What Does Your Company Do?

“Our primary client base consists of business leaders including some early-stage founders who struggle with visibility or feel hesitant to present themselves authentically. In this part of the world, especially in Singapore, there is a strong cultural inclination to avoid self-promotion. People often fear overbragging, drawing unwanted negative attention, or outshining their superiors on platforms like LinkedIn.

The challenge is that these leaders understand visibility is essential for their next career or business opportunity, whether that involves securing new clients, landing promotions, attracting job offers, or earning speaking engagements and PR exposure. At Vibe Tribe, we bridge that gap by teaching a practical blend of LinkedIn networking, personal branding, and in-person presence. We empower leaders to step up and represent themselves and their organisations with confidence, both online and in person.”

What Inspired You To Start It?

“My background in executive coaching and career advisory spans more than ten years, starting in 2013 while I was studying and working as a recruiter in Australia. Back then, I helped international students present themselves online and in person to secure corporate roles. Over time, I noticed that even experienced corporate executives faced the exact same visibility hurdles.

About a year ago, I joined forces with my best friend Shamane Tan, who is a LinkedIn Top Voice and former C-level executive. In her previous role at a cybersecurity consulting firm, she used personal branding to expand the company’s overseas footprint, eventually leading to its acquisition by a listed company. We saw so many founders and leaders build incredible services that went unnoticed simply because no one spoke about them. Combining our complementary executive coaching and personal branding backgrounds to solve this widespread visibility problem was a natural next step.”

What Is One Win (big or small) You’re Celebrating Now?

“We recently returned from a trade mission to Australia after being selected for the Generation Next programme, an initiative funded by the Australian Government and organised by the ASEAN-Australia Centre. Out of 900 startup applicants across the region, Vibe Tribe was one of only 13 female-founded businesses chosen, and one of just two selected from Singapore.

Beyond the honour of representing Singapore on an international stage, the trade mission yielded immediate, tangible results. It opened up several promising ongoing collaborations, provided us with valuable strategic clarity, and established a clear path for our potential market expansion into Australia.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You Learned Earlier?

“When you first start out in business, you receive a lot of advice, and it is tempting to apply paid or unpaid guidance wholesale because it worked for someone else. Earlier in our journey, we paid coaches and mentors to fast-track our growth, only to learn the painful lesson that a framework or model that works for one person may not work for you.

It is easy to assume that experienced advisors automatically know better than you do, but blind execution of external advice can be costly. We learned that while advice is valuable, you must remain discerning. You have to evaluate the context, trust your own instincts, and pay close attention to what your specific market is telling you.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“Running a business inevitably brings tough days where momentum slows and doubt creeps in. When those moments happen, I reset by returning to my core values and evaluating what this business truly gives me compared to returning to a stable corporate role.

I keep my core values simple and memorable because they all start with the letter ‘F’: Freedom, Flexibility, Fun, and Flourishing. Reminding myself how much freedom and flexibility this business provides, alongside the joy of helping other leaders flourish in their careers, restores my perspective instantly. As long as you stay anchored in your foundational values, the joy of entrepreneurship far outweighs the strain of any bad day.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Cindi Wirawan, cofounder at Vibe Tribe

HQ: Singapore

Web: vibedna.io

Launched internationally in Bath at the beginning of September, Future Farming Challenge is the latest in a growing line of Geo A.R. experiences built to answer a question researchers have wrestled with for decades, how do you make people feel what the science means, rather than merely reading about it?

This time, the science hits close to home. Few subjects carry higher stakes for New Zealand: farming underpins the country’s export economy and the life of its rural communities, yet every decision ripples far beyond the farm gate into waterways, wildlife, and the towns that depend on the land.

Future Farming Challenge compresses that reality into something anyone can experience. It is built to leave people thinking differently about the future of farming in New Zealand, the decisions behind every paddock and plate, and the changes everyday people can make to create a better place to live.

That shift, says Jolene Hellund, Geo A.R.’s Director of Delivery and Partnerships, starts with getting the science off the page.

“Science research and reports are very detailed, and it can be challenging for the average person to know what the science means or what they should be doing differently. Simulations bridge the gap between science, knowledge, and lived experience. They let you experience the future before it happens.”

Future Farming Challenge puts that philosophy to work. The development has been a collaborative effort by the Bioeconomy Science Institute, Geo A.R., Hot Mustard, Urban Intelligence, Public Health and Forensic Science Institute, LHL Consulting, the University of Canterbury and CSIRO. The simulation drops players into the role of a New Zealand farmer on a shared catchment of three farms, navigating three rounds of seasonal decision-making. They manage paddocks, wetlands, horticulture, and technology, balancing productivity against the long-term health of land, water, and community. Every choice plays out visibly on the farm board, so consequences accumulate, and the trade-offs between economic survival and environmental stewardship become something felt, not just explained.

“There’s not often a perfect solution,” Hellund says. “Farmers are constantly trying to balance productivity, profitability, environmental outcomes, climate resilience, biodiversity, water, emissions, and changing markets. The simulation gives you the ability to experiment with different decisions and outcomes.”

No farmer makes those decisions in isolation, and in the Future Farming Challenge, players experience real-world scenarios that involve wider decision-making. A player can propose a wetland that benefits the whole catchment, then negotiate the cost split with two neighbouring farms, who must agree before it goes ahead. In academic circles, the format is known as a serious game (adaptation simulation), a category used by social scientists worldwide.

Principal Scientist with Urban Intelligence (UI) and Geo A.R. Science advisor Paula Blackett knows the format better than most. As a collaborator on Future Farming Challenge, she has worked with Geo A.R. on three earlier projects, Future Coasts Aotearoa, My Coastal Futures, and Township Flood Challenge. Each time, the studio turned her vision into an experience people can learn from, connect with, and enjoy.

