The Morgo Podcast: Recent Episodes
Morgo
Jenny Morel interviews entrepreneurs building tech & other high growth companies going global from New Zealand and Australia.
Growing businesses is hard work. Everyone has setbacks. The entrepreneurs who grow companies are a relentlessly positive group of people: they are going to succeed no matter what. They are risk-takers, they work crazy hours, they are obsessive. Much of the time they are embattled. Every now and then there is a wonderful breakthrough. These podcasts share with you some of these stories - the excitement and the challenges of building businesses. And they show the wonderful variety of exciting new businesses being built from Australia and New Zealand.
At the MORGO annual retreats, these people building tech and other high growth companies going global get together to share experiences and learn from each other. They’re an annual re-charge. See www.morgo.co.
VXT automates AI notes from calls and meetings for lawyers. When Luke & co-founder Lucy Turner learned how much time lawyers spent recording time and notes from calls, they set out to solve the problem by building a phone system that integrates with legal software. Luke talks about getting customers on board, expanding offshore, the skills he brings to the role and the need to choose a co-founder carefully. VXT now has ARR of $10M and is growing at 10% per month.
www.vxt.co.nz
Mars Bioimaging has developed a mobile colour CT for high quality scanning of hands and wrists. It has FDA approval in the US and is selling to the orthopaedic & emergency markets in the US & NZ. Ojas became CEO to focus on the commercialisation of the product and lead the push into the market. Key lessons: find your customer (a large market) and only then start throwing money at it. You'll fail a lot more than you win – you need to push through.
www.marsbioimaging.com
Tait Communications is a provider of critical communications for public safety, emergency services utilities & enterprises. Yoram became CEO in 2021 and has grown the company from 450 people to over 1300. Plans include a new state of the art manufacturing facility & a Centre of Excellence with over 10 labs. Yoram says the key to the growth is having a strong business case for every R&D project or acquisition and making sure you have the right people.
www.taitcommunications.com
OpenStar is nuclear fusion company. In this podcast Ratu talks about the pathway of building the business: the science, the people, the funding. The core technology is a levitated dipole containing a plasma at temperatures of millions of degrees, which OpenStar demonstrated recently. Now OpenStar plans larger machines and temperatures of millions of degrees to make medical isotopes and electricity. This requires a team of very smart and very driven people.
www.openstar.tech
Silverstripe partners with governments and enterprises to create the digital infrastructure that underpins everyday life in Aotearoa and beyond. Sigurd shares its journey from small startup to a mature company of 70 people whose open-source CMS powers over 200 NZ government websites. Their work is aiding digital transformation internationally too, as in South Africa where they delivered a single digital front door to government services in just 10 weeks.
www.silverstripe.com
Lutra's purpose is to protect the environment and the people within in through excellence in management of water and wastewater. Its team are engineers, modelers, data management specialists, content producers, and project managers and its clients are in New Zealand, Australia and other countries. Quentin talks about coming into the CEO role – learning to shift quickly across different areas and the importance of purpose and focus.
www.lutra.com
Aspeq is in the business of providing secure exams and assessments for regulators. It started in the aviation sector: assessing pilots and aircraft engineers in New Zealand. Now it is in 25 countries with test centres, software to book & run exams and a secure browser that allows access only to agreed resources. Aspeq now has 50 people and many more contractors. Hamish talks about his role in expanding the business with clients in all time zones and a long sales cycle.
www.aspeq.com
Atomic.io delivers secure, in-app messaging that helps companies reach customers where engagement is highest, inside their web and mobile apps. By replacing fragmented channels like SMS, calls, and email, Atomic.io enables more trusted, timely, and seamless customer experiences. Jo is driven by scaling category-defining companies and leads Atomic.io in transforming how enterprises connect with customers in the moments that matter most.
www.atomic.io
Sydekick provides cyber security for small business. Phishing emails and voice calls have become more sophisticated and everyone needs to be protected. Phil Howie, CTO, started the company. Kendra was an early investor. Then she and Phil agreed to build the company together with Kendra becoming CEO. They work through partnerships with service providers in New Zealand, Australia & the UK. Kendra talks about lessons learned in this business and in a previous one she built.
www.sydekick.co
Lisa is the CEO of Recollect, a cloud-based platform for managing and accessing archives. With some large customers in New Zealand and Australia, Recollect is now focused on expansion in the US and Canada. Lisa says she's been surprised by how much the customers appreciate the customer service Recollect offers. And she talks about the continuing need to focus to get the most out of the resources they have and the need to have a trusted circle of advisors.
www.recollectcms.com
The Humble Bee Bio journey began with rare bees, whose genomes it sequenced to uncover novel molecules, including one with a rare and potent property — elastin stimulation. This molecule will soon be available as a hero ingredient for formulation of anti-ageing products. Bridgit is not the founder, she joined to build the business. She says the skills of leading a company are transferable but you need to learn about a new sector and build a network for it.
www.humblebee.co.nz
Heartlab provides a cloud-based cardiology imaging system that helps cardiologists review and report on scans of the heart. Will talks about how they started using AI to improve the reading of ECGs but discovered that the real issue wasn't better diagnosis, it was access to the images at any time on any platform. Heartlab has customers in Australia, NZ, the US and Canada. Will enjoys learning what issues the customers have and building product to solve them.
www.heartlab.com
Levno is an intelligent dairy farm monitoring business – remotely monitoring milk, water, fuel, feed silos and providing information to the farmers and suppliers. It is expanding from a strong base in New Zealand into the UK, Ireland and Australia. Oscar talks about how they've needed to adapt their offshore strategy to establish credibility in new markets and keeping the culture in the company as it grows. And the importance of learning from your peers.
www.levno.com
Virscient designs wireless chips for semiconductor companies and integrates wireless technologies into products for other companies. Dean started the company consulting to a semiconductor company he had worked for and gradually added more engineers. Virscient now employs over 50 people. Dean talks about what he’s learned along the way, especially in building the commercial side of the business where he’s been greatly helped by his executive Chair, Mark Ingle.
www.virscient.com
Exaba is building a secure, sovereign & highly scalable data protection platform for service providers, data centres, & large enterprises. Peter and Stuart Inglis (CTO) saw the opportunity to give customers their own trusted local alternative to the public cloud. By merging with digital solutions company LuminateOne, Exaba expanded to deliver a complete wrap-around service. Backed from the outset by Guy Haddleton as an investor and advisor, the team is ready to scale globally.
www.exaba.com
Matt is Co-founder, President, and Chief Product Officer of Projectworks, a platform for consulting firms to better manage projects, people and financials. Their niche is boutique management consultants, software services, engineers, and architects. Matt talks about building a product users love and the journey of scaling it to now being used by over 500 consultancies globally and the importance of the team on the journey with you.
www.projectworks.com
Modica is a CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) delivering messaging supported by enterprise analytics, security & world-class support. You choose the channel - voice, video, messaging, chatbots or WhatsApp - and Modica makes it work. Stuart talks about building from a scrappy start-up, through acquisitions, winning in Australia, to a $50M turnover company with operations around the world.
www.modicagroup.com
It’s rare to have 3 co-founders still running the company as co-CEOs 8 years after it started and great to hear how they interact! Sharesies mission is to provide financial empowerment to everyone. Sonya, Leighton & Brooke talk about growing Sharesies to 800,000 users & $9 bn under management. 200 people work in the company, which now helps people manage wealth, connects companies to shareholders, and has technology it will productise.
www.sharesies.nz
Desiree shares how she developed Flowpresso, a Class II medical device designed to reset the body through lymphatic therapy. Using compression, heat, and pressure, it helps clear cellular waste, improve sleep, reduce stress, and support recovery—especially after illness. Now used in clinics across the US, NZ, Australia, India, Canada, and the UK. A great story of developing a product to fit a market Desiree knows well.
