A startup led by the face of a multimillion-impression social media campaign against Labor’s capital gains tax changes did not extend equity to the vast majority of its workforce, meaning they did not benefit from a $180 million sale to Domain.
Frank Greeff, the Sydney entrepreneur who sold real estate marketing platform Realbase to Domain Holdings in April 2022, has emerged as one of the loudest tech sector voices opposing the Albanese government’s overhaul of capital gains tax.
Together with LoanOptions.ai founder Julian Fayad, a former Clive Palmer candidate, Greeff has driven a viral campaign featuring AI-generated images of the prime minister installed as a “co-founder” with “47 per cent equity” in Australian businesses.
In one widely shared post, Greeff wrote that “every Australian founder just got a new founder with 47 per cent equity”. He has argued the changes, which from July 1, 2027, replace the existing 50 per cent capital gains discount with cost-base indexation and a minimum 30 per cent rate, will damage the employee equity schemes that founders use to attract talent in lieu of high salaries.
At a doorstop press conference alongside shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, Greeff made the case that schemes of this kind were a critical pathway for young Australians shut out of the property market. “There are moments which are actually stepping stones,” he said. “Having a side-hustle, joining a startup that can have employee equity schemes – all these moments can help them build and ultimately get that fairness.”
Tax specialists have called the 47 per cent figure “misleading”, noting it represents the top marginal rate only some founders would face.
But Greeff’s dealings at Realbase tell a different story. Realbase had more than 350 employees by the time of its sale, but according to public interviews given by Greeff, the equity pool was confined to about 10 stakeholders – the founders and a small group of early employees.
That ratio is well outside Australian start-up norms. Venture-backed tech companies typically extend equity grants to a broad cross-section of staff, both as industry practice and to qualify for federal tax concessions introduced in 2015 specifically to encourage wide employee ownership. Comparable circumstances have routinely seen hundreds of employees share in proceeds, not single digits.
But at Realbase, the overwhelming majority of staff did not hold equity in the business at the time of the Domain sale.
At Realbase, by Greeff’s own account, the headcount swelled overnight from 40 to 400 following the merger with rival Campaigntrack in 2020. By the time the Domain deal closed, the vast majority of those staff had no financial stake in the outcome.
Greeff has described the year-long sale process as a closely held secret kept from his more than 350 employees, who learned of it only at completion.
His brothers Jacques and Ken, who co-founded the business with him in 2012, also shared in the proceeds, which propelled the trio onto the Financial Review Young Rich List.
In response to questions, Greeff said “several of our early employees held equity directly”, without specifying how many of the 350-plus staff held shares at the time of the sale.
“In 2020 the business merged with a company many times our size, and from that point Realbase had a board and a broad shareholder base, so equity decisions sat with that board rather than with me alone,” he said. Greeff remained chief executive of the merged business through to the Domain sale.
At his current venture Kinso, Greeff said, “of our 11 people, 10 hold equity or options in the business. That was a deliberate decision, and one I am proud of.”
Domain paid $180 million upfront for Realbase plus up to $50 million in contingent earnouts tied to “stretch” targets requiring an approximately fivefold lift in Realbase earnings by financial year 2026. The stretch targets have not been met, and in 2024 results, Domain reported weaker revenue in the part of the business that houses Realbase and it pointed to weakness in Realbase’s social media product.
Greeff stepped down as Realbase chief executive in July 2023, about 15 months after the deal completed. He now runs Kinso with brother Jacques – an AI tool aimed at consolidating notifications from Slack, Gmail, WhatsApp and LinkedIn into a single inbox.
The wider Domain business has also changed hands. US property data giant CoStar Group completed its $1.92 billion takeover of Domain in August 2025. Nine Entertainment, publisher of this masthead, was Domain Holdings’ majority shareholder until the takeover.
Greeff was contacted with detailed questions about the Realbase equity arrangements, the $40 million negotiated uplift to the headline price, and tax specialists’ “misleading” characterisation of the 47 per cent figure central to his campaign. In a written response, he did not directly address those points.
Greeff said he was “proud” of Realbase, which had been sold “through a competitive process, and the price reflected what the market valued it at”.
He defended the broader campaign as advocacy “for people who have started a business and want to grow it”, and said equity in a growing business was “one of the few real ways left to build wealth” for young Australians locked out of property ownership. The proposed CGT changes, he said, put that path at risk.
The contrast between Greeff’s current advocacy and his prior conduct has not been lost on observers in start-up circles, where the design of employee share schemes is treated as a serious craft.
Eucalyptus co-founder Tim Doyle, whose Sydney-based telehealth business was acquired by US-listed Hims & Hers in February in a $1.6 billion deal that will allow several hundred Eucalyptus staff to share in more than $300 million of payouts, said the focus of the tax debate was misplaced.
“In most cases … a founder outcome is binary,” Doyle said. “I don’t really buy the idea that tax treatment is what defines whether or not people are willing to take on that risk. What is actually in reality a much more common story is a company does well, and employees who are actual key drivers of that end up making very little or nothing, or end up in a situation where their options are underwater.”
Doyle said the real role of employee share schemes was to draw early career talent away from large employers into high-risk start-ups. He described the broader campaign against the changes as a “low information debate”, driven in part by founders unfamiliar with government processes responding in a “naive way”.
The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.
David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.
