| BY ANDREW CURTIS | Founder and CEO, CiBRAI | FOUNDER’S NOTE | 5 MIN READ | AUGUST 2026 |
The long road to the first cheque, and why the right travelling companions matter.
There is a moment in every capital raise when the pitch deck stops being a file and becomes a member of the team. It develops versions, moods and an unexplained ability to reappear at 11:47 pm with one more change.
At CiBRAI, ours has been called final, final-2, final-revised and final-really-final. Manny Farr, our CFO, would inspect the model and ask why a number had moved. Felix La Spina, our marketing guru, would remove three paragraphs that I considered essential to civilisation. Drew Williams and Guy Aird from Pinnacle Equities would then ask one devastatingly simple question: ‘What does this money actually get you to?’
That question changed the journey.
I began the process as a cybersecurity person. I assumed capital raising would resemble incident response. Identify the problem, present the evidence, propose the control, obtain approval and get on with the work. It does not.
Raising capital is closer to building an aircraft while convincing strangers that it will fly, explaining where it is going, proving there is a market for the destination and asking them to buy a seat before take-off. The founder supplies the vision. Investors inspect the engines.
| The founder supplies the vision. Investors inspect the engines. The first lesson was learning to make the story survive both. |
Same aircraft, different airports
The first thing I learned is that the runway is not the same everywhere.
In the United States, founders operate beside the deepest pool of venture capital in the world. US startups raised about US$279.4 billion in 2025. The American question often begins with scale: how large can this become, how quickly can it own a category, and what happens if everything goes right? Ambition is not treated as a personality defect. It is the opening bid.1
The EU and the wider European market feel different. Europe attracted US$85.3 billion across 8,626 venture deals in 2025, its third-strongest year by value in a decade, but with the second-lowest deal count. More capital went into fewer businesses. The questions tend to travel quickly from opportunity to governance, resilience, data, regulation and defensibility. The dream is welcome, but it is expected to arrive with documentation.2
The United Kingdom sits somewhere between those two traditions. UK startups raised US$23.7 billion in 2025, yet 74 per cent of the capital came from overseas. It has a sophisticated technology and financial ecosystem, but its scale-ups still depend heavily on international cheques. A British investor may happily discuss a global vision, but there is a fair chance the financial model will appear before the second cup of tea.1
Then there is Australia. Australian startups announced A$5.4 billion across 390 deals in 2025, up 31 per cent on the prior year. That sounds encouraging, and it is, but the 20 largest deals absorbed 58 per cent of the total. The market is compact, selective and relationship-led. In the US, the first question can feel like ‘How big can this get?’ In Australia, it is often followed by ‘Who is already using it, and who do we both know?’3
2025 CAPITAL CONTEXT | Directional comparison across separate datasets
| UNITED STATES US$279.4B VC raised | EUROPE (INCL. UK) US$85.3B 8,626 deals | UNITED KINGDOM US$23.7B 74% from abroad | AUSTRALIA A$5.4B 390 deals |
Note: Sources use different coverage, definitions and currencies. The Europe figure includes the UK, which is also shown separately, so the comparison is illustrative rather than directly harmonised.
None of these markets is inherently better. They simply reward different forms of credibility. The story has to travel.
Capital needs a job description
The smartest founders do not necessarily begin with the largest round. They begin with the most credible one.
Capital is not applause. It needs a job description. Every dollar should buy a milestone, remove a constraint, prove a commercial assumption or reduce a material risk. A large round without a clear destination is just a very expensive way to become lost faster.
That lesson sits at the centre of CiBRAI’s first raise. We are seeking A$500,000 for 12.5 per cent equity, after more than A$1 million has already been invested in establishing the platform. The proposed use of funds is specific: 40 per cent for AI infrastructure, 25 per cent for sales and marketing, 18 per cent for sales support, 12 per cent for technical team expansion and 5 per cent for compliance.6
The point is not to make CiBRAI sound larger. It is to make the next stage of execution faster, better supported and more valuable. The round should move us from a built platform with early customers, proof-of-concept activity and a growing pipeline to a company with greater infrastructure capacity, stronger market reach and greater ability to convert demand.6
| Capital is fuel. Milestones are the flight plan. Credibility is what gets you cleared for take-off. |
A fashionable market still needs a real problem
Artificial intelligence is receiving extraordinary attention. AI firms captured 61 per cent of global venture capital in 2025, or US$258.7 billion. Yet 73 per cent of that AI investment value was concentrated in mega-deals above US$100 million. US firms alone attracted about 75 per cent of global AI venture deal value, compared with 6 per cent for the EU27 and 5 per cent for the UK.4
Those numbers are exciting, but they also make investors understandably allergic to businesses powered mainly by adjectives. Calling something ‘AI-enabled’ is not a commercial thesis. The technology still has to solve an expensive, persistent problem.
