Before breaking down the myths about cost, waste, timelines and “10 years!!!”
~ Two basic corrections need to be made so everyone is working off the same factual foundation.
These aren’t opinions — they’re simply the historical and financial realities that often get lost (or ignored) when people compress the story into a slogan.
The timeline is being distorted to suit narratives:
The most common narrative floating around HC is the “10 years!” chant — as if the Hadrian project began in 2015 or 2017.
It didn’t, and if it was, the discussions would we would be having would be still on prototypes!
The engineering journey behind Hadrian dates back to the
mid-2000s, with Mark Pivac filing IP patents and building the first prototype using seed funding. Early prototype development was happening between
2006–2013, with
Hadrian 105 (precursor to Hadrian X) operating in 2014, and the RTO onto the ASX didn’t occur until
December 2015.
~ By the time the average retail investor even knew Fastbrick existed, the project was already over a decade deep into engineering and prototype evolution.
So the correct context here is not “10 years.”
It is a
20+ year engineering and robotics development cycle — which is entirely normal for deep-tech hardware of this complexity. Compressing two decades of development into a decade for the sake of a meme doesn’t make it true. It just distorts the starting point and sets false expectations.
The "$180m" or "200m" Meme is not an actual spending number:
The numbers thrown around on HC are not a measure of
cash spent.
It is a sum of a mixture inputs:
- capital raised (which is funding, not spending)
- R&D rebates (which reduce spending, not increase it)
- grants (which offsets costs, not add to them)
- depreciation and amortisation (non-cash accounting items)
- share based payments (also non cash)
- one-off write downs and impairments
When you strip out the non-cash lines, remove the rebates and grants, and look purely at actual net cash burn, the real development cost attributable to Hadrian, Mantis and underlying IP over the entire 20+ year period is significantly lower than the meme number being repeated.
A robot developed over two decades, across multiple prototype generations, with international certifications, a commercialised version (HX), collaborative builds, and now WaaS deployment — all on a net cash burn that is a fraction of the headline slogan — is not the scandal some posters pretend it is. It’s actually on the lean side by global robotics standards.
This sets the foundation for the rest of the Myth-Buster:
~ actual history, actual cost, actual engineering, actual outputs, and actual context.
Seed Investors & Early Structures (2006 - 2015)
Before FBR ever existed as an ASX listed company, the intellectual property and early prototypes sat inside Fastbrick IP Pty Ltd (originally incorporated as Goldwing Holdings Pty Ltd - 2 February 2006, renamed Fastbrick Ip Pty Ltd)
~ Fastbrick IP Pty Ltd was acquired via the RTO and folded into what is now FBR Limited.
The early period from 2006 - 2015 shows two patterns that get completely erased by the "10 years" battle cry!
- The people around the company were overwhelmingly construction, fabrication and engineering operators
- The shareholder base was already deep and diverse long before the retail market even knew what Fastbricks was.
Early Directors (2006 - 2015)
ASIC records show a consistent pattern: the earliest directors were almost entirely drawn for Perth construction, and engineering circles.
Key directors:
- Mark Pivac - founder/inventor, director 3 Feb 2006 to 25 Oct 2013
- Mike Pivac, post RTO CEO
- Michael Wood - director from 3 Feb 2006 to 11 June 2014
- Dale Alcock (ABN Group) - two seperate stints (2006 and 2007 - 2011); significant WA home builder executive
- John Miniello - joint promotor, financial advisor, developed the corporate structures to protect IP - director 2011
This was never a "tech bros" start-up.
It was a construction / engineering project from day one.
Early Shareholders (pre - RTO)
ASIC records show dozens of seed shareholders from 2006 onwards, with parcels from 25,000 to several million shares. These we real operators with real industry backgrounds.
Building / Construction Industry
These were NOT passive retail shareholders - these are industry operators who clearly believed in the construction - automation concept:
- Dale Alcock (ABN Group) via multiple entities over time
- Dean O'Rourke - senior ABN Group executive
- Horsley Park Holdings Pty Ltd - 1.4 million shares
- Gary Paull ~ (later became the FBR operations/strategic projects manager)
- Tarago Holdings Pty Ltd
- Pinjarra Engineering Pty Ltd
These are real - world operators in civil, fabrication, engineering and construction.
It shows who believed in the concept long before it hit the ASX.