“Serious games bring problems to life in a relatable way, and package complex information in a simple, digestible way,” Blackett says. “They allow people to bypass decision paralysis, and to experiment in a safe environment with actions they may not normally take.”

The hope for Future Farming Challenge is no different.

“We want players to experience for themselves the tensions involved in making decisions on a farm,” she says. “It is a tool to discuss different farming futures, and a springboard to explore possibilities.”

The project grew out of Moving the Middle, an MBIE funded BSI research programme focused on overcoming the sense of inertia many farmers feel in a complex and overwhelming environment. The research team began by asking farmers, rural professionals, and policy-makers to sort 55 statements about farming, the environment, Māori, and the economy by how closely each matched their own thinking. The six viewpoints that emerged became the simulation’s starting point.

For Peter Edwards, a senior researcher on the programme, the goal of the serious game is real-world change, with farmers adopting new approaches that improve environmental and community outcomes while keeping the business viable. Its potential, he believes, stretches well beyond New Zealand.

“Many of these farming issues are not unique to New Zealand, they are found around the world,” Edwards says. “We don’t expect farmers or others to immediately change the decisions they make, rather these conversations will plant a seed. It is these reflections that may eventually give them the confidence to do something differently.”

Farmers and landowners gave the serious game a warm reception at the recent Moving the Middle symposium in Wellington. Browser-based and built with accessibility in mind, it is designed to travel into schools, councils, and community settings, while anonymised analytics show researchers which pathways players favour, insight that can inform future policy.

The debut itself came on 7 September at the Earth System Governance Early Career Day in Bath, where the digital experience was demonstrated side by side with its original tabletop version.

With partnerships spanning the globe, the team shows no sign of slowing down. And Hellund is clear about what drives the work.

“There are so many exciting ideas and projects out there to help communities,” she says. “That’s the space we feel very privileged to be in.”

Aotearoa New Zealand entrepreneurs Chris Crutchley and Nick Bartlett have spent nearly a decade building Wayfindr, an eight-figure bootstrapped fourth-party logistics company operating across major global trade lanes. Their model addresses structural friction that previously delayed international scaling.

Under legacy logistics systems, opening new markets meant negotiating with separate freight forwarders, warehousing facilities, and local delivery couriers. A medium-sized business entering two or more countries typically managed five to seven separate suppliers, taking nine months to complete the setup. Larger brands scaling into more than five markets often managed up to 14 distinct providers.

“Eight or nine years ago, warehouses, freight forwarders, and courier companies were completely fragmented,” explains Chris Crutchley. “As a brand owner, you had to perform massive amounts of research just to find individual partners for each leg of the journey.”

Digitally native companies now demand faster setup times, unified software integration, and real-time operational data.

“The customer we deal with today is significantly different from the old world,” says Nick Bartlett. “They want agility, speed, visibility across the operation, and most importantly, they want data to tell the story.”

Rather than acquiring physical trucks or distribution centres, a fourth-party logistics provider functions as an asset-light technology layer connecting disparate supply chains. Much like modern ride-hailing applications, this digital orchestration allows storefronts to connect global supply networks in as little as 30 to 45 days.

This approach also separates authentic fourth-party logistics (4PL) platforms from traditional third-party logistics (3PL) operators. While third-party providers own physical real estate and seek to fill specific warehouse capacity, an asset-light fourth-party provider remains vendor-agnostic.

“If you are dealing with five different touchpoints, five contracts, and five contacts in five different time zones, you are not using a 4PL,” warns Crutchley.

What Does Your Company Do?

“We build modular, plug-and-play robotic kitchens that take inspiration from a data centre rack. Instead of distributing kitchens horizontally, we stack them vertically and let robots control the cooking. Our systems are designed to fit into existing restaurants and food service businesses to alleviate severe labour shortages, with a modular architecture that can eventually scale from a home to a stadium on the exact same footprint.

We are not trying to eliminate humans from hospitality. Preparation is still handled by people, preserving that human essence in the food, while robots take over the high-skill, repeatable finishing tasks. That means a chef can prepare ingredients during the day, and our system can serve finished meals at 2am while the chef is asleep.

We are closer to an industrial-scale food processing line on a compact footprint than a humanoid robot trying to mimic a chef. By stacking vertically, we bypass human physical limits. A robot does not care if boiling liquid or hot oil is two and a half metres in the air.

There are 29,000 unfilled chef positions in Australia, 140,000 in the UK, and nearly 300,000 in Japan. Operating margins in food service are under 5%, so venues are paying more for less qualified staff while food quality drops. We offer an automated alternative to solve that acute labour crisis.”

What Inspired You To Start It?

“The idea came together about a year ago at my father’s wake. I bumped into a family friend of twenty years, Richard Ousby, who is an award-winning chef with two Chef’s Hats to his name. We started talking about robotics and had this wild idea… what if you could stack a kitchen all the way to the ceiling against one wall, keeping the rest of the venue as open theatre space?

I was excited by the artistic vision of a robotic ballet producing food, but Richard was focused on the operational reality. He manages dozens of chefs across multiple venues, and recruiting, training, and retaining kitchen staff is an ongoing battle. Shortly after, my cofounder Amanda and I joined forces with Richard. We took over a space in an innovation hub with a robotic kitchen setup and spent three months experimenting.

When we looked deeper at the systemic trends, wage pressures, closing culinary schools, and exploding delivery app demand, automation felt inevitable. I reached out to founders of former robotic kitchen startups that had failed, and they all said the same thing: the vision is inevitable, but they were simply too early. Today, with restaurant margins razor-thin, the market need has finally caught up.”