www.flowpressousa.com
Building Engineering & Design Co (BEDC) takes architectural plans and turns them into structural plans using a human-augmented, patented AI platform. In just 5 years the company has grown to over 450 people: a large design team in the Philippines and people in market in NZ, Australia, the US, Canada and the UK. Ben talks about successful market entry using a channel partner. His advice on how to scale fast: hire great people and retain them.
www.bedc.ai
Evnex makes charging solutions for electric vehicles. Ed talks about spending a year developing their first electric charger, then working out how to turn a technology into a company: better understanding the market, learning how to raise money and how to hire people. Now there are a lot of competitors & a slowdown in the market so he needs to think deeply about how to win. Ed’s advice for success: play to win – narrow your focus to something at which you can be the best.
www.evnex.com
Worldwide fog disrupts 620M passengers & costs airlines billions in rescheduling fees every year. Emily started Pyper Vision to disperse fog at airports but then realised that the biggest problem is vague forecasting of fog leading to cancelling far more flights than necessary. Pyper Vision switched to fog forecasting using a deep learning model. They can now give a fog forecast for every minute of the next 4 hours. Their first airline customer goes live this month.
www.pypervision.com
Litmaps is a Literature Discovery Tool that helps researchers to find vital scientific papers they didn't know about and to tell a better research story. A Litmap is a picture that shows the relationship between a collection of scientific papers based on their citations, popularity and currency. Litmaps is now used by researchers, students and professionals across 150 countries. Axton talks about what he’s learned in starting the business and in moving from CTO to CEO.
www.litmaps.com
This podcast celebrates a hero of the NZ tech sector: Ian founded Orion Health over 30 years ago - the first company in Auckland to have internet! Orion builds products that link healthcare systems together. It has spun off a number of products along the way. Orion - the 2 major products and most of the staff – is being sold for over $200M, while 3 younger products and 100 people are being spun off into McCrae Tech. Ian now calls himself Mr Odd Job Man.
www.orionhealth.com
Max & co-founder Sebastian Wieczorek started space tech company Zenno to solve the problem of running out of fuel in space. Their solution is to use superconducting magnets fuelled by solar power to provide fully autonomous positioning of satellites. After 7 years work, they have solved the problems of operating their technology in space. (And have now announced their first commercial partnerships.) When asked what part of this was hard, Max replies “all of it”.
www.zenno.space
The Clinician offers a digital platform that redefines healthcare by shifting funding from service delivery to measurable outcomes. Founded by Ron, a former neurosurgeon, and Tam, with experience in pharma and business intelligence, the company blends medical, technical and commercial expertise. They've scaled the business to over 50 employees globally with clients in 7 countries, leading a transformation in healthcare funding and delivery.
www.theclinician.com
The Dodson Group is a precision manufacturer, #1 in the automotive niche of high horsepower transmission upgrades. It has diversified into other markets such as aerospace, agriculture, marine, & green energy by acquiring its largest local suppliers. David took over as CEO of Dodson five years ago and has grown the business from 17 to 75 people. David is a former automotive engineer and investment banker who wanted to build a business, and Dodson was a perfect fit.
www.dodsongroup.com
Kitea Health makes a device to help manage hydrocephalus: a condition where fluid accumulates in the brain, managed by inserting a shunt to drain the fluid. Kitea Health makes a tiny implantable device to measure pressure in the brain at home, letting you know if the shunt has failed and you need medical help. Simon brings an extensive background in developing medical devices to this new venture. His key advice: build the team!
www.kiteahealth.com
Hot Lime Labs is putting the green back in greenhouses – supplying yield-boosting CO2 from biomass for large glasshouses. With $9 million of angel funding they’ve scaled from the lab to a demo delivering CO2 into a 11 hectare glasshouse. It’s now ready to take to the world – which will need lots more funding. Tijs talks about how the needs of the business change as you grow, with specialists replacing generalists, and how ready people are to help if you ask.
www.hotlimelabs.co.nz
Kry10 is a building a secure operating system to enable critical infrastructure such as electrical grids and medical devices to transition to a future where they are intelligent, cloud connected and adaptive driven. This can replace, or be placed in front of, old software built on operating systems from the 1990s that are vulnerable to viruses. It was founded by Boyd and other ex-Microsoft/Amazon execs to commercialise cybersecurity technology spun-out from an advanced research group.
www.kry10.com
Kry10 is a building a secure operating system to enable critical infrastructure such as electrical grids and medical devices to transition to a future where they are intelligent, cloud connected and adaptive driven. This can replace, or be placed in front of, old software built on operating systems from the 1990s that are vulnerable to viruses. It was founded by Boyd and other ex-Microsoft/Amazon execs to commercialize cybersecurity technology spun-out from an advanced research group.
www.kry10.com
Wellumio is developing a highly portable head MRI scanner for use in emergency departments - providing a scan in the “golden hour” after stroke when treatment is most effective. Shieak & Sergei talk about how great it was to find each other, their journey to dealing with investors rather than grant reviewers, and now getting their product to market. They’d like to encourage more academics to choose entrepreneurship!
www.wellumio.com
OneReg is about effortless compliance and smoother operations for aerospace. When Covid struck, Clinton lost his job and decided it was time to start a business. He and his two co-founders had more than 100 years experience in compliance, digital innovation and aviation. Their initial customers are airports, which are very complex environments – they have the biggest need for what OneReg does. They now have most of the airports in NZ as customers and are moving offshore.
www.onereg.com
Eight360 has built an immersive VR motion simulator: a ball that you sit inside that can do full 360 flips and spins. This is fun. It’s also very serious: it delivers a more immersive and visceral experience, leading to better engagement and learning outcomes whether you are manoeuvring heavy equipment in unusual situations, practicing your off-road handling skills to avoid a rollover, or learning to land an aircraft in a windy location.
www.eight360.com
Danny, CEO & co-founder, of Basis explains how they have developed a home electricity smart panel that allows you to manage your power usage in real time and gives data to the electricity companies so they can offer smart-use plans to reduce cost. They are driven by delivering an enduring positive impact for the planet. The first smart panels will be delivered soon – you can pre-order on their website.
www.wearebasis.com
Three founders who had worked together before started Comply Pro to meet needs for safety in the construction industry and food safety in hospitality, building a SaaS company that can be rapidly scaled around the world. Now ComplyPro manages 18.4 million records and protects 200,000 sites globally, with over 4,000 clients and 45,000 users. Michael talks about encouraging everyone to act like owners, think like founders, and innovate like entrepreneurs.
www.complypro.io
Hadleigh’s maritime background gave him the insight that started SwipedOn: on a super yacht everything was electronic except the dog-eared visitors’ book. With no tech or business background, he set out to build a tablet sign in. Today Hadleigh employs over 50 people and SwipedOn is used in over 9,000 workplaces. The company has gone through ownership changes: it sold to an AIM listed company and became 95% of its recurring revenue, and it is now owned by a PE firm.
www.swipedon.com
RedSeed trains retail staff: it provides courses, coaching & a customisable LMS with a library of easy-to-implement course content and learning pathways that lets its customers customise the training. Its coaching is a key differentiator. Anya talks about growing the company from in-person training to fully online resources. She’s now looking at flipping from sales led to product led growth. It’s a great story of adapting the company to the market over time.
www.redseed.com
Starboard takes data from satellites to track every oceangoing vessel on the planet. It combines this with scientific models and other intelligence sources to create a pattern of life for each vessel, allowing analysts to assess if the vessel poses a risk – to sovereign borders or to commercial assets. Trent joined when Starboard had product-market fit in the Pacific. His key role has been to capitalise the business and scale internationally.
www.starboard.nz
CAR T-cell therapy is a cancer treatment where a patient’s own T-cells are reprogrammed to fight the cancer. There are 2,000 therapies in clinical development around the world which use different ways to program the T-cells. BioOra has developed an automated manufacturing system to scale up the production of personalised T-cells for treatment of the cancer. In partnership with the Malaghan Institute BioOra has treated 30 patients, the last 7 using this automated system.
www.bioora.com
OneRoom is a webcasting platform specialized for the funeral sector. It instals cameras in funeral homes to make webcasting easy & free up funeral directors to focus on personal service. David was as an investor in the company and became CEO to take up the challenge going from start-up to scale-up. As a student he won a scholarship to the US & made the US Gymnastics Team. Now he is taking on the challenge of the US market for the business.
www.oneroomstreaming.com
The Gastric Alimetry system is like an ECG for the gut - the electrical signals are 100x weaker than from the heart and very noisy. It provides data-driven insights to help clinicians work out what’s going on. It is now used in 35 hospitals. Greg talks about how hard it is to build a medtech: regulatory, reimbursement & technical issues. To move fast it’s important to have the right people, including key partners such as his co-founder & his Chair, and a balanced life.
