Will Crowe
Co-founder and CEO at HEO
Dr Will Crowe is co-founder and CEO of HEO, a Sydney company that photographs satellites and other objects in orbit for governments, defence agencies and satellite operators. Crowe founded HEO in 2016 while completing a PhD in astrodynamics at UNSW, where his research examined the dynamics of spacecraft swarms around asteroids. HEO reports more than 4,500 completed non-Earth imaging missions and more than 800 unique space objects imaged. In September 2026, Forbes Australia reported that HEO holds a five-year contract worth more than US$100 million, and that the NRF invested $10 million in HEO's $37 million Series B.
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of Building with Atoms and Bits: 5 Founders Making Hard Tech in Australia | HEO, Alloy, Vexev, Zabidou, Antares you want.
- 2:21 Founder intros: HEO, Alloy, Vexev, Zabidou Antares
- 5:53 Why humanoid robots are still 5+ years away
- 7:50 HEO's natural language satellite tasking "vibe tasking" robots
- 12:35 Hiring in deep tech: why PhDs aren't a requirement anymore
- 14:27 Finding training young talent in robotics
- 20:52 US vs Australia: aerospace talent, poaching the Golden Dome effect
- 27:50 Why US investors now believe in Australian hard tech
- 30:54 "Competition is for losers": building what no one else has
- 32:43 How fundraising for hard tech has changed in 5 years
- 41:05 Zabidou's brutal pre-seed deadline capital efficiency
Connections
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correction Updated 25 September 2026
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