What Is One Win (big or small) You’re Celebrating Now?

“Our biggest early validation came in May when we pre-sold three units at a trade show. Those initial buyers represent three totally different profiles - a regional pub in Victoria, a high-throughput airport venue, and a suburban community restaurant. Every one of them cited staff consistency as their single biggest headache.

On the capital and advisory side, we are currently running a pre-seed SAFE round. Andrew Barnes, cofounder of Go1, has come on board as an early angel investor and advisory board member. We also have the head of hospitality innovation from Project NEOM in Saudi Arabia advising us.

Alongside our core kitchen racks, we took on a standalone project to build a high-speed robotic barista. It is designed for a drive-through application, capable of producing 120 cups per hour or 700 a day at true Australian coffee quality standards. That unit is scheduled for deployment in December.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You Learned Earlier?

“Honestly, every mistake we make right now is a valuable learning outcome. We optimise for the maximum number of iterations in the shortest period of time so we can fail fast, fix things, and keep moving forward.

That said, our biggest misstep early on was spending four or five months in a shared space using someone else’s robotics setup and software. We thought it would deliver mutual value, but it turned out to be a distraction. We fixed their system and got it cooking end-to-end, but they could not commercialise it.

If we had our time again, we would have cut out that middle step and gone straight to building our own proprietary rack-based prototype. Demand is not our bottleneck; physical build capacity and resource bandwidth are. In hardware, credibility follows tangible execution. Once you prove the system cooks, the resources follow.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“Every founder eventually realises that there is something slightly broken in their head, otherwise no one would choose to do this. I view hard days as essential for perspective. Darkness is only dark when contrasted with light. The devastating moments only feel heavy when set against the wins, and flipping your mindset to treat adversity as contrast makes every victory far sweeter.

That shift in perspective really hit home for me over the last two years around the time my father passed away. I realised that I chose this path, so I cannot treat setbacks as pure negativity. They form the dark background on the canvas, allowing the vision you are trying to paint to actually stand out.

We operate by a quote on our team: never underestimate how a small group of dedicated, crazy individuals can change the world, because they are the only ones who actually might. You have to be a bit nuts to try and transform an entire industry.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Alexander Cohen, cofounder at Three Hat Robotics

HQ: Australia

Web: threehatrobotics.com

While traditional hangover remedies focus strictly on hydration, SoBear targets acetaldehyde—the toxic chemical byproduct of alcohol that metabolises in the liver and causes hangover symptoms such as severe headaches, nausea, and cognitive fatigue. Using dihydromyricetin, a natural plant compound, SoBear’s chewy gummies supercharge the liver’s natural ability to flush out toxic buildup, providing health-conscious professionals and social drinkers with an effortless recovery tool.

“Most products out there are powders or pills that only treat dehydration and are hard to take,” says founder Matthew Singleton. “We spotted a clear gap to target the actual cause of a hangover rather than just the symptoms in a delicious gummy format that actually works.”

“With people becoming more health-conscious, they still want to feel great the next morning,” adds Singleton. “Even after two or three drinks, you can feel foggy the next day. SoBear gives people an easy way to stay sharp and recover.”

Behind the effortless customer experience, bringing the bootstrapped solution to market required sheer resilience. Early in the venture, Singleton was scammed out of $60,000 when an unvetted manufacturer delivered an entire production run lacking active ingredients, leaving him with nothing but sugary sweets. Forced to bin the shipment, the founder personally funded a second $60,000 order.

“Losing $60,000 was easily one of the biggest mess-ups we’ve had, but it taught me the importance of staying calm under pressure,” reflects Singleton. “When things go wrong in business, you can’t waste time stressing about it. You have to adapt quickly, fix the supply chain, and keep moving forward.”

That hard-earned operational agility has paid off. Supported by strong customer demand and rapid international expansion, SoBear is proving that a bootstrapped New Zealand startup can disrupt a $30 billion global industry, with the company now on track to reach 20,000 retail locations worldwide over the next two years.

What Does Your Company Do?

“WoodWatch is an early-warning smart leak detection system that monitors moisture within structural materials (timber, drywall, concrete) and alerts well before damage becomes severe.

The more people I talked to it became very clear this was a widespread problem with no practical solution.”

What Inspired You To Start It?

“The inspiration came about five years ago. A friend in property management told me about a tenant who had called to say “the floor in the bathroom has turned squishy”. It turned out the bath drain had been leaking for a long time without anyone knowing.

The damage was extensive and expensive to fix. The bathroom cost $20,000+ to repair and it was not covered by insurance. He asked if I could come up with an early detection tool, which led to the creation of WoodWatch.”

What Is One Win (big or small) You’re Celebrating Now?

“One big win we are celebrating is the launch of WoodWatch to the public space. Although we launched when people were winding down for Christmas, we secured 10 sales before the holidays!

Currently we are gearing up to trial the system in a large apartment complex where they have been plagued with hidden water leaks.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You Learned Earlier?

“One lesson I wish I’d learned earlier is to do market research and try to lock in interest before building the thing. As an engineer, I jumped straight into prototyping and getting a working system together well before I’d really engaged with the potential market.

Talking to customers earlier would have helped shape priorities faster. Tools like a lean canvas and developing ideal customer profiles have since been invaluable for narrowing down which markets to focus on.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“Encouragement from my partner Brittany across the journey so far has definitely helped. Also, being a part of the MOA (Ministry of Awesome) Founder Catalyst program has been a huge boost.

