Bootstrapped NZ Edition #7
Funding innovation 💡 startups in the news 🗞️ and changing the world’s urban journey habits for good 🚴♀️
Kia Ora everyone!
It was great to see our startups getting some well-earned screen time over the last fortnight (thanks Stuff) alongside a flurry of announcements funding innovative solutions in education, decarbonisation and sustainability…
🗞️ As seen in the news…
🍄 BioFab were featured in The Spinoff for their “mushroom packaging” - an innovative alternative to traditional plastic packaging
🎣 Xerra’s Starboard Maritime Intelligence featured in Stuff for their work detecting illegal fishing in the Pacific
🐟 AgriSea were profiled in Stuff after winning Māori company of the year at the Hi-Tech Awards
🛒 Startup Daily and Stuff explore what’s next for Supie after their $3.9M raise through The Snowball Effect
🍃 Wānaka startup Kea Outdoors were featured in Stuff for their innovative outdoor gear
💡 Funding innovation…
📚 In education: Education NZ awarded just over $1.6M in funding to kiwi education innovators Banqer, Te Kaihau Ltd, Te Whare Hukahuka, Virtual Medical Coaching Ltd, Chasing Time English, and Boma New Zealand. Read more about the recipients here
♻️ To decarbonise Aotearoa: The Westpac NZ Government Innovation Fund awarded $1.075 million to four ventures focused on decarbonising Aotearoa. The next focus area is 'quality homes within reach’ - if you have an idea to make housing more accessible consider applying for the next intake.
🌲 To revitalise Te Taiao: $8M will be shared amongst 3 research projects led by startup AgriSea, Ngāti Tawhirikura and WAI Wānaka as part of the revitalise Te Taio research program.
Cultivate Trust have launched a campaign to showcase tech talent in the Waikato, aiming to relocate 500 skilled workers to companies in the region. In the words of Hamilton City Council economic development manager Mike Bennett:
"Tech and innovation have been a rapidly growing part of Hamilton's economy for many years, and it was time to showcase the unique ecosystem that supports it all..”
Read more in this article or check out the website
🎵 Noteworthy
🚧 Mooven launched in the US, opening their first office in San Francisco
🍃 Mint Innovation opened the world’s first commercial scale biorefinery in Sydney
✋ Territory 3 released another list of NZ startups currently raising in their latest newsletter
🚀 Ko Māui Hangarau Ōtautahi went off, showcasing the opportunities available for rangatahi māori in the tech sector. Catch up on the highlights here
Ξ Positive Sum kicked off season 1 - If you’re interested in the intersect of the startup value economy and the Web3 ownership economy, read more here or join the discord
🎤 University of Auckland’s VentureLab wrapped up with a final showcase
🎥 Hillfarrance invested $1M in seed funding into VFX venture Floating Rock Studios
🥤 RISE UP
Outside the Box Caskets, Solid Oral Care, Secret Kiwi Kitchen, Veto, Finery and Fundpay all pitched at the Soda Inc. RISE UP pitch night for $10,000. Congratulations to Finery who took out first prize for their ready-to-drink alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails and Fundpay who won the People's Choice award.
Missed it? You can catch up on the recorded live stream here.
🗺️ Mapping out the ecosystem
How do we help our tech sector thrive? What barriers do kiwi entrepreneurs face? There are some initiatives underway to help understand these problems and develop solutions to support our ecosystem:
📘 GEN Entrepreneur’s Playbook
Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) NZ is developing an “Entrepreneur’s Playbook”. They are running a survey to better understand the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in New Zealand and want to hear from you! Have your say by filling out this survey.
📍 Mapping the Māori Tech Sector
Making Everything Achievable (MEA), Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and NZTech have come together to create a map of the Māori Tech Sector.
You can participate in the survey if you are Māori and Interested in the Tech Sector, a Māori Led-Tech Company, a Māori or Non-Māori Influencer, Supporter or Educator growing Māori participation in the Tech Sector or Māori Tech Sector & Rangatahi
📚Worth a Read or Listen
Leila Deljkovic from Cropsy Technologies shares her learnings from the Angel Association NZ Runway event in NZ Entrepreneur Magazine
🙋🏼