Tracksuit provides beautiful, radically affordable and easy to use brand tracking for modern consumer brands. The team recently raised $22M. Connor talks about finding early product-market fit with 100 prospect conversations, and then leaning into scale. Every 3 months everyone should “give away your Legos”–either automate your current job or hire someone to do it better than you can while you solve new problems.
www.gotracksuit.com
Goodnature makes ethical pest control devices that now sell around the world. Craig, a co-founder, talks about how they started Goodnature to control rats and stoats in New Zealand – building a trap that can go off multiple times in the bush. Dave joined as CEO 3 years ago, bringing a background in international marketing. They both like to solve problems: Craig on the technical side and Dave on the marketing and company growth side.
www.goodnature.co.nz
Gembot.ai is a smart investment platform. Charlie started it because he was frustrated that he couldn’t find this for himself: he wanted to know statistically and visually what his exposure looked like at any time. Gembot provides transparent, low cost and informed investment. How do you set this up from scratch? Listen to Charlie’s journey! He’s on a mission to help people grow wealth.
www.gembot.ai
Claudia Smith & Russell Smith built AML platform APLYiD to allow companies to verify customers online in seconds using biometric measures. APLYiD now has over 1,000 customers in Australia, New Zealand & the UK. Claudia and Russell each had a background in identity work and knew the corporate environment well. In this podcast they talk about how they work together, how they complement each other and what they’ve learned about building a tech company fast.
www.aplyid.com
Bspkl makes high-performance catalyst coated membranes for hydrogen production - using 25x less catalyst metal than alternatives. Christina joined the inventor of this technology, Jérôme Leveneur, to build a company based on his technology. Christina talks about why hydrogen production as the first market, the challenges of raising funds, and their ambition to make a genuine difference in the world, opening pathways for the scientists, startups & employees.
www.bspkl.co
ADInstruments makes scientific hardware & software for biomedical research and education with offices in 15 countries & 220 people around the world. Its customers include the top 100 universities & the top 10 pharmaceutical companies. The company has been built over 37 years. Alex has been CEO for the last 4 years and has overseen the growth of the SaaS business, which is now a significant part of their revenue.
www.adinstruments.com
ecoPortal started as an environmental risk management consultancy. Bringing its sustainability origins into the larger health & safety picture, it now supports enterprise retail, transport, and logistics companies worldwide to achieve their health & safety engagement goals. Manuel talks about ecoPortal’s humble beginnings as a consultancy and the journey of bootstrapping the company to 75 people. He also sheds light on the limitations and benefits of bootstrapping.
www.ecoportal.com
Alyona studied Natural Language Processing before most of us had heard of AI. To start her company she looked for a problem worth solving & found the need for customer feedback analysis. Thematic is an AI-powered platform that transforms feedback into actionable insights. Alyona talks about how she built an initial product, talked to the market to find a fit, persuaded her husband Nathan Holmberg to join her, and the difference that YCombinator made for them.
www.getthematic.com
Mary Vance & Nick McDonald founded Cemplicity in 2013, with Blaik Wilson taking the CEO reins in 2020. Cemplicity keeps patients remotely connected to their care teams as they go through a health service, alerting care teams when action is needed. Cemplicity has worked with over 3,000 health facilities in 8 countries and over 5 million patients. Mary & Blaik talk about building their global business in the challenging field of digital healthcare.
www.cemplicity.com
Ambit is an AI platform for customer service at scale. Tim & his co-founders started Ambit in 2016, seeing the opportunity to leverage the power of Generative AI to provide deeply personalised, automated conversations for customers – increasing customer satisfaction while reducing the cost to serve them. He talks about how tough it is to sell to the IT teams in large enterprises and how relationships drive almost everything.
www.ambit.ai
Inhibit Coatings is a science-based company producing high-performance antimicrobial coatings for use in food safety and medical applications. It works with resin manufacturers and end-users to develop bespoke antimicrobial solutions with high effectiveness and long-lifetimes using novel nanotechnology. Eldon talks about the journey from his PhD research to first commercial sales and pursuing a licensing model to grow fast.
www.inhibitcoatings.com
Futureverse is a media tech unicorn at the intersection of AI, Gaming and Web3. Its platform simplifies Web3 for developers and users and it works with brands to power their experiences, such as a recently released AI powered game built with FIFA. Aaron talks about how he & his co-founders started by building a portfolio of companies for Web3 and last year rolled up and acquired 11 companies to create Futureverse, which now has 250 people across 16 countries.
www.futureverse.com
Asantha founded PaySauce to bring new technology and deep domain knowledge to small businesses wasting time and energy on paying their people. Asantha talks about the journey –learning the real pain points to solve for small businesses, and commitments to excellent customer service and to providing a great place to work. Its automating top-up pay for dairy farm workers and its pre-pay day lending are revolutionary.
www.paysauce.com
Pultron Composites makes glass fibre composite materials. Peter Holdsworth invented the technology for fibreglass fence posts. His wife Bronwen built the business & ran it for 20 years. Her son, Jasper, now runs it. This is a great story of innovation and building a global business. The core of the company remains in Gisborne where they experiment, make 20 product lines & build the machines for the offshore JVs in Saudi Arabia and the US. www.pultron.com
Sam is the co-founder & the CEO of LawVu, a software platform for in-house legal teams. Lawyers using LawVu gain visibility over all their legal work, improve productivity & show legal’s value to the wider business. Sam talks about the journey: spending 3 years building the product with trial customers before going to market, winning an RFP for a legal team of 200 – which accelerated their product development, scaling rapidly to 125 people and learning about fundraising along the way. Sam is the co-founder & the CEO of LawVu, a software platform for in-house legal teams. Lawyers using LawVu gain visibility over all their legal work, improve productivity & show legal’s value to the wider business. Sam talks about the journey: spending 3 years building the product with trial customers before going to market, winning an RFP for a legal team of 200 – which accelerated their product development, scaling rapidly to 125 people and learning about fundraising along the way.
www.lawvu.com
John saw the need for a seamless SaaS platform for commercial training providers: automating all the processes for promoting, selling and delivering courses. John talks about starting out with sweat equity, spending a lot of time with customers to design the product, always appearing as a global operation even when they were working from his house, and how rewarding it has been to build a company of 60 people processing $500m p a which has trained over 7m people around the world.
www.arlo.co
Kea Aerospace’s mission is to improve life on Earth using insights from the stratosphere. Solar-powered, remotely piloted stratospheric aircraft will fly continuously in the stratosphere for months to collect frequent high-resolution aerial images. Mark became fascinated with space a long time ago, and was the co-Director and seed investor of Rocket Lab. In addition to building Kea Aerospace, Mark has been instrumental in establishing an aerospace tech hub in Christchurch.