Weekly meetings with my amazing mentor Cappy gives me accountability on my progress, and monthly think tanks with other startups gives fresh brains to the current problems we are tackling.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Casey Nordick of WoodWatch

HQ: New Zealand

Web: woodwatch.click

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Spearheaded by Chief Executive Mike Maunsell, a former infrastructure programme executive, alongside co-founders Tim Williams and Neville Jones, NILO targets the global manufactured wood panel sector. For decades, the production of particleboard, medium-density fibreboard, and oriented strand board has relied on petroleum-based urea formaldehyde resins. This dependency leaves manufacturers exposed to massive supply chain shocks, highlighted by recent geopolitical turbulence that drove urea prices up by 100 percent. By replacing volatile fossil-fuel inputs with locally sourced plastic waste, NILO offers a domestic insurance policy that simultaneously eliminates toxic formaldehyde emissions from building products.

The technology recently achieved independent validation at a testing facility in Dresden, Germany, matching the structural performance of traditional market incumbents. This breakthrough caught the attention of retail giant Inter IKEA, which acquired a minority stake and a board seat, opening doors to major European manufacturing operations in Poland and Slovakia. NILO has also secured plastic credit certification, allowing multinational brands to offset their plastic footprints while subsidising NILO’s raw material pre-processing costs.

Despite high-profile backing and international patents granted in the United States and Australia, Maunsell maintains a pragmatic view on commercial adoption. “People are genuinely looking for environmentally responsible options, but you cannot rely on green sympathy alone,” Maunsell explains. “If you expect customers to pay a premium just because a product is sustainable, you will always remain a niche player. To achieve true global scale and genuinely solve the world’s plastic waste crisis, you must deliver a product that matches the incumbent on price, excels in performance, and happens to be green.”

NILO is now shifting focus from laboratory testing to global commercialisation. By leveraging a licensed partner model, the Kiwi team aims to scale its deep tech solution across international markets, proving that sustainable innovation and commercial performance can seamlessly coexist.

As AI enables individuals to do more than ever before, the demand for dozens of software licenses for a single team is evaporating. “If I can swap ten people with two to three people working with AI agents, am I going to need those many licenses for that particular product?” Deen asks.

This shift is forcing companies to rethink their pricing and deliver value based on outcomes rather than headcount.

Another real terror for SaaS startups is the new reality that any SaaS product that can be replicated in a weekend by a competitor using AI, is effectively a commodity. Deen warns that, “SaaS was already in shaky grounds in terms of what vibe coding can replace. Your software can be replaced in one weekend by someone who likes what you did”.

For a software business to remain competitive and investable today, Deen says it must look beyond its generic code and embrace the concept of the whole product model. As Deen explains, “It’s not just your product that’s the value. It’s your integrations, how open your partnerships, your community that you have built with your customers, the engagement, how they feel about your brand”.

He warns that, “It doesn’t do you any good to add a hundred customers if you’re losing a hundred customers. You’re just on a treadmill for nothing”.

“The only way to prevent that churn is through constant, assumption-free dialogue with the people using your product.”

What Does Your Company Do?

“InsitePro was created on the back of 10 plus years of experience in the construction industry, working as a project manager and quantity surveyor for almost 15 years in New Zealand. Every construction project in New Zealand has to be delivered under a contract that drives how payment claims are processed monthly. These contracts are very rigid and law-driven, yet the process is old-school paper and Excel spreadsheet-driven.

InsitePro was created to save time chewed up by sending emails and version control problems, bringing everybody onto one collaborative platform to work from one source of truth. The main contractor, project manager, client, and quantity surveyor sit in the same place to manage project financials.

For main contractors, the main gains are time and compliance—the software creates compliant paperwork on their behalf and integrates with Xero. For project managers and quantity surveyors, it saves a massive amount of time chasing the truth or fixing broken spreadsheets and formulas. For clients, who are legally liable under the contract to monitor delivery, it gives live financial visibility and flags if something is going wrong or behind schedule. We like to visualise InsitePro as the glue in the middle that integrates with existing systems without replacing their workflows.”

What Inspired You To Start It?

“I literally woke up at 3 a.m. thinking, “There must be a better way to do this”. I woke up my husband—who didn’t appreciate it very much at that point in time—asking why we couldn’t all sit in the same document instead of this online spreadsheet that everybody keeps breaking.

In a company I worked for previously, we had a person whose only job was a glorified contract administrator role, checking if people broke spreadsheets. In the 21st century, for somebody’s job to be such manual data collection and review is crazy. Builders should be building houses, not filling spreadsheets, and quantity surveyors should be making sure projects don’t cost too much, not fixing somebody else’s mathematical problems.

Just under a year ago, I created an MVP in Airtable to trial on a couple of projects I was delivering myself. It worked, so I discussed it with my network of contacts and potential buyers. They all said they would buy it. From there, I bootstrapped it up to our launch—found a software developer, did all the design and automations, and built the platform.”

What Is One Win (big or small) You’re Celebrating Now?

“We officially launched at the BuildNZ Expo, which was greatly successful and well received by the community. We are now onboarding paying clients, collating feedback, and looking at expanding features on the software in September and October.

We were also successful in getting funding through the Kiwibank Startup+ fund, which has been greatly supportive. Looking ahead, we’re attending an event in September organised by Hubexo for architects, project managers, and quantity surveyors to bring InsitePro in front of more senior stakeholders. Then in November, we’ll be taking a stand in Sydney to look at expanding into the Australian market.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You Learned Earlier?

