What Australia’s most connected startup lawyer thinks about the ecosystem

Very few people have seen as many Australian startup journeys up close as Peter Dunne. As a partner at Herbert Smith Freehills advising on capital raisings and as VP Corporate Development and General Counsel at SafetyCulture, Peter sits at the intersection of legal, commercial, and operational complexity that every scaling startup eventually hits.

In this episode, Peter discusses the dual role structure, what founders consistently get wrong in their early capital raises, how the Australian startup ecosystem has matured over the past decade, and what the best founders do differently when navigating legal and governance complexity.

“The best founders I’ve worked with treat legal counsel as a strategic partner, not a cost centre. They want to understand the structure, not just sign the document.”

What Herbert Smith Freehills does for startups

HSF’s startup practice advises on everything from seed rounds and employee share schemes to Series B, C, and beyond, through to IPOs and trade sales. Peter has been the lead counsel on some of the most significant capital raisings in Australian startup history, giving him a perspective on what makes a clean deal and what creates downstream problems.

The SafetyCulture role: why a law firm partner took an in-house role

SafetyCulture is one of Australia’s most valuable privately held software companies. Peter joined as VP Corporate Development and General Counsel while maintaining his HSF partnership, a structure that is unusual and deliberately chosen. He explains what the role involves, why SafetyCulture is a compelling company to be inside, and what he’s learned from operating at the intersection of legal and commercial in a company moving as fast as SafetyCulture.

“Being inside a company at that stage of growth is a completely different education from advising from the outside.”

What founders get wrong in early capital raises

Peter has seen the full range: founders who are well-prepared and founders who waste months on avoidable issues. He shares the patterns he sees repeatedly, from cap table complexity created in early rounds to governance structures that make later institutional raises harder, and what founders should do differently.

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