www.keaaerospace.com
Forbury provides commercial real estate investment modelling software to customers in the UK, Australia, Singapore, Japan & New Zealand. Scott joined the founder, Steve Surridge, to build the business, with Steve focussing on new products and Scott building the team. He talks about how important it is to focus on the people who will deliver your business outcomes, and how Covid was an advantage for them and has accelerated expansion into offshore markets.
www.forbury.com
John Penno and Maury Leland started Leaft Foods to create a new food system by capturing the most abundant protein on the planet - Rubisco from green leaves. Leaft integrates with existing farming systems, extracting the Rubisco from common forage crops & producing a high-quality silage feed. This reduces the total nitrogen loading in the farming system & lessens the carbon footprint of farming while producing products that taste good with high nutritional value.
www.leaftfoods.com
Spice is a founder & CEO of Marsello, a smart marketing platform for smaller retailers. Marketing is really hard for these businesses. The Marsello platform has strong reporting & analytics. Retailers can run targeted marketing with data-driven automation, email, SMS, loyalty programs & social media and measure the impact of them. Thousands of small and medium-sized retailers and hospitality operators around the world are now using the Marsello platform.
www.marsello.com
Tim is the founder & CEO of Runn.io, a resourcing and capacity planning platform. Tim previously co-founded SilverStripe, whose open-source content management system is used by thousands of organisations worldwide. He started Runn because of the frustration of being able to get company-wide visibility across sales, projects and the people needed to deliver them. Runn has employees and customers around the world, including very large companies.
www.runn.io
Socialites is a full-service social media agency that helps organisations thrive in the dynamic digital world by using social media to bring a brand’s DNA to life, creating communities of loyal customers. The Socialites Group has grown by acquisition. It runs multi-language, multi-platform campaigns across Asia, Europe, Australasia, the Middle East, the United States and Canada.
www.socialites.co.nz
Max founded Lumin to create a better way for people to annotate and collaborate on PDF files. He bootstrapped it to 30M users based on ad revenue, then made a very rapid switch to being subscription funded – in just 2 months! Lumin now has 65M users and 80 staff around the world and many documents are being signed every second. Max’s vision is to solve the pain of digitally managing, signing and sharing documents.
www.luminpdf.com
Izon Science isolates & analyses nano-biological particles. Its products are sold for medical R&D in 50 countries. A step change in the size of Izon’s business will be driven by one of its customers taking a product currently in testing to market – such as a cancer test. Izon has 50 staff in NZ, the USA & France. Hans talks about funding a company when it’s cash negative, getting focused on marketing and continuing to innovate to find the product-market fit.
www.izon.com
CerebralFix is an international game development studio which games for large international companies. Its talented team of more than 70 developers, artists, and designers work tirelessly to bring their games to life: from brainstorming new ideas to coding, testing, and polishing the final product. Tim talks about the challenges of staying current while technology is changing so rapidly.
www.cerebralfix.com
Rockets that operate like aircraft and satellite propulsion of the future – that is what Stefan Powell and the team are building at Dawn Aerospace. Their spaceplane, the Mk-II Aurora will be the first vehicle to fly to sub-orbital space twice in a day, and their satellite propulsion systems are already powering 11 spacecraft in orbit. Dawn now employs over 100 people in NZ, the Netherlands and the US.
www.dawnaerospace.com
Bill Buckley is New Zealand tech royalty. Do listen to this! Buckley Systems makes ion implanters to put the metal into silicon chips (300 lines in the width of a human hair); its ionising machines make all the flat panel screens for your phones, iPads etc; and they make medical devices and R&D machines. These are all based on using huge precision magnets to direct & accelerate ion streams. They ship over 1,000 tonnes per month from Auckland to the world.
www.buckleysystems.com
ZX Security is a specialist cyber security consultancy with staff in New Zealand, Asia & Europe. It tests and finds vulnerabilities in an organisation’s networks, cloud environments, buildings and more. ZX also provides senior leadership security advice specific to customer environments. Ian talks about the importance of the company’s employees in building a company whose customers around the world range from start-ups to a company with over a million employees.
www.zxsecurity.co.nz
Portainer is a container management system for Kubernetes, Docker/Swarm, and Nomad that simplifies container operations so you can deliver software to more places, faster. Neil talks about the challenges of commercialising open source software and of building a business out into the world from New Zealand. The company now has thousands of customers across the world.
www.portainer.io
Dinosaur Polo Club is an independent game development studio, founded by Peter & Robert Curry. They released their first title, Mini Metro, in 2015 on desktop to critical acclaim and commercial success. The company is now focused on supporting Mini Metro while creating other original titles. Chantelle, CEO, and Niamh, CEO, talk about scaling the business and the importance of maintaining a very nourishing culture.
www.dinopoloclub.com
Calocurb’s natural product capsules reduce appetite to help with weight loss. The active ingredient was developed by Plant & Food Research, who work alongside Calocurb in clinical trials. An FDA-approved drug for weight loss in the US has the same course of action, costs a lot more and must be injected – with side effects. Calocurb’s sales of capsules have taken off as a result! Sarah talks about building a business based on science with most functions outsourced.
www.calocurb.co.nz
Spidertracks was born on the back of huge personal tragedy and an incredibly inefficient search and rescue effort following a high-profile helicopter accident in 2005. Initially solving the problem of locating an aircraft in distress, today Spidertracks is the preferred provider of aircraft tracking, flight following and flight safety insights for thousands of commercial operators across the general aviation sector.
www.spidertracks.com
CONQA is an online platform to give construction contractors quality assurance as you go – not as an afterthought, making quality assurance into a genuine measure of progress and saving time and money. CONQA can help construction businesses reduce defects, minimise risk, track progress and support your payment claims, altogether enhancing your reputation in the market. It now has close to 60 people across Australia & NZ and is poised for further expansion.
www.conqa.com
Darryn and WayBeyond are on a mission to transform the way greenhouse and protected crops are grown using sensors, data, and AI. Three years of deep R&D was followed by the launch of Folium (an IoT network of sensors) and its digital farming platform, FarmRoad in 2020. It now has more than 35 enterprise customers across North America, Europe, Africa, China and Australasia, who represent thousands of hectares growing fresh produce supply fed to millions of people.
www.waybeyond.io
APIMatic makes the integration of its customers APIs as simple as possible. It provides documentation, SDKs, Code Samples, Assisted Authentication, Test Cases, CI/CD integrations - and keeps them updated if the API changes. Its Code Generation Engine emits code in a variety of languages. APIMatic is currently being used in over 190 countries. It employs over 60 people in Auckland, San Francisco and Islamabad.
www.apimatic.io
Pictor is an in-vitro diagnostics company that has a patented multiplex platform for highly accurate testing for complex and infectious diseases in human and animal health. PictArray™ multiplex technology makes it possible to detect multiple disease markers in a single test simultaneously. The lead product is a diagnostic for Covid 19 which can detect multiple antibodies. The company has also developed tests for M. bovis, for maternal infections and other diseases.
www.pictordx.com
FileInvite transforms the way you collect information from your clients – hassle-free and on time. No longer do you have to receive multiple emails from clients, files that are too big, the wrong data. It has customers in real estate, banking, mortgage broking, accountants, lawyers, insurance brokers, website designers … James talks about their founding story, raising money through to a US Series A. It now has over 30 million files collected securely.
www.fileinvite.com
Milan is the CEO & a co-founder of First AML, which streamlines the entire anti-money laundering (AML) onboarding and compliance process. The company was founded in 2017. In 2021 it was named by LinkedIn as one of NZ’s top 10 start-ups, tripling its headcount that year to 75. It now has 160 people. Its cloud-based know-your-customer (KYC) passport allows complex entities to share their verification across multiple companies & geographies.