“I wish I had contacted and started collaborating earlier with people who have done this before—finding my tribe earlier. I did a lot of it by myself at very early stages based on my technical knowledge, and I probably wasted a good two or three months trying to figure out something that was not my thing to figure out.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to collaborate with Jesse Henderson through the MBIE Startup Aotearoa mentorship programme. Having that sounding board, getting help through marketing, and being introduced to the startup community has been huge. I wish I was there last year rather than this year, knowing more of these people and having those relationships earlier on.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“You question your sanity all the time! But ultimately, it comes down to connecting with your “why”. I truly believe that there is a place for this software. It may not change the world, but it will change somebody’s world who does this every day. Improving workflow and saving time will improve the industry as a whole.

The construction industry is in a lot of trouble at the moment, with companies falling over due to cash flow. We are bringing something to market that is cost-effective, helps cash flow, and helps them navigate those tough times. If it means that it helps one contractor down the track, then we are here for the right reason. Running your own business can get lonely and tiresome, but you’ve just got to keep on keeping on.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Kate Dyer of InsitePro

HQ: New Zealand

Web: in-site-pro.com

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Operating from their base in Hong Kong, Wayfindr was born out of a major friction point the founders identified in global commerce, namely the extreme rigidity of traditional third-party logistics (3PL) providers. Asset-heavy firms routinely rejected fast-growing brands with complex or contrasting fulfilment needs with a standard “sorry, can’t do it.”

Crutchley and Bartlett envisioned a highly adaptive alternative, pioneering an asset-light fourth-party logistics (4PL) model. By acting as digital supply chain orchestrators rather than asset owners, Wayfindr successfully coordinates complex vendor networks without owning a single delivery van or leasing warehouse space.

The business has since evolved into a sophisticated, tech-driven enterprise powered by their proprietary dashboard software, Bundle, which directly links over 300 global suppliers to give clients end-to-end transparency. They have recently advanced their platform capabilities by embedding artificial intelligence through Compass, an automated onboarding and oversight module providing a bird’s-eye view of real-time product movements.

Remarkably, this rapid international expansion to an eight-figure revenue business with over 50 staff has been entirely bootstrapped out of their own operational revenues, completely avoiding equity dilution. Today, Wayfindr processes over one million international orders annually across 15 major city markets, remaining deeply committed to leveraging their global network to help ambitious Australian and New Zealand brands seamlessly crack open international markets.

Learn more about Wayfindr at www.wayfindr.io

What Does Your Company Do?

“ECVS designs and delivers electric commercial vehicles and the systems that make them work in the real world. We focus on replacing diesel in heavy transport through practical, deployable solutions such as electric trucks, electric power take-off systems, and electric trailer assist.

What makes us different is that we don’t just supply vehicles. We integrate the full system (vehicle, energy, and control software) so fleets can operate reliably and economically from day one.”

What Inspired You To Start It?

“The transport industry is under pressure to decarbonise, but the solutions being offered are often incomplete.

Vehicles, charging, and energy systems are typically developed in isolation, which creates real-world problems for operators such as cost, reliability, and range.

ECVS was started to fix that gap. The idea was simple: make electrification actually work in commercial transport, not just look good on paper.”

What Is One Win (big or small) You’re Celebrating Now?

“We’ve successfully deployed electric commercial vehicles in real operating environments and gathered multi-year operational data.

That might sound basic, but in this sector it’s significant because it proves the technology works outside of trials and theory.

It’s given us the confidence to move into scalable products like electric trailer assist and integrated energy systems.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You Learned Earlier?

“Don’t assume the market will move as fast as the technology.

Even when the solution is clearly better, adoption takes time because customers are managing risk, not just performance.

The lesson is to focus as much on commercial models, financing, and ease of adoption as on the technology itself.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“By staying close to the real-world problem.

When you see how much diesel is being burned every day and how quickly that can be reduced with the right solution—it keeps things very grounded.

Also, progress doesn’t come from big breakthroughs alone. It’s the steady accumulation of small wins that builds momentum.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Mark Crouch, Simon Monteith, Andrew Rushworth of ECVS

HQ: New Zealand

Web: ecvs.co.nz

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Learn more about Guardian Flame at www.guardianflame.com

What Does Your Company Do?

“Future Post has solved one of the hardest problems in the global plastics crisis - what to do with mixed, low-value waste plastic that no one else can economically use. We take plastic that is typically destined for landfill or export and convert it into high-performance fencing and landscaping products.

This isn’t downcycling - it’s transformation into a premium, long-life material that outperforms timber in durability, strength, and whole-of-life cost. The result is a closed-loop, fully recyclable product that doesn’t rot, leach, or fail in harsh environments.

It’s already trusted across agriculture, infrastructure, and landscaping and it turns an environmental liability into a profitable, scalable asset.”

What Inspired You To Start It?

“Future Post started in a paddock with a real-world problem no one had solved. While fencing on an old dump site, traditional timber posts were failing - literally breaking against buried plastic waste.

That moment exposed two broken systems at once: materials that couldn’t perform, and plastic that had no viable end use. What followed wasn’t a product tweak - it was building an entirely new solution from scratch. We developed our own processing system and machinery to take certain plastic streams and turn them into something structurally reliable.

That required many months of trial, failure, and iteration, because there was no existing blueprint to follow. The result is a proprietary manufacturing capability that converts waste no one wants into something the market actively demands.”

What Is One Win (big or small) You’re Celebrating Now?

“We’ve moved from proving a concept to proving a market, and that’s a critical shift. Future Post products are now widely accepted as a genuine alternative to timber, with growing demand across multiple sectors and geographies. What’s particularly powerful is that new applications are increasingly being driven by customers themselves.

This has extended our reach into several other markets e.g. we have current trials with customers in dunnage, cool store barriers and truck decking. We’re also demonstrating relevance beyond New Zealand, especially in environments where durability matters most, including coastal and Pacific regions. And importantly, we’ve already processed nearly 10,000 tonnes of plastic waste that would otherwise have had no viable pathway.

