Nuix software used by the Ukrainian government to defend itself from Russia

This Australian software company has bounced back from a recent court battle and its tools are now being used to investigate Russian war crimes.

Nuix CEO Jonathan Rubinsztein, photographed at their offices in Sydney. Britta Campion / The Australian

Australia has provided Bushmaster armoured vehicles, defence personnel and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine as it defends itself from Russia, as well as a lesser-known resource – investigation software from Sydney software outfit Nuix.

Nuix software has been used by the Ukrainian government over the past year and has proved a crucial tool in a war that Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, said has seen an unprecedented amount of unstructured data created.

Every participant in the war, from large institutions to soldiers on the ground, was a source of unstructured data, he said, and across the first 80 days of the war there was more than 10 years’ worth of data produced compared to peace time.

Nuix’s software takes unstructured data such as images, text and voice data and makes it searchable.

Mr Myroshnychenko said the software had been instrumental in Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression and in particular in investigating war crimes against civilians.

“Recently the International Criminal Court asked us to provide data about Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, and they’re talking about things like rapes and summary executions, including the killing of civilians, and a lot of that information is online one way or another,” Mr Myroshnychenko said in an interview.

“This is so different from any other war before it, because now everything is on Google and the cloud, it’s all online, and so how can we process that data and analyse and search it?

“We can use Nuix to search and find evidence for those war crimes for instance and find people who were involved and establish their identity. There are lots of military applications for this.”

According to Nuix CEO Jonathan Rubinsztein, Ukraine’s use of Nuix software predates the war, including using it to investigate its internal operations for corruption.

“We’ve had a relationship with Ukraine for about four years, and eight months ago I got a call asking whether we would support the cause. And it wasn’t a commercial question, it was a question around ‘we say we stand as a force for good, well what does that mean?’,” he said in an interview.

“So it’s actually an intrinsic question not about money, but about what we think about the world and about sovereignty, and it was a very easy decision, it was a no-brainer.

“This is about protecting democracy. So we gave software away, we installed it really quickly, and I definitely think in terms of usage we are punching above our weight from an Australian perspective. And similarly our country has decided it’s a no-brainer, so I think we’ve been very fortunate to be able to support in a tiny way and have the opportunity to help.”

Ambassador of Ukraine to Australia & New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mr Rubinsztein was appointed chief executive in January 2022 and has led a strategic turnaround for the embattled tech outfit, which he said has 12 to 18 months still to run. Nuix recently beat a court claim by its former chief executive Eddie Sheehy, who alleged the company had not honoured his options in the business when it hit trading boards in December 2020.

Corporate watchdog ASIC meanwhile launched legal action against the company’s board in September, claiming they allowed the business to publish incorrect earnings information, and the company is also facing a shareholder class action over its disclosures.

“I think the business is going incredibly well,” Mr Rubinsztein said. “The market has responded really positively to our most recent results. If you look at the changes in terms of culture, in terms of customers, and in terms of product, it’s been a complicated but exciting journey.

“Some of the growth that you will see and some of the green shoots that the market is seeing is absolutely starting to eventuate and I’ve been really excited with how this year has started. That’s all I can say really and the rest is in the execution.”

Mr Myroshnychenko, who is speaking at Nuix’s XLR8 conference this month in Sydney, said he was thankful to both Nuix and the Australian government for its support through the first year of the war.

“The hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance that has been provided so far has been a great help,” he said. “Last year it was all about defending the country, and this year it is all about winning the war.

“The goal is to win the war, to defend democracy and restore the sovereignty and make sure that other countries are not emboldened by this situation, to go and change borders by force. This is something Australia is very specific about and this is very important for everybody, for every country in the world, and for collective security.”