www.firstaml.com
Milan is the CEO & a co-founder of First AML, which streamlines the entire anti-money laundering (AML) onboarding and compliance process. The company was founded in 2017. In 2021 it was named by LinkedIn as one of NZ’s top 10 start-ups, tripling its headcount that year to 75. It now has 160 people. Its cloud-based know-your-customer (KYC) passport allows complex entities to share their verification across multiple companies & geographies.
www.firstaml.com
Cin7 was started by David Ing in 2012 to provide connected inventory and a point-of-sale system for small & medium businesses who sell through multiple channels. In 2019, the company received significant investment from a US PE firm and David joined as CEO to scale the company into the world. At that time the company had 140 employees in Auckland and 1,800 customers. Now the company is approaching 400 staff around the world and has more than 8,000 customers.
www.cin7.com
Mike is a founder & co-CEO of Joyous, an enterprise conversation app. Joyous is designed to make everyone feel comfortable talking about work, encouraging feedback to drive positive changes at every level of the organisation - from individuals up. Joyous unlocks authentic conversations for teams: building a sense of belonging, boosting engagement, retention and eNPS. It gathers the expertise of your team, identifies actionable themes, and solves critical challenges.
www.joyoushq.com
Christopher leads Fabrum, a precision engineering company in Christchurch which has developed world-leading cryogenic technology. The AFCryocooler technology was chosen by NASA for use on the MARS Lander. And the America’s Cup team went to Fabrum to develop the technology for hydrogen-powered foiling chase boats, which Fabrum developed in 9 months. Fabrum is driven by developing technological excellence whilst leaving the lightest footprint possible on the earth.
www.fabrum.nz
Richard is the CEO & co-founder of Totara whose learning and talent management platform is used by organisations across many sectors, governments & not-for-profits throughout the world. Totara leverages open code to enable more flexibility for the customer and deliver better value. The objective is to lower barriers to using enterprise-level learning technologies and unlock new innovation potential.
www.totaralearning.com
Reason is a digital marketing agency that helps ambitious businesses around the world re-imagine and realise their opportunity for growth through digital. It charges on how well it performs, not on how much is spent. As a result, it is one of Asia Pacific's fastest-growing digital companies. Two years ago it spun out a SaaS company, Rescue Metrics, to give clients full visibility over conversion analytics.
www.reasonagency.co.nz
www.rescuemetrics.com
Catalyst IT develops & supports expert open source solutions: UX and design, eLearning, website development, training, library management, enterprise solutions, document management & cloud hosting. With 25 years of experience, Catalyst IT has worked with organisations across the globe, spanning all sectors. It now has 400 people, with offices in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the UK.
www.catalyst.net.nz
Over 25,000 tradespeople around the world use Tradify job tracking software. It promises to be the fastest, simplest and easiest way to run a business: invoicing, quoting and scheduling integrate with existing accounting solutions. You can use it on desktop, tablet and mobile, anywhere, anytime. Michael brings a wealth of business experience to the job of scaling Tradify out into the world.
www.tradifyhq.com
ZeroJet is a fast-growing start-up developing high-performance electric jet propulsion systems for boats. Its vision is to eliminate combustion engines on small watercraft, such as tenders. Did you know that 10,000 outboards produce the same emissions as 1.5 million cars? ZeroJet is the first jet propulsion system to be designed specifically for an electric motor, accelerating the marine industry's transition to sustainable energy. www.zerojet.nz
NanoLayr uses nanofibre as a technology platform to solve many industry needs in markets ranging from composite reinforcement to cosmetic applications and filter media for use in facemasks. Using the process of electrospinning, and only the finest materials, it creates custom-made fibres, delivering revolutionary products to multiple markets including filtration, cosmetics and healthcare, textiles, composites and electronics.
www.nanolayr.com
Quantifi Photonics is on a mission to transform the world of photonics tests & measurements. From its New Zealand base, it develops and manufactures a wide range of test & measurement instruments along with customized test solutions for multinational tech companies and world-leading research organizations developing the technologies to enable future global networks. The company has just completed a Series B funding and acquired a company in Thailand to strengthen its R&D capabilities and IP position.
www.quantifiphotonics.com
Soul Machines is a digital people company: re-imagining how real & virtual humans can connect in today’s digital worlds and the metaverse. It develops intelligent, emotionally responsive avatars as a user interface for AI platforms, creating the digital workforce of the future and digital twins. It has patented Digital Brain and Autonomous Animation technology based on work by double academy-award winner, Mark Sagar.
www.soulmachines.com
Author-it provides cloud-based structured component authoring systems for the creation, management, localization & publishing of information, with products for Life Sciences, Compliance & Technical Documentation, & eLearning catering for SMBs to Enterprise. It now has 120 people around the world.
www.author-it.com
Every 6 seconds someone dies of an obesity related illness. Macroactive is on a mission to empower fitness & wellness coaches to help 10 million people enjoy happier & healthier lives, with 1:1 exercise routines, nutrition plans & mindset coaching delivered to their mobile device. The software platform, wrap-around services and creator support frameworks provide a scalable “business in a box” for entrepreneurs committed to impacting more lives - at scale.
www.macroactive.com
Parkable was founded with an ambitious goal: to make parking easy and stress-free by connecting the available parking space to the people who need to park. It lets workplaces and commercial properties manage their parking with ease, automating the management of staff and tenants’ parks and EV chargers. Using the Parkable app, staff and tenants can easily share and book parking. And anyone can use the app to find parking in major cities in Australasia. www.parkable.com
Rako Science provides saliva-based COVID-19 surveillance testing at scale to protect New Zealand workers, businesses and vulnerable communities, & pre-departure PCR testing for passengers leaving New Zealand. It developed its own test: the only diagnostically validated saliva test for COVID-19 in New Zealand, which has been proven to be as accurate as nasal tests. In this podcast, they talk about building a business fast to meet the market demand. www.rakoscience.com
RIPA stands for Receipt-Invoice-Payment-Automation. It started with receipt automation for expense recording. It now also provides disbursement payments as a service, transforming the way government, business & health insurance companies deliver entitlements. A payer, such as a Government social agency, authorises an entitlement, sends that with the payment token and the booking apps to the user, who can then pay using the agency’s funds. www.ripaglobal.com
Open is on a mission to offer the fastest car, home & travel insurance at the best price for the world. Its AI-powered platform offers personalised products such as usage-based pricing, and instant claims settlements. Its home, car & travel insurances sell under the Huddle brand and are offered as a white-label product for businesses to embed into their own digital experiences. Open operates now in Australia & NZ, soon the UK & Europe. It is a certified B Corporation. www.beopen.com
MOBI is an end-to-end digital platform that provides customer ordering solutions for hospitality businesses. Great customer experience starts with a great platform: websites, mobile apps, table ordering, kiosks, aggregator middleware, loyalty, delivery, analytics. Its end to end solutions help to increase revenue, reduce in-store wait time, gain brand loyalty, and improve the overall customer experience. MOBI is now used by 900+ restaurant brands in 35 countries. www.mobihq.com
Fingermark offers a suite of hardware and software solutions, using artificial intelligence, computer vision and deep learning to design fit-for-purpose industry-specific solutions. Its real-time and predictive business analytics are deployed through next-generation digital hardware for solutions in a range of industries - from improving customer service in fast-food outlets to improving safety in mining. www.fingermark.tech
Aceso brings together the islands of healthcare: intelligent referrals, online booking & scheduling, care journeys, telehealth and the associated workflows to enable better care. It is relentlessly applying digital technology to improve the health system to deliver a better health experience for all. www.aceso.health
Partly is building a global platform for replacement auto parts. Sound simple? Not when you realise there are 150M auto parts which can be used in multiple car models and configurations. Partly has catalogued 50M of these parts. Thousands of businesses, from small companies to large enterprises, use Partly's software and API to add fitment, check interchanges and manage parts online. Partly is building its business by taking a very hard problem and solving it. www.partly.com
BioLumic deploys light signals to unlock the natural genetic potential of seeds and seedlings—without requiring use of chemicals or genetic modification. Its technology uses a ground-breaking combination of photobiology, engineering and data science to give increases in plant yield, vigour, and disease resistance. Its team of plant scientists, agronomists, engineers and data scientists are based in the United States and New Zealand. www.biolumic.com
Frogparking makes solar-powered parking sensors, laser indoor sensors, & wireless parking guidance for cities & property owners who want efficient parking. It has custom mobile apps, dynamic signage, and cloud-based reporting and data software. (Use the app to find a park!) It has robust hardware, beautiful software, easy to understand data & analytics. Founded in Palmerston North, NZ, Frogparking also has offices in Canada, the USA, Australia & Europe. www.frogparking.com
Yabble's SaaS market research platform gives brands fast, easy access to high-quality consumer insights. Hey Yabble is an automated AI-powered insights generator & connects brands with over 62 million consumers globally. You can build your own surveys, run your own customer research communities & use dynamic reporting to create insights to drive your business. Yabble is changing the way brands and consumers interact to improve experiences & shape products of the future. www.yabblezone.net
Global brands use Plexure’s software to engage consumers on mobile devices and drive them to store with personalized offers and content, rewards programs, mobile order and payment. Through AI and machine learning, Plexure’s technology platform enables brands to deliver deep personalization at scale and pace in real-time. It now has over 270 million end users on its platform in over 60 countries. Plexure is listed on the NZX and ASX, with a market cap of around $100M.
