Mike Cannon-Brookes-backed Brighte seeks more capital amid 15pc cut in jobs

Green financier Brighte, which is backed by Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, is seeking to raise more capital after slashing its workforce by 15 per cent.

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Brighte founder Katherine McConnell.

The green financier Brighte, which is backed by billionaire and Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, is seeking to raise more capital after slashing its workforce by 15 per cent.

Amid turmoil in capital markets and global energy markets, a Brighte spokesman said the company was “well-capitalised and in a strong cash position”, and was taking market soundings on how much it would raise.

Asked if Brighte had lowered the likely amount, he said investors were no longer rewarding “riskier growth bets that pay off over longer time frames”.

“As such, Brighte has revised its own plans and does not need to raise a larger amount in this new environment,” he said.

The spokesman declined to respond to suggestions that Brighte had taken soundings on a $150m-$250m raising but had recently lowered the figure to less than $100m.

Brighte also confirmed in response to questions emailed early on Monday that 32 positions, mainly in central corporate roles, had been affected by the downsizing.

The company was founded in 2015 by former Macquarie banker Katherine McConnell, who drew down on her mortgage to offer buy now, pay later finance for solar panels and batteries.

The business model aimed to provide affordable access to sustainable energy solutions through an easy payment platform.

The company’s website says that, since 2015, it has approved more than $500m in finance and enabled over 1800 solar and home improvement businesses to offer finance to 60,000-plus Australian households.

Last year, Brighte expanded its workforce from 84 in January 2021 to 181 in December, announcing plans to hire a further 50 people in the following four months.

Mr Cannon-Brookes’ private investment company Grok Ventures contributed $78.8m to a successful, Series C capital raising of $100m in December 2020, with existing shareholders stumping up for the rest.

Other investors include Skip Capital, which is Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar’s private investment company, AirTree Ventures and Singaporean venture capital firm, Qualgro.

Brighte said that it had grown its costs faster than the economy and believed it could achieve its growth objectives with a smaller cost base.

One of its growth strategies was to drive an increase in battery attachment rates in Australia, as there were only 140,000 battery-powered homes but more than 3.3m solar-powered dwellings.

While the company never intended to be a stand-alone energy retailer, it obtained a retail licence to develop its own virtual power plant (VPP). But after an energy pilot to trial the initiative, Brighte decided that a better approach was to work with larger partners.

The company said its vendors were currently reporting a “surge” in solar and battery applications after recent volatility in the energy market, as customers sought to control their bills and achieve energy independence.

“It is not uncommon for Brighte to identify growth bets and pull back once we identify that the opportunity we thought existed was not what we anticipated,” the spokesman said.

As a result, the energy pilot team was initially redeployed into the broader Brighte business.

However, some staff were made redundant as their skills were “unique to energy retailing and VPPs, which we are not continuing to do as our own direct product offering”.

Most of the roles affected were in corporate support or in new product development.

The spokesman said Brighte had a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to support households and vendors in the energy crisis and install solar and batteries.

“Market volatility, both globally and domestically, has required Brighte to prudently assess its operating costs and we believe we can deliver on our growth objectives in a more efficient manner,” he said.