That’s proof of execution at scale.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You Learned Earlier?

“That solving a problem no one else has solved means you also have to bring the market with you. When you’re creating something genuinely new (both the product and the process) adoption doesn’t happen overnight. The breakthrough isn’t just technical, it’s behavioural.

Once people see the product performing in the field, the shift happens quickly but getting to that point requires persistence, education, and resilience. The upside is that once adoption starts, it accelerates because the alternatives don’t stack up.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“When you’re building something from scratch, challenges are constant - but so is the clarity of purpose. That creates a different level of motivation.

Seeing the product in use, watching customers choose it over traditional materials, and knowing that every unit represents waste diverted and value created keeps momentum strong.

And ultimately, we’re building something much bigger than a product line. We’re building a scalable solution to a global waste problem. That tends to put tough days in perspective.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Jerome Wenzlick of Future Post

HQ: New Zealand

Web: futurepost.co.nz

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What Does Your Company Do?

“Delightable turns customer conversations into intelligence for beauty brand marketers through a virtual shopping assistant that sits on ecommerce websites.

We help beauty brands turn product discovery into both a better customer experience and a richer source of insight.

Our virtual shopping concierge guides ecommerce shoppers through personalised, conversational recommendations, giving consumers a more intuitive way to decide, while giving brands real-time zero and first-party behavioural data on what customers are actually looking for, why they are hesitating, and which products or proof points are driving consideration.

We describe it as the intelligence layer powering conversational commerce.”

What Is Your Origin Story?

“We started life as a beauty company on a mission to change how people discovered and experienced perfume online - born out of personal frustration. Why was a shopper’s experience in fragrance still so confusing, overwhelming, inconsistent, and impersonal when truck loads of data was so readily available?

We launched a range and built technology to help people find their perfect match.

Eventually, that vision revealed a much larger opportunity - to transform how people discover products based entirely on their personal preferences, across a range of categories.”

What Are You Celebrating Now?

“We’d built a tool to solve our own problem, but we realised it could help so many more brands out there.

Fast forward to today and we’re building agentic technology to do just that.

We’re soon to release the beta version of our product so are celebrating building completely new agentic technology and releasing it to a small group of pilot customers.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You’d Learned Earlier?

“Stop building as much and talk to customers super early, and continuously.

We learned this further down the track and pre-sold using clickable prototypes.

It was a game changer.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“I try to focus on the small wins and mini-achievements.

I also have a folder of positive customer feedback to refer back to when I need a ‘pick-me-up’.

That or play with our toddler who only cares if you can build the tallest Duplo tower!”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Madeleine Patel of Delightable (Cofounder Dr Ankit Patel)

HQ: Wellington, New Zealand

Web: itsdelightable.com

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For decades, New Zealand has relied on a unique brand of “Number 8 wire” ingenuity to punch above its weight on the global stage. We are a nation of hard workers, yet we find ourselves grappling with a persistent productivity gap that threatens our long-term economic resilience. Historically, when faced with a challenge, our instinct has been to “chuck people” at the problem rather than technology. But as the era of artificial intelligence arrives with the force of a sea change, Mountfort says that traditional approach is reaching its natural limit.

Mountfort is the founder of The AI Assembly, a citizen-led movement designed to ensure that no New Zealander is left behind in this technological shift. Based in Auckland, the organisation serves as a social enterprise dedicated to increasing nationwide AI literacy.

The goal is straightforward yet ambitious: to take the mystery out of the machine and put the practical understanding of AI into the hands of every learner and leader, regardless of their background. The prevailing narrative in boardrooms across the country is one of productivity. Leaders are understandably eager to harness AI to do more with existing resources. Mountfort does not argue against that goal but does argue for a smarter path to achieving it. She says businesses cannot leapfrog straight to productivity gains if their workforce is acting out of fear or hesitation. “You cannot sustain productivity gains without trust, and you cannot build trust without education. They have to move together.”

This philosophy forms the bedrock of The AI Assembly. By creating a base layer of literacy covering the possibilities, the limitations, and the risks of AI, the movement aims to transform AI from a perceived threat into a collaborative tool that people feel genuinely equipped and confident to use.

This transformation is fundamentally human rather than technical. Mountfort has seen many technology rollouts succeed and fail over the last twenty years, and the common denominator is always the people. The most successful shifts are those that employ a top-down and bottom-up approach, where the people using the tools every day are just as informed and involved as the executives leading the charge. This is why The AI Assembly operates as a community rather than a traditional corporate consultancy. It is a space where individuals can participate on their own terms, choosing to engage because they want to thrive in their daily lives, not just because their employer told them to attend a workshop.

The scale of the movement is already significant. What began as a personal drive by Mountfort has blossomed into a collective effort supported by nearly 40 volunteers, ranging from young AI engineers and data scientists to senior industry leaders. The momentum is tangible. At their inaugural event in Parnell, 120 women signed up to engage with the technology in a trusted, community environment. While many attendees were sceptical or uncertain about AI, it proved for Mountfort that New Zealanders are hungry for knowledge, provided it is delivered with transparency and without hype.

Central to the organisation’s mission is the AI the Right Way® methodology. This framework is a home-grown response to a global phenomenon. While international perspectives dominate much of the conversation around AI adoption, Mountfort is adamant that New Zealand needs a New Zealand-first approach. Our country has a unique cultural landscape and specific economic requirements that cannot be fully addressed by one-size-fits-all solutions developed elsewhere. By building a localised certification process and a community-led skills hub, The AI Assembly is ensuring that New Zealand’s AI literacy is grounded in our own values, communities, and needs.