www.plexure.com
Mooven cuts traffic delays during construction projects. Its data-backed insights show the real-time impacts of construction work on traffic congestion or noise pollution and show how to accelerate infrastructure delivery and minimise disruption. Its scalable, real-time software is running in the UK, Europe, Nth America, Australia & New Zealand, playing into what McKinsey defines as a US$57 trillion need for infrastructure investment over the next 10 years. www.mooven.io
Auror is the platform for enterprise retailers focused on reducing loss, preventing crime, and improving store safety. It does this by streamlining the reporting process and connecting retailers and police with information through its crime management platform. This provides visibility over criminal activity: keeping staff and customers safe, saving time and money, and enabling better crime prevention.
www.auror.co
Easy Crypto is a fast, easy, safe way to buy and sell cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron and many more. It is New Zealand's largest cryptocurrency retailer, and is now operating in Australia, South Africa and Brazil, and planning to open in the Philippines later this year. Its mission is to make cryptocurrency accessible and understandable so that everyone can get involved in the crypto market.
www.easycrypto.ai
Maxava provides innovative monitoring, high availability and disaster recovery solutions for more than 500 customers in over 40 countries, ensuring business continuity, reduced risk and meeting regulatory requirements. It provides 24x7x365 support through regional offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Maxava’s implementations span a diverse set of industries including Banking, Telecommunications, Government, Manufacturing and Healthcare.
www.maxava.com
Storypark links early childhood education centres to the families of the children, helping bridge the communication gap between a child's home & early learning centre. It allows the centre to record and communicate learning as it happens by sharing photos, video, audio, observations & routines within a secure online environment. Its purpose is to help every child fulfil their unique potential, by connecting and empowering the community around them.
www.storypark.com
Re-Leased is a cloud-based, commercial property management platform which centralises portfolio data, automates workflows, and provides real-time reporting for landlords and property managers. It integrates with Xero, QuickBooks and other platforms, to create connected ecosystems.
In 2020, Re-Leased launched CREDIA to provide market insights based on data from 75,000 properties globally to help customers better manage their businesses.
www.re-leased.com
Arcanum makes machine learning more accessible to mid-size enterprises. There are endless roadblocks and limitations to commercial AI success and scale. Arcanum helps ambitious technology leaders overcome these challenges and quickly demonstrate strategic momentum. Using its applications and a low-code platform for custom solutions, it enables data teams to rapidly deploy applications and models. Its world-leading Play in the Grey JV takes visual data from sports game videos.
www.arcanum.ai
PlayBooks lets business advisors, accountants, coaches and consultants manage their meetings and the expertise they share with clients in one smart platform. Create playbooks of your own expertise and resources or leverage the public library of playbooks written by industry experts to support your recommendations and decision making. It makes meetings the ultimate place of business guidance, decision making and purchase.
www.playbooks.live
Raygun provides application monitoring for large clients around the world. Its dashboards visualize critical error and performance data. It detects, diagnoses, and resolves issues quickly to deliver a better digital experience to the client’s customers. It allows companies to quickly diagnose problems in their codebase, enjoy faster development cycles and make sure users are having error-free experiences.
www.raygun.com
TradeWindow streamlines global trade - replacing manual paper-based processes with a secure digital platform connecting exporters with their supply chain partners. TradeWindow is the only sector-neutral super-connector capable of linking the four data silos that make up global supply chains: commercial, logistics, finance & interconnected networks. Its solution delivers end-to-end trust, speed, and efficiency using distributed ledger technology.
www.tradewindow.io
The 9Spokes business Tracker helps small & medium businesses visualise and monitor their data in one simple dashboard. By connecting the apps they use to manage their business, companies can easily track performance across all areas – from finance and marketing to HR and inventory – in one place, helping them make informed decisions. The 9Spokes ecosystem comprises SMBs, apps, and banks to create an ecosystem that supports the business and the core SMB-bank relationship.
www.9spokes.com
Mint Innovation uses biological & chemical processes to recover valuable metals from waste. Its first process recovers metals - gold, copper & palladium - from e-waste using proprietary microbes that are selective for specific metals & low-cost chemistry to make it viable. Mint's vision is to provide a low cost, sustainable solution to recover precious metals by having a biorefinery in every major city around the world.
www.mint.bio
Kami’s mission is to reimagine the classroom, helping teachers & students embrace a digital future. With 24 million users they are well underway. Kami is used by 65% of schools in Nth America & in 64 other countries. The founding team - Hengjie Wang, Jordan Thoms, Alliv Samson & Bob Drummond – persisted in EdTech when others told them it was a graveyard. When Covid hit, they gave the product away – and found people wanted to pay them anyway. An awesome story!
www.kamiapp.com
The 50th Morgo podcast! Katherine Corich of Sysdoc (the 1st Morgo podcast) talks to Jenny about Morgo – her experiences in investment banking, company directorships and venture capital that led to her forming the Morgo Community to support the CEO’s building tech companies out into the world from Australia & NZ. Jenny looks back over some lessons from the first 49 podcasts – so many great companies being built. And more stories to come …
www.morgo.co
Tourwriter’s itinerary management software enables travel operators to create customised client experiences through drag-and-drop itinerary creation, automated supplier confirmation & customised reports. A new SaaS offering, Minim, offers a collaborative mobile-friendly experience for agents & travellers throughout their entire travel journey. Glenn & Denise used their experience in the travel industry to build the tools other travel businesses want.
www.tourwriter.com
MyWave.AI enables powerful personalised customer experiences which are smart, truly personalised and guided across any channel, delivering high conversion rates for both sales and service.