Engineering & Fabrication
The companies that would have been providing machining, welding, fabrication or prototype support:
- Pinjarra Engineering Pty Ltd
- Technology Management & Marketing Pty Ltd
- Murfic Pty Ltd
- Ironcliff Investments Pty Ltd (deregistered in 2017, directors included Dale Alcock & Garry Brown-Neaves)
- Centrix Holdings Pty Ltd
- Jovo Cirkovic & family entities
Corporate / Advisory
A large part of the early shareholder and support wasn't just builders and engineers, there was also a small but important corporate/advisory cluster around Fastbrick IP well before the RTO.
These were the people who understood capital structure, IPO mechanics, corporate law and RTO pathways:
Adam Sierakowski / Blue Saint Pty Ltd
- Long time corporate advisor and substantial holder across multiple ASX microcaps. Blue Saint Pty Ltd appears on the Fastbrick IP shareholder register from 2009 onwards. Sierakowski turns up repeatedly in early small-cap structures and has clear historical ties into the Perth deal-making eco system.
Dale Alcock / ABN Corporate Services Pty Ltd
- Another early-era corporate style entry. Shows up in multiple Fastbrick IP entries across 2006 - 2014 relating to officer appointments, share isssues and structural changes. This is the "back room" corporate machinery that underpins the origin companies compliancy.
Cygnet Capital principals
- Identified directly in the Prospectus as being both corporate advisors and shareholders. They helped structure the RTO, raise capital and manage the transition into FBR Limited. The are corporate finance professional backing the concept long before investors knew it existed.
Why this matters:
When you look at the full early shareholder system, it is crystal clear the project was never a retail hype job.
It was supported by:
~ construction industry operations, fabrication/engineering companies, early prototype manufacturing partners and corporate/legal/finance professional who specialise in taking WA tech to market.
The reality of FBR's spend, Investors, Networks & Development Timeline 2005 - 2025
The peanut gallery has been repeating the same or similar line constantly:
- "$180M and nothing to show for it."
This dismantles that myth - using the company's own accounts, development history and the people that built the network long before Hadrian ever touched a brick.
What follows is the factual timeline, the real capital history, the industry networks, and the actual outputs across the 20 year development arc.
The Pre RTO Reality
Those shouting "10 years" & "No sales" pretend that FBR materialised in 2015 with a bag of cash and no history --- wrong!
For almost 10 year before the RTO, development was funded privately by:
- Founders,
- High-net-worth early believers,
- A tight cluster of technical advisors,
- Seed shareholders who backed the earliest Hadrian concepts
The period produced:
- Foundational IP
- Proof-of-concept systems
- The first engineering architecture of what became Hadrian
None of that spend appears in the post-RTO "$180M" ledger, because it predates the listed entity entirely.
This is the true "seed" period - and it matters, because it will dispel the "no one believed in it" myth.
The RTO (2015) and what actually happened
The RTO did not inject $180M into FBR.
It raised:
- $5.75M at $0.02
- Absorbed a shell with $680k net assets and $16.9M issued capital already on its books (DMY accounts)
Some get confused because RTO accounting doesn't roll into cumulative spend - it resets.
The Actual Post RTO spend - 2016 - 2025
When you strip out:
- R&D rebates
- Government grants
- Non-cash amortisation
- Non-cash impairments
- Accounting inflations
- Financing movements
~~ you get the only number that matters:
Net cash deployed into operations and development = circa $135 million over 9 years.
Not $180M, not $200M and not any new number is invented tomorrow.
**The ledger is real, the myth isn't.
What that spend produced
Over the period 2015 - 2025, the cash invested produced:
- Six generations of Hadrian
- Fastbrick Wall System
- The shuttle system
- Globally unique brick handling platform
- Commercial scale construction builds
- International demonstration program
- Residential builds (homes, apartments - including double story)
- Certifications, patents, trademarks, compliance pathway
- Full operational automation stack
- Software, robotics, mechatronics & materials networks
This isn't a company that build or did nothing!
FBR has built an entire industry category
Why the spend isn't linear (and never can be)
Robotics R&D is nonlinear:
- periods of intense capital spend - prototype phases
- periods of reduced burn between generations - between generations
- funding cycles to major engineering releases
This is exactly what you see:
- H105 - H1 & H2 - higher burn
- H3 / H4 / HX - cash burn + rebates taper
- Shifts on commercialisation with capex to customers, not FBR
Spend and Development curves match
R&D rebates why they are stripped out:
The cashflow statements clearly show:
- circa $40m + returned via R&D rebates and grants
These returns reduce true net spend.
It isn't optional to exclude it - ASIC, auditors, the ATO require it -- including rebates in total spend is counting refunded money as money spent.
** Yes, every dollar that came in the door was ultimately spent.
** No, you don't get to call refunds as spend.
** Try that with an ATO audit and see how long you stay out of prison!
Capex, tooling & prototype costs:
Prototype robotics do not behave like commercial equipment:
- they are expensive, evolve rapidly and are replaced at the tech progresses
- mush of the spend is front loaded into engineering
H105 - H1 - H2 - H3 - H4 - HX is not "one robot" - it is an evolving platform
This is how every frontier tech company operates.
The part negative posters never include: what it replaces
FBR tech replaces:
- Bricklaying labour, inefficient construction cycles, waste, manual handling, site delays & multi-trade coordination bottlenecks
Builders aren't buying a robot
They are buying:
- time compression, labour substitution, standardisation, predicability, automation & cost certainty
This is why sales come after
certification & builder integration, not after demonstrations.
The Early Networks - industry believed from the day 1:
The seed investors believed, one being Gary Paull
Early stage believer and seed investor:
- was a shareholder of Goldwing Nominees, the key seed era entity (renamed Fastbricks IP prior to the RTO)
- he held 100,000 ordinary class shares early - before the public ever heard of FBR
- he was part of the early engineering / operations advisory networks around the first prototypes / H105 / H1 & H2
Operational Insider - FBR 2015 - 2021:
Positions held:
- operations manager, strategic initiatives & project manager
- ran operations, coordinated engineering programs, lived the Hadrian scale up, stayed the journey through seed investor - Hadrian X
- worked directly inside the commercialisation progress.
Gary's move into high-tech manufacturing and construction technology leadership after FBR isn't a coincidence - it reinforces the point that the people involved with Hadrian came from, and continued into, industries where automation, precision systems and commercialisation skillsets actually matter. It shows the early network wasn't built on :mates" or dreamer, but on. operators whose careers naturally aligns with advanced construction tech.
Today he is COO of Sipod Global, a next generation construction tech company.
What the impairment really shows:
The $52M impairment that terrified the trolls basically because they understand accounting.
The simplicity of it:
- you cannot impair something that you never built.
- you cannot amortise something that never existed,
- you cannot write down a fantasy
The impairment proves
- the early generations of Hadrian were real physical assets
- Tens of millions were invested into engineering prototypes
- those prototype become obsolete as as Hadrian evolved
Impairments do not at to net spend, they are a non-cash adjustment.
The do prove one thing:
- FBR built multiple generations of real world robotics systems - so advanced that earlier versions became redundant.
- quite the opposite of having nothing to show for the money spent!
The reality behind why they haven't sold a robot yet.
One of the trolls favourites:
- "If the tech was real, builders would be lining up."
Reality - the documented reality - tells a completely different story.
Covid hit at the exact moment FBR was ready to enter the market.
In early 2020, FBR was preparing:
- Dayton display home build,
- US demonstration tour
- European pilot program
- builder engagements through Fastbricks Australia JV
Then COVID arrived and shut the world down
ASX announcements showed what happened:
- International deployment plans were frozen
- Australian residential construction market collapsed
- FBR implemented emergency cost reductions
- Fastbrick Australia JV was dissolved
This wasn't an FBR specific issue - the entire global construction sector froze.
Builders don't buy robotics off brochures, they adopt after:
- demonstrations, repeated performance validation, integration into job scheduling, costings and compliance reviews.
Covid eliminated every mechanism required for adoption.
For nearly two years, FBR was physically unable to show the machine to the world.
The engineering truth - FBR could not sell a robot until H4
- H105 / H1 / H2 - prototype generations, essential for engineering & demonstrations
H3 / HX - was a major engineering leap, but it was never a commercial product
It exists to prove the technology in real building environments and feed data into H4.
~ certified only for limited use operations in the US
~ operates under a renewable exemption
~ legal only for WaaS style deployments and demonstrations, not as a full commercial unit
H3 / HX is not saleable:
~ it does not meet long term durability, uptime, or full commercial rollout
~ it does not meet global certification pathways
~ it sits on an Australia spec truck base, it cannot be road registered in the US, and therefor requires to be moved between sites on a low loader trailer
**This is a motor vehicle compliance issue only, not a robotic limitation.
H4 - the first saleable Hadrian
H4 Introduced:
- Full commercial grade redesigns, global certification pathways, uptime + durability targets, modern safety systems, structural stability, FAT successfully completed and is manufacturable at scale - the first machine available to sell
FBR hasn’t sold a robot yet because the first commercial robot only just existed.
Everything before H4 was prototype, development, regulatory testing, WaaS, or demonstration.
Now that H4 is real, passed FAT, the sales cycle begins for the first time.
