Breaker Secures AU$1.2M Australian Government Grant to Advance Voice-Controlled Robot AI Agents

INDUSTRY GROWTH PROGRAM

Breaker has been awarded a AU$1.2 million grant under the Australian Government's Industry Growth Program (IGP) Commercialisation and Growth stream. The funding will accelerate the development and commercialisation of Avalon, a platform-agnostic AI robotic orchestration platform that enables operators to command robot teams using natural language. Breaker and its investors are matching this investment dollar-for-dollar, bringing total project funding to AU$2.4 million to develop and commercialise sovereign Australian capability across allied defence markets.

Today's robots demand constant human oversight, bulky equipment and complex networks, making them difficult to scale in real operations. Breaker’s mission is to change that. Avalon installs directly onto a robot's existing onboard compute and works alongside all existing autonomy, sensors, and software. Operators simply brief the robot team as they would any human teammate. The agents self-organise, make decisions, and execute, without a laptop, tablet, controller, or cloud connection. When communications are jammed or denied, the system keeps operating autonomously at the edge.

"The mission can’t wait, so neither will we. This grant means faster development, protected Australian IP, and sovereign capability in the hands of Australian and allied forces sooner." → Matthew Buffa, Co-CEO, Breaker

‍

COMMERCIALISING SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY ACROSS ALLIED NATIONS

Australia's defence spending is on a path to reach 2.3% of GDP over the next decade, one of the most significant peacetime increases in the nation's history. The shift reflects a rapidly changing Indo-Pacific security environment, where the proliferation of autonomous systems on battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East has changed what modern militaries need: not just more platforms, but smarter software to coordinate them at scale.

AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, places advanced autonomy and AI at the heart of allied capability development under Pillar II. Australia's role in that partnership depends on its ability to develop and export genuine sovereign capability: technology built here, deployable across allied forces.

Breaker is already operating across AUKUS partner nations: founded in Sydney, NSW; co-headquartered in Austin, Texas; and this project will support a strategic expansion into the UK as a gateway to European allied markets. This will prove Avalon's capability at scale, protect Australian IP in key export markets, and accelerate business development across all three.

Australia's deep tech ecosystem is rising to meet the moment. Backed by institutions like Main Sequence and Bessemer Venture Partners, Australian defence companies like Breaker are moving from buyers of overseas technology to exporters of it. The IGP program is part of the ecosystem that makes that possible.

‍

VALIDATED IN THE FIELD

Breaker has demonstrated its technology with some of the world's most operationally sophisticated customers including US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), where evaluators remarked that a SOF operator with no prior experience in AI or autonomy could operate the system effectively with minimal training.

"You simply talk to it as if it were someone on your team. NONE of the other AI or verbal controlled systems can do that." → USSOCOM (2025)

That validation has opened doors at the highest levels of US defence. Breaker has been selected as one of 25 companies to participate in Crucible 2, the Pentagon's CDAO-led Swarm Forge initiative, scheduled for June 2026 at Camp Blanding, Florida, alongside major US prime contractors. Swarm Forge is designed to accelerate the discovery, validation, and fielding of AI-enabled robotic warfare, with validated swarm packages ready for transition to operational units in 90 days or less - exactly the kind of rapid pathway Breaker is utilising to deliver advanced capabilities into operator’s hands.

This milestone reflects a growing recognition that Breaker's technology is integral to the future of human-machine teaming across Australian and allied forces.

"We are incredibly proud to be working alongside the Australian Government on one of the most important capability challenges facing the ADF. The Industry Growth Program has been an outstanding partner in this journey, and we look forward to continuing that collaboration as we bring this technology to Australian and allied forces." → Michael Irwin, Co-CEO, Breaker