MyWave.AI interacts in a human-like way, learns from previous and concurrent interactions, understands and uses customer context to eliminate the need to fill in forms, bounce around call centres or getting stuck in a department when trying to get an outcome.
www.mywave.ai
StretchSense makes motion capture gloves for content creation for games, movies, and AR/VR. Instead of optical or inertial technology, the gloves use stretch sensors and AI to deliver high-quality mocap. Unaffected by shock, drift, occlusion, or magnetic interference, you get stable hand performance from the gloves. And you can train the solution to learn the poses you want to see, bringing art direction in at the very start of production, rather than in post.
www.stretchsense.com
Ethical living made easy: CoGo helps you match your spending with your values. With thousands of consumers and businesses in NZ and the UK on the platform, it is building a movement of people whose voices make a difference to our world, every day. CoGo aspires to create a product that 100s of millions of people use to help them align their spending with their values to bring about lasting change in the world.
www.cogo.co
Magic Memories is in the business of capturing memories: special times with special people at special places. It leverages technology and design to create and distribute personalized digital content directly to guests’ mobile devices. John built the company to $170M revenue from iconic tourist attractions in 10 countries. Then Covid struck. He talks about building the business, and re-building after Covid closed ALL the attractions where they operated.
www.magicmemories.com
Weirdly is a smart recruitment screening tool that can improve retention by up to 50%, improve engagement and hugely reduce screening time. It doesn’t just provide a faster and more fun recruitment process, it also gives candidates a taste of company culture, before they’ve even applied. It takes candidates from apply to offer in 48 hours with custom profiles and a screening process puts the most important things first - soft skills, values alignment, and culture.
www.getweirdly.com
Pure SEO is a digital marketing company with a team of more than 60 providing digital marketing services to companies in New Zealand, Australia, China and the UK. Pure SEO have been listed in the Deloitte Asia Pacific Tech Fast 500 for the past 7 years (a New Zealand record). Pure SEO specialises in search engine optimisation (SEO), analytics and paid media.
www.pureseo.com
ezyVet is intuitive cloud software that improves the workflow of the vets who look after your pets. With a bit of Kiwi ingenuity and a lot of passion ezyVet created a powerful cloud-based, feature-rich and easy to use Veterinary Practice Management solution. Founder and CEO Hadleigh Bognuda shares the journey through to today, where the software supports clinical data across the workflows of over 40,000 licensed users globally with teams in Auckland, London and Dallas.
www.ezyvet.com
UBCO’s iconic electric utility motorbike goes on and off-road. It can go through mud, up hills, over asphalt, and across streams without a second thought. This digitally connected Utility Vehicle and Portable Power platform is being used from milking cows to delivering pizza, selling to individuals & fleet managers around the world.
www.ubcobikes.com
Bluelab is an instrumentation company for the horticulture industry. Its devices measure and control pH, conductivity, moisture and temperature for a range of horticultural growing applications, particularly in glasshouses and in hydroponic growing. It sells across North America, UK, Europe and Australia.
Bluelab’s vision is of a healthier world, free of pesticides, with reduced water usage and fewer food miles.
www.bluelab.com
StarNow is a leading auditions and jobs website for actors, models, dancers, photographers, stylists, crew, and musicians with over 4 million members worldwide. It is strong in the UK and Australia and now expanding in the USA.
www.starnow.com
Jonny Hendriksen is the founder of Shuttlerock, a creative video platform for a world where content needs to be fast, multi-platform and global. Its proprietary platform leverages designers and technology to quickly create video ads from a single visual asset as simple as a still photo. The resulting ads allow companies to maximize existing creative for a wide audience across FaceBook, Instagram and other platforms in 30 languages. The company has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, London, Berlin, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Auckland and New Zealand.
www.shuttlerock.com
Anne Fulton & Jo Mills created Fuel50 for the new career landscape: where organizations need to be built around highly empowered employees and teams with employee-centric learning models. Fuel50’s AI-powered platform provides career pathways and a jobs marketplace. Hundreds of clients across the world use it to drive engagement of employees, career acceleration and retention while gaining workforce agility. It is the world’s fastest-growing talent experience platform.
www.fuel50.com
Seequent develops collaborative tools and 3D geological modelling software for the global mining, energy and environment markets. These tools help people create rich stories and uncover valuable insights from geological data and ultimately make better decisions about their earth, environment and energy challenges. Shaun has grown the business to over $100M in revenue & 450 staff around the world, cash positive all the way.
www.seequent.com
Steve is a horticultural entrepreneur with a vision of making his industry sustainable by using technology. 12 years ago he met Alistair Scarfe, who he supported to do a PhD in mechatronics, & together they formed Robotics Plus, to design and build technologies that improve quality, productivity and sustainability across food and fibre supply chains solving large global problems. Their first products are a robotic apple packer and an autonomous log scaler.
www.roboticsplus.co.nz
LiveTiles’ solutions improve the employee experience with Intelligent workplace technology including Intranets, AI & Employee Chat-bots, Employee Mobile Apps, Employee Data capture and insight tools & many other capabilities designed to simplify the complex within the workplace. In this podcast, the founders talk about how they complement each other, how they raised money by listing early, and how they have sustained growth at over 100% p a.
www.livetiles.nyc
Ohmio makes autonomous electric vehicles which it sees as a first and last mile mode of transport to and from large bus stations or ferry terminals or carparks at airports. Ohmio vehicles follow a virtual track, and are able to connect with other vehicles, infrastructure and traffic management systems. The technology was originally created by HMI Technologies, an innovator of Intelligent Transport Systems. (Ohmio is HMI in wheels.)
www.ohmio.com
The best brands grow on a diet of happy customers that come back for more and rave to their friends. AskNicely’s customer experience software helps them do that. Using the Net Promoter Score framework, it empowers front line teams to deliver the right experience to every customer, every day. It is rated #1 by G2 Crowd. The business is based in Auckland, New Zealand and Portland, Oregon.
www.asknicely.com
Bobux is a design-focused business committed to creating innovative footwear for children from newborn to 8 years that mimics the healthy benefits of bare feet. For children that wear Bobux it’s simply about having healthy, high quality, stylish shoes so they are free to play and be kids.
Andrew loves scaling businesses. He joined Bobux as CEO 5 years ago to grow revenue, shift Bobux into the digital world and focus on growing online sales. They now sell in 40 countries.
www.bobux.com
Employment Hero is an all-in-one HR, payroll and employee benefits platform. It helps employees maximise their income while streamlining the way businesses manage employment, compliance and payroll. Ben says, “Nobody has ever started a company because they want to be an employer. Being good at employment is very hard. And it’s hard to find good help.”
www.employmenthero.com
Wholesale Investor connects companies that are looking to raise capital with an active ecosystem of about 30,000 investors through its online platform & showcase events in 8 countries.
CRIISP is a software-driven approach to raising capital. The platform provides an end to end solution SaaS platform for raising capital, accessing investors, engaging in Q&As, managing and tracking investor interest, and operating an investment deal room.
www.wholesaleinvestor.com.au
AgriDigital is leading the way in digitizing, connecting and securing global agricultural supply chains - from farmer to consumer. The cloud-based commodity management platform transforms the way you capture, store and sell grain, cotton, and other crops. The use of blockchain enables trust in the supply chain and the use of smart contracts.
www.agridigital.io
After selling the highly successful Kim Crawford brand, Erica & Kim Crawford founded Loveblock Wines to make sustainable organic wine: wine that is elegant, restrained and complex, wine that speaks of its place and a season. Land is precious; grape growers are custodians of this land and restore soil balance and fertility without commercial fertilisers and chemical protection. Erica’s journey takes us from the Marlborough vineyard to the market in the USA.
www.loveblockwine.com
Aliesha founded Staples VR to provide VR & AR equipment rental and content creation, specializing in camera movement and custom applications. Their multidisciplinary work spans many sectors including advertising, entertainment, medical, aviation, and health & safety training using creative technologies such as Virtual and Augmented Reality, 360 Video production, Digital Human Capture, 3D Modelling and other emerging technologies.
www.staplesvr.com
Mike is a co-founder of Joyous, an employee obsessed business which provides a feedback tool for large employers. It uses the power of open feedback to increase employee engagement, connect with frontline staff, and build high performing teams. Mike talks about the tech requirements when you’re building a business for very large corporate customers.