Looking ahead, the next twelve months are set to be a period of rapid activation. The organisation is launching the AI The Right Way® Foundation Certification, designed to provide an equitable, nationwide standard for responsible AI engagement. Alongside this, they continue to run diverse programmes including HerAIStory™ which creates space for women to build confidence and capability in AI — and Real-World AI™, which helps individuals and organisations work through real problems using a practical, structured framework.

Mountfort’s advice to those starting their own journey is to surround themselves with a community that understands both the possibilities and the challenges. The journey into AI space can feel isolating, but it does not have to be. By connecting with others who are navigating the same questions, New Zealanders can ensure that the shift into an AI-augmented future is a collective step forward rather than a fragmented struggle.

Mountfort says if New Zealand can build that base layer of understanding across industries, communities, and generations, the productivity gains we have chased for decades may finally be within reach. Not because AI will do the work for us, but because our people will know how to work with it.

What Does Your Company Do?

“We’re building intelligent autonomous machines for the waste and recycling industry.

Our starting point is one of the industry’s biggest pain points: battery fires inside waste facilities. Lithium batteries hidden in waste are causing serious damage.

We use AI, advanced sensing, and robotics to identify batteries in real time on conveyor belts and remove them before they cause fires. Long term, we’re building the fully autonomous layer for modern waste infrastructure.”

What Is Your Origin Story?

“I was working on a feasibility study for battery recycling and discovered that over 90% of batteries are thrown away incorrectly.

At the time, there were no dedicated lithium battery recycling facilities in New South Wales. I initially thought I’d build a recycling plant.

But while developing battery-sorting and wireless discharging tech with friends, I realised the real bottleneck wasn’t recycling - it was detection. That’s when Oscorp’s direction crystallised.”

What Are You Celebrating Now?

“I’m not big on celebrating - the goalposts always move.

But if I had to pick one, well, multiple... we secured a pilot with Australia’s largest battery recycler and recently raised capital from Antler VC.

At the same time, our AI training dataset has grown significantly, and our robotics is taking shape ahead of our timelines. All this in a matter of 4-5 months. For a hardware startup, that’s meaningful momentum - though, we can go even faster and harder, and we are and will!”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You’d Learned Earlier?

“As they say, ‘hardware is hard’ - and focus is everything.

Early on, we tried to commercialise multiple products at once. In a resource-constrained startup, that’s dangerous. The biggest lesson: pick one problem, one product, one Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and go full throttle.

Depth beats breadth, especially in hardware and deep tech.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“I think it’s the inherent need to solve this problem and the bigger sense of purpose and vision I have for the company.

That keeps me driving regardless of whether we’re winning or losing. Some days are great, some are hard - and that’s what makes the journey fun and I love every bit of it. It’s pretty much heads down and keep running.

The mission and vision is bigger than the moment.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Ani Goswami of Oscorp Energy (Cofounders Dhiren Swami and Dr Chandrakant Bothe)

HQ: Sydney, Australia

Web: oscorpenergy.com.au

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What Does Your Company Do?

“Mellers Tech is building OBDAssistant, an AI-powered vehicle health platform that automatically monitors how a car behaves and detects meaningful changes over time.

It translates diagnostics into clear, simple insights, and also scans quotes, invoices, and repair documents to explain findings and estimate fair, region-based pricing.

The focus is shifting diagnostics from reactive scans to proactive, understandable vehicle health intelligence.”

What Is Your Origin Story?

“Working as a mobile mechanic, I constantly saw people stressed and unsure when warning lights appeared.

Even simple issues felt overwhelming because the information wasn’t clear. Existing tools are built for technicians, not everyday drivers.

I wanted to use my hands-on experience and combine it with AI to create something that makes vehicle health and maintenance easy to understand and removes that uncertainty.”

What Are You Celebrating Now?

“Being accepted into the Google Play Apps Accelerator is a major milestone.

It’s strong validation that the direction I’m taking (moving from traditional diagnostics toward automated, intelligence-driven vehicle monitoring) has real potential.

It’s also helped refine the product’s focus so it delivers clear value rather than just more features.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You’d Learned Earlier?

“I wish I’d realised earlier that adding more features doesn’t create value on its own.

For a long time I focused on building capability, but the real shift comes from making the core experience obvious and meaningful straight away.

If users don’t instantly understand what your product does for them, it doesn’t matter how powerful it is underneath.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“I stay focused on the long-term vision of making vehicle health something people actually understand and feel confident about.

Progress, even small improvements, keeps momentum going.

I also remind myself that I’m building something that solves a real problem I’ve seen firsthand , which makes it easier to push through the tougher days.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Chris Mellers of Mellers Tech

HQ: New Zealand

Web: obd2assistant.com

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What Does Your Company Do?

“Preferences AI helps companies understand and engage their customers through AI agents and digital simulations.

We transform your ideal customer personas into dynamic digital twins, utilising an intelligence layer that learns, predicts, and guides strategic business actions.

This foundation powers our autonomous AI agents to engage and convert audiences with unprecedented accuracy, providing brands the confidence to succeed by validating their approach through simulation before they even take action.”

What Is Your Origin Story?

“After our previous startup was acquired by one of our largest investors, my co-founders and I wanted to tackle a major pain point for Asian entrepreneurs: the lack of data and tools to find product-market fit.

We realized AI agents were the perfect solution to help companies truly understand their customers.

We started Preferences AI to build this essential technology with a simple mindset built in Asia, for Asia.”

What Are You Celebrating Now?

“We recently signed a major Hong Kong-based international apparel brand to enhance their customer engagement.

