Space Hub Connect: Moving from Seed to Scale with Michael Irwin, Co-founder of Breaker Industries

Michael Irwin from Breaker Industries on finding your market wedge, scaling embodied AI globally, and building the kind of team culture that attracts elite talent.

Michael Irwin walks through how Breaker Industries went from identifying a specific market gap to closing a $9M seed round and scaling autonomous systems to global customers. This fireside chat cuts into the practical mechanics of building deep tech in Australia, from navigating supply chain constraints to earning operator trust in high-stakes environments where AI agents need to perform safely and reliably. You'll hear directly about team building philosophy, how to maintain momentum through growth phases, and what it actually takes to attract elite talent to hard problems. The format leaves room for real conversation rather than a polished pitch, so expect specifics on the blocks Breaker hit early on and how they moved past them. If you're a founder, engineer, or ecosystem leader currently scaling or searching for your market wedge, this is where you get beyond generalisations into how one of Australia's fastest-growing AI companies is doing it.