BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA, 24th January, 2021 – Serial entrepreneur Bevan Slattery today
unveiled Soda, his new launchpad for investments in Australia’s digital and sustainable
future.
The launch of Soda formalises the group’s strategic vision to focus on innovation and
investment in three core pillars critical for Australia’s future. The first pillar is the SODA
Infrastructure which is focused on the development and investment in digital infrastructure
that is strategic to Australia’s prosperity and resiliency at home and in the Indo-Pacific
region. Investments already include:
- Indigo – 9,000km Sydney to Singapore undersea cable Indigo with Google, Telstra, Singtel, Superloop and AARNET
- Oman Australia Cable – 10,000km undersea cable connecting Perth to Muscat, Oman creating Australia’s first direct undersea connection to EMEA
- HyperOne – Australia’s new $1.5B 20,000km digital fibre backbone right across Australia connecting all major digital hubs as well as having over 2,000 local onramps in regional and remote Australia
Slattery said: “I’ve always been drawn to solving some of the big problems in Australia’s
digital infrastructure, having built data centres, submarine cables, competitive fibre networks,
cloud interconnection platforms, and what I can see is that demand for these assets
continues to grow exponentially. In fact, COVID-19 has accelerated demand even further,”
he said.
“We don’t just need to catch up, we need to get ahead of the curve to make sure we are
ready for this continued growth.”
Mr Slattery has founded some of Australia’s most successful digital infrastructure
companies, including NEXTDC Megaport, Superloop, Asia Pacific Data Centre Trust and
PIPE Networks. He has listed five companies on the ASX, collectively representing over
$10b in market capitalisation, around 1,000 active jobs with thousands more committed jobs
with his new project, HyperOne.
The second pillar is Soda Ventures will seek to leverage the team’s innovation and startup
expertise as well as thought leadership and a deep global network, to invest and support
Australian entrepreneurs and high growth businesses looking to execute a global growth
strategy.
“Having built a series of startups over the past few decades, we are fortunate to have plenty
of experience in funding, building and scaling technology businesses. Soda Ventures is a
platform in which we can help fuel the growth for some of Australia’s amazing
entrepreneurs.”
This strategy includes a significant stake in FiberSense, an Australian based company which
has developed a revolutionary vibration detection and ranging sensor technology with global
applications and a variety of other public and private investments.
The third pillar is sustainability. Slattery has always been passionate about using technology
to create a more sustainable future. The first item on the list, an ambitious project to
establish one million square metres of environmentally tolerant reef. Mr Slattery has been
working quietly with universities on this project and hopes to have the research and
development component completed within the next few years.
Over the past decade Slattery’s company Biopixel has been building the largest online high
resolution digital video library of the Great Barrier Reef and provides content for companies
such as BBC, National Geographic, Amazon, Netflix and Discovery.
“One of the most valuable things about Biopixel is that we are providing some of the most
extraordinary imagery to story-tellers who can help share what is happening on the Great
Barrier Reef. However, what is less well understood is that Bipixel documents natural history
over time and as a result we are able see and study first-hand the effects of climate change
on the reef through our vast library over the years which helps us better understand what
areas are more or less impacted and why.
Slattery’s passion for the reef grew from spending much of his childhood on the reefs around
the Capricorn group of islands with school friend and Biopixel CEO, marine biologist and
Emmy award winning cinematographer, Richard Fitzpatrick.
“It’s vital that we do everything we can to secure a future for the Great Barrier Reef, from
both an environmental and economic perspective. We also need to use science, innovation
and green industrialisation on a scale not seen before.” he said.
Overall, Soda is aiming to be carbon neutral-across the entire group by the end of 2023,
through direct investment in renewable infrastructure with an initial megawatt solar array
planned in the second half of 2022.
“I believe if you talk-the-talk, you need to walk-the-walk rather than greenwash through some
dubious “carbon credits”. I want to make sure we are directly investing in renewable energy
infrastructure to reach zero net emissions in the next two years.”
For more information, check out the soda.co website.
Media Enquiries
Hon Kate Jones
kate.jones@capitalb.net
0475 961 199
About Soda
Soda is a launchpad for Australia’s technological and environmental future. Founder Bevan
Slattery and his team have established a number of successful ASX listed businesses,
including NEXTDC, Megaport and Superloop and are now working to nurture the next
generation of leading tech businesses, including HyperOne, Sub.Co, Biopixel and
Cloudscene.
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