After months of collaboration and a successful proof of concept, their board approved our digital simulation services to support their local and global expansion.

While you celebrate every win, securing this partnership was a pretty significant win for our team and a powerful validation for all the sleepless nights needed to get this across the line.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You’d Learned Earlier?

“I wish I had learned earlier to celebrate every victory, no matter how small.

As a founder, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the big tasks ahead as the goalposts keep moving. You need to acknowledge the small wins and be kind to yourself when things don’t go your way.

Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint, so you need to find ways to maintain momentum and keep your spirits up.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“On tough days, I try to remind myself how far we’ve come.

As a founder, you spend so much time firefighting and just trying to keep your head above water. But when you step back and take stock of your progress, it’s incredible to see the growth.

Most importantly, I remember how grateful I am to be tackling difficult challenges alongside co-founders I trust completely. Surround yourself with people who always have your back.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Tamir Abdel-wahab of Preferences AI

HQ: Hong Kong

Web: preferencesai.io

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What Does Your Organisation Do?

“Quidnet Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital fund backing deep-tech founders in New Zealand who are building globally relevant companies.

We focus on technically differentiated ventures operating at the harder end of innovation - where science, engineering, and long development cycles create real barriers to entry.

Our role is to provide early capital, strategic support, and long-term partnership to founders tackling problems that matter and markets that extend well beyond New Zealand.”

What Is Your Origin Story?

“Quidnet Ventures emerged from a simple observation: New Zealand produces world-class technical talent, but too many companies stall in the early stages due to fragmented capital and shallow risk appetite.

After decades working across Silicon Valley, large corporates, and startups, I saw an opportunity to apply global venture discipline locally.

The fund was founded to close that gap - bringing patient capital, global perspective, and active engagement to Kiwi deep tech.”

What Are You Celebrating Now?

“One quiet but meaningful win is seeing portfolio founders mature into disciplined CEOs without losing their technical edge.

Several companies we backed at a very early stage are now attracting high-quality international customers and follow-on investors.

That progression - from promising science to credible enterprise - is exactly what we set out to enable. It confirms that with the right support, New Zealand deep tech can compete on the global stage.”

What Is One Lesson You Wish You’d Learned Earlier?

“I wish I’d internalised sooner that investing is as much about temperament as intellect.

Pattern recognition and technical insight matter, but patience, restraint, and clarity under uncertainty matter more.

The hardest mistakes often come not from backing the wrong idea, but from moving too quickly, pushing too hard, or underestimating how long real innovation takes to compound into value.”

How Do You Keep Your Energy Up On Tough Days?

“I stay grounded by remembering that venture capital is a long game played in chapters, not days.

Time outdoors, regular exercise, and disciplined reading help maintain perspective. More importantly, spending time with founders - especially when things are hard - reinforces why the work matters.

Tough days are part of the job; what sustains energy is a clear sense of purpose and a commitment to building something that outlasts the current cycle.”

Learn More

Who: Q&A with Mark Bregman of Quidnet Ventures

HQ: Auckland, New Zealand

Web: quidnetventures.com

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• Early Detection: Proven to detect respiratory distress between 16 hours and 6 days before clinical symptoms are audible to the human ear.

• Comprehensive Monitoring: Provides 24/7 analysis of acoustics, temperature, and humidity.

• Improved Outcomes: Reduces animal mortality rates and improves feed conversion rates.

• Sustainability: Supports the reduction of unnecessary antibiotic use and lowers the carbon footprint of livestock production by preventing animal losses.

Christian Burkhardt, Head of Corporate Business Development of Virbac says about the deal, "This partnership brings a digital 'sixth sense' to the stable, allowing us to detect the invisible days before it becomes inevitable. By integrating MACSO’s advanced AI into our Suigen Range, we are delivering on our 'One Health' commitment to improve animal welfare while promoting the responsible use of antibiotics through precise, data-driven intervention.”

“We are incredibly excited to partner with Virbac, a company that shares our vision for the future of farming and the role of AI as a force for good,” said Saba Samiei, Founder and CEO of MACSO Technologies.

“Together, we are enabling a shift toward more proactive, data-driven care that improves animal welfare, supports farmers, and builds a more resilient and responsible food system.”

A Milestone for New Zealand Innovation

This multi-year, multinational partnership includes a future roadmap for the co-development of additional capabilities. For MACSO, the collaboration leverages Virbac’s global reach and animal health expertise to scale its New Zealand-grown technology at an unprecedented pace.

Saum Vahdat, CEO of Bridgewest Ventures New Zealand (MACSO’s lead investor), noted the significance of the deal for the sector: “This collaboration marks one of the earliest and most impactful forays of advanced AI into animal health. Through this alliance, MACSO’s cutting-edge technology will propel forward, delivering accelerated real-world impact and advancing more resilient, responsible food systems worldwide.”

The technology also helps address critical industry challenges, such as ongoing labor and skilled workforce shortages on farms, by enabling more efficient, data-driven management.

About MACSO Technologies

MACSO is a VC backed Auckland-based technology company specialising in AI and sensor fusion for precision animal health. The company develops advanced edge-computing AI that processes complex environmental data to deliver actionable insights for the agriculture sector. Their first commercialised solution focuses on swine health, aiming to reduce mortality and antibiotic use while improving efficiency. MACSO also offers consultancy services to help animal health organisations leverage data and AI. More information: www.MACSO.ai

About Virbac

Virbac is a global animal health company dedicated to preventing, diagnosing, and treating animal pathologies. They offer a comprehensive range of care, hygiene, and nutrition products for veterinarians, farmers, and pet owners worldwide. More information: corporate.virbac.com