www.joyoushq.com
Todd Welling is CEO of Overdose, a digital commerce accelerator. Or, what they call a digital commerce anti-agency agency. With teams in New York, Melbourne, Auckland, London, Sydney, Singapore, Wellington and Ukraine, they provide end-to-end services for high growth retailers: strategy and user experience, tech delivery, search, performance marketing, email automation, data-driven ai and conversion optimisation.
www.overdose.digital
Murray Holdaway is the founder of Vista Group. Vista began by providing the software to run cinemas – which is now in 8,000 cinemas across over 100 countries. After listing on the NZSX and the ASX in 2014, Vista has expanded by organic growth and acquisition. It aims to become the leading software company across the global film industry sectors of distribution, exhibition, and consumer (moviegoers).
www.vistagroup.co.nz
Siobhan Bulfin is the founder of Melon Health, which provides a patient engagement platform for helping people to manage chronic health conditions such as diabetes, early to moderate mental illness and pain management. It leverages social technology, mobile intervention, tracking tools and data analytics. For the user it’s like having a coach, care team and support crew on your phone.
www.melonhealth.com
Phil Richards is the founder & Chairman of Smart Payroll, which processes payroll payments of over $5 billion per year for over 25,000 businesses, paying over 150,000 employees per month while working with over 2,000 accountants and bookkeepers across Australia and New Zealand. Phil shares his love of building companies in this podcast.
www.smartpayroll.com.au
Brian Ward is the founder & CEO of Aroa Biosurgery, a soft tissue repair company which helps doctors and surgeons heal complex wounds. Aroa’s expertise lies in medical device development for soft tissue reinforcement and cellular scaffolding. Its products combine the best of biologics and synthetics to address the current shortcomings in surgical ventral hernia repair solutions.
www.aroabio.com
Angie Judge is the founder of Dexibit, which provides big data analytics for visitor attractions - predicting and analysing visitor behaviour through big data analytics powered by artificial intelligence.
Angie is Chair of the American Alliance of Museum’s M&T Network, Chair of the Museum Computer Network’s Data & Insights SIG and runs a series of regular thinktanks for attractions analytics.
Dexibit is based in Auckland and Washington DC.
https://dexibit.com/
Karen Co-founded Real Serious Games in 2009. Now the company is in 3 countries, has delivered over 300 projects and is expanding globally. Real Serious Games creates innovative and engaging ways for customers to educate, plan and communicate with Extended Reality (XR) technology. The company aims to influence change solutions in XR Experiences, 4D Planning, Realtime Visualisation and Forensic Animation.
www.realseriousgames.com
Ian Pollard & Craig Kirk launched Delta Insurance in 2014 to bring a fresh approach to the liability & financial lines market in New Zealand. By covering emerging risks, focusing on customer service, embracing technology and encouraging companies to focus on risk mitigation, they now have over 10,000 clients and have established a Singapore office. Their aim is to be in ten countries within ten years.
deltainsurance.co.nz
Ansarada is a provider of AI-powered virtual data rooms and material information platforms for business transactions and material events such as mergers and acquisitions, fundraising, tenders and IPOs. It has helped thousands of businesses get ready for and experience success in raising capital, M&A, post-acquisition integration, tenders, audits and more.
ansarada.com
Dean is best known for creating the zombie apocalypse PC game DayZ. In 2014 he started his own games development company, Rocketwerkz, which now has 50 people in Dunedin and is hiring in Auckland. Tencent, the largest games publisher in the world, is an investor in Rocketwerkz, allowing the company to pursue large projects.
rocketwerkz.com
With extensive experience in emerging technology, business, jewellery and insurance, Leanne is pushing boundaries with Everledger, addressing real-world challenges through driving transparency and trust along global supply chains using emerging technology. Everledger provides an immutable distributed ledger for diamond identification and transaction verification for stakeholders from insurance companies to claimants and law enforcement agencies.
www.everledger.io
Dame Wendy Pye is the founder & CEO of Sunshine Books – teaching the world to read. Sunshine Books has a focus on early literacy and reading in English and other languages. It has sold more than 300 million copies. The publishing list of over 2,000 fiction and non-fiction titles is supported with a range of digital resources – subscription websites with e-books and thousands of skill activities.
www.sunshine.co.nz
In 2012, three engineers and entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to convert existing industrial waste into valuable raw materials. Avertana’s initial focus is waste ‘slag’ from steel manufacturing. Its innovative extraction technology turns the slag into valuable titanium dioxide, alum, Epson salts and gypsum. These raw materials are used to manufacture everyday products like paint, building materials, paper and fertilisers.
www.avertana.com
Mario is the Founder & CEO of PikPok, which has been making fun and addictive games across smartphone, tablet, and desktop since 2009. Successful original games include Flick Kick® Football Legends and Into the Dead®. PikPok is based in Wellington.
www.pikpok.com
Ralph is the Founder & CEO of Volpara Health Technologies which develops digital health solutions for personalized, high-quality breast cancer screening based on objective measurements of breast density, compression and radiation dose. Volpara is an ASX-listed company with a value of over $300 million. Ralph talks about the benefit of being listed and quickly being able to raise follow-on funding.
www.volparasolutions.com
Danny Tomsett is the founder & CEO of FaceMe, an artificial intelligence platform company that empowers creators to design and train unique Digital Humans for real-time interactive customer and brand experiences. FaceMe is based in Auckland, Melbourne, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.
www.faceme.com
Andrew is the founder & CEO of Optimal Workshop which provides tools for measuring and improving user experience (UX). Clients are user experience designers, information architects and usability researchers, in 106 countries and using 70 different languages. Their customers include people from some of the biggest organizations around the world. Optimal Workshop has about 60 staff in great new offices in Wellington.
www.optimalworkshop.com
Syft provides rapid analysis of traces of substances, e.g. in someone’s breath, using selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry. It is the fastest gas analysis technology available. Syft is listed on the Unlisted Securities Market in NZ with a market cap of about $80M.
www.syft.com
Andy had an IT security consulting business. He found that often they identified vulnerabilities for clients that they didn’t get around to fixing quickly. So Red Shield Security was born: the world's first web application shielding-with-a-service cybersecurity company, targeting 100% vulnerability mitigation.
www.redshield.co
Serko is a New Zealand company listed on the NZX and ASX. Darrin had a background in tech for the travel industry and knew the pain of managing corporate travel and expenses in line with each company’s policies. Serko now provides travel & expense solutions to more than 6,000 corporate customers in over 35 countries. More than 2 million people have access to Serko's technology and more than US$4.5billion of travel spend passes through Serko every year.
https://www.serko.com/
Straker Translations is a New Zealand company listed on the ASX. Grant & Merryn Straker saw a gap in the market for technology-based translation services that could utilise both machines and humans to produce highly accurate, faster and more cost-effective translations. They now have more than 13,000 translators around the world working with them.
www.strakertranslations.com
Carmen Vicelich is the founder of Valocity, which streamlines the mortgage lending and valuation process. Valocity connects lenders, brokers, valuers and customers in one smart platform with machine learning and workflows to create a seamless experience. All while staying on the front foot with compliance and data security. Valocity has over 100 employees across New Zealand, Australia and India.
www.valocityglobal.com
PredictHQ is a New Zealand company based in Auckland & San Francisco. Campbell Brown identified a major gap in forecasting market demand. His research showed that demand for travel services was strongly influenced by events. PredictHQ now has many customers in the travel industry including Uber and Airbnb and also major companies in other industries such as beer, all of whom want to better predict demand.
www.predicthq.com
Katherine Corich built Sysdoc, a digital consulting business for business transformation, learning innovation and digital experience which employs over 200 people in the UK and New Zealand. Katherine started the business with insights from her pilot training – why couldn’t the IT manuals be as good as the cockpit ones?
Katherine has also innovated in the way she builds her diverse workforce
www.sysdoc.com