CiBRAI is focused on one I have experienced throughout my career. Cybersecurity teams are not short of data. They are short of time, context and clarity.
During FY2024-25, the Australian Signals Directorate received more than 84,700 cybercrime reports, approximately one every six minutes. The average self-reported cost per business report rose by 50 per cent to A$80,850. Those were only the incidents reported.5
| 61% of global venture capital went to AI firms in 2025 OECD, 2026 | 84,700 Australian cybercrime reports in FY2024-25, about one every six minutes Australian Signals Directorate, 2025 |
CiBRAI brings endpoint, cloud, identity and network signals into one operational view. Its sovereign agentic AI layer groups related events, adds context, suppresses noise, prioritises incidents and helps guide response. Put more simply, cyber teams are drowning in a sea of red alerts. CiBRAI is designed to help them catch the one that matters.7
The right people make the road shorter
The greatest improvement in our capital raising process came when I stopped treating it as a solo founder expedition.
Drew and Guy from Pinnacle Equities have brought structure, investor perspective and disciplined process. They understand the difference between an investor who is genuinely curious, one who is being courteous and one who is quietly searching for the exit. More importantly, they keep the discussion connected to milestones, evidence and investability.
Manny, our CFO, makes sure the financial story can survive cross-examination. His spreadsheets contain fewer adjectives than my pitch, but considerably more authority. Felix has helped translate years of cybersecurity architecture, sovereign AI development and technical complexity into a story that a sensible person can understand without first completing a security operations qualification. He can remove 400 words without damaging the idea, a talent I admire in principle and resist in practice.
Their help has not made raising capital effortless. It has made it legible. The conversations are sharper, the narrative is clearer and the raise has a defined purpose. That is a substantial difference.
Are we nearly there?
I hope we are approaching the end of this first capital raising journey, although I have learned not to declare victory until the documents are signed and the funds have cleared. In cybersecurity terms, a verbal commitment is an alert, not a closed incident.
We are still speaking with interested parties who may wish to participate in CiBRAI’s first capital raise.
For investors and strategic partners who believe Australia should build and retain more of its own critical cybersecurity and artificial intelligence capability, this is an opportunity to examine what we have built, challenge our assumptions and understand what the next milestone could unlock.
Perhaps you will see a company worth backing. Perhaps you will ask a difficult question that makes the company stronger. Both are useful.
The first raise is not the finish line. It is clearance to accelerate.
And, after a long journey through decks, models, meetings, revisions and more coffee than any responsible governance framework should permit, I am hopeful that CiBRAI is approaching the runway.
| INTERESTED IN JOINING CIBRAI’S FIRST CAPITAL RAISE? | |
| CiBRAI is seeking A$500,000 for 12.5% equity. Interested investors and strategic parties are invited to review the investment deck and contact the corporate advisers listed there. Corporate advisers: Pinnacle Equities, AFSL 300776 | |
| READ THE DECK: cibrai.com/pitch3.pdf | EXPLORE THE PLATFORM: cibrai.com |
WHAT THE FIRST ROUND IS BUILT TO UNLOCK
| 01 CAPACITY Scale sovereign AI infrastructure and support growing workloads. | 02 CONVERSION Turn commercial pipeline and proof-of-concept activity into customers. | 03 CONFIDENCE Expand sales, technical delivery and compliance execution. |
A$500,000 RAISE | 12.5% EQUITY | MORE THAN A$1M ALREADY INVESTED
| Important: This article is general information only and is not financial advice or a formal offer of securities. Any participation is subject to investor eligibility, due diligence and formal transaction documentation. |
Sources and notes
Capital-market figures are nominal and draw on separate datasets. They should be read as directional context, not as a single harmonised league table.
1. UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, UK startups & VC landscape evidence pack (published 28 July 2026).
2. KPMG, Venture Pulse Q4 2025 (Europe annual analysis).
3. Cut Through Venture and Folklore Ventures, State of Australian Startup Funding 2025.
4. OECD, Venture capital investments in artificial intelligence through 2025 (17 February 2026).
5. Australian Signals Directorate, Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-2025.
6. CiBRAI, Investment pitch deck.
7. CiBRAI, Unified cyber security platform website.
CLARITY. NOT CHAOS. | CIBRAI.COM