Yes staff expenses are a concern. However if this was my...

Yes staff expenses are a concern. However if this was my business, I'd also consider:

1. there is basically zero churn for government contracts. From memory Sensen indicated zero churn (someone can correct me if wrong.)

2. initial contracts (particularly with new councils , countries) are an excellent gateway to more contracts. As trust is built from successful use cases. We've seen this behaviour repeated many times over the past few years.

Given 1 and 2, a decent case can be made to raise a chunk of money and really scale the opportunities. Sure, you'll burn through cash quickly, but with almost zero churn and and high ARR contracts, you'll pay back this money over a short space of time and also provide yourself with a moat against other companies by grabbing as much market share as possible. These initial contracts can facilitate further growth without the need for as much future investment.

As long as Sensen can explain this well to investors, I think they can get shareholder support for this strategy.

The alternative is to scale slower, miss out on more contracts and let other competitors get a foothold. Look what happened to the mobile driver trial - the company (acusensus) that won the nsw contract, won qld as well. It is supremely important to get in first and deliver well. If other states / councils want this same product, acusensus is in the box seat as it is already delivering successful results in nsw and qld. Harder to crack that product now in Australia for Sensen.

Get in early and lock it in!