Go-to-market

Partially scoped — the plan’s most significant open area, named rather than papered over. The strategy now has a shape; the evidence layer underneath it is being built.

What is now decided

• The entry point: Renewable Energy Zone delivery entities (newly formed consortia and network operators), entered through a warm, currently embedded relationship — followed by similar entities across the REZ pipeline. This replaces a cold-start motion with a known first archetype.
• The wedge: the fixed-fee market-entry digital readiness assessment (section 9) — bounded, referrable, and sized for a fund or consortium to commission without committee anxiety.
• The referral thesis: the AU infrastructure-investor community is small and concentrated; one fund relationship is portfolio-wide distribution. This is the structural argument the research sprint must convert into a named map.

The cohort, mapped (research scan, 12 June 2026)

The first-play archetype is not a one-off — it is a production line, and the next units are already visible:

• Live: a recently-closed REZ network operator with a multi-decade operate-and-maintain obligation, construction ramping now, with several gigawatts of generator projects entering the same zone behind it (each one a formation-stage entity with the same day-one obligations)
• Forming now: the New England REZ operator — 6GW across two stages, three consortia shortlisted (anchored by AusNet, Iberdrola, and EDF respectively), commitment deed expected late 2027 and financial close in 2028. All three consortia are prospects today; the winner becomes target entity number two
• Behind that: South West and Illawarra REZ procurements in NSW; five Victorian REZs declared in May 2026 with delivery entities yet to form; Queensland running an incumbent-led model (Powerlink as REZ Delivery Body) where the project SPVs, not the operator, are the formation-stage targets
• The adjacent cohort: 94 grid-forming battery projects in the NEM development pipeline and 24GW of grid-scale storage projected by 2030 — dozens of new operating entities, ratified as the second motion

The scale frame: the market operator’s draft 2026 system plan prices the build-out at roughly $128 billion in annualised grid-scale capital. The venture’s financial model is profitable at five clients with three people (section 8). Against a serviceable cohort plausibly exceeding fifty entities over five years, viability requires single-digit-percentage penetration. The market does not need to be conquered; it needs to yield five clients.

What the research sprint still owes

1. Fund decision-makers and the referral map — the institutional names are known (the two largest local infrastructure managers jointly run $140B+ and a $700M renewable program; a major bank runs a dedicated energy-transition fund); the people and the network overlap are not yet mapped
2. The conversion path — how an embedded contractor relationship and a readiness assessment each convert to a retainer, with the trigger moments named
3. A final competitive sweep — the boutiques found so far sell market advisory and modelling to investors and boards; none found sells an embedded digital-operations function to formation-stage entities. One more pass (managed-service providers) before claiming the gap outright

The honest position on the network (founder session, 12 June 2026)

Beyond the embedded position at the first-play entity, the warm network is unmapped. There are people the founders know without knowing well; there is no pre-existing fund relationship waiting to write a cheque. The founding view, recorded plainly: this is a hustle motion, the venture could fail here, and the team should be under no illusions. The network-mapping exercise below is therefore a genuinely three-founder task, not a formality — and the first agenda item once the founding team is in a room together.

Questions for the founding team (next working session)

• Map the warm network — collectively: which funds, developers, and consortium principals do the three founders actually know today, and at what strength?
• The first-ten list: which ten entities would we approach first if approval/exit resolved tomorrow? (Screened against employment restraints before any approach.)
• What does the embedded-contractor entry at the first-play entity realistically convert into, and on what timeline?
• Who fronts the GTM motion publicly while employment constraints are live — and what can be prepared without crossing the line?

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