
Eric Dill spent his days checking one lender calculator after another, and now the thing he built to stop doing that serves more than half the brokers in Australia. He did not raise a round to get there.
Know someone with fifteen years in an industry and an idea they keep not starting? Send them this.
Tell me in the comments: what is the one number everybody in your industry complains about and nobody has fixed?
Cheers,
Matt βοΈ
Global Day Zero. Build global from day zero. globaldayzero.com
No spam. Unsubscribe whenever. I would rather you did that than sat on a list you do not read.
Curious first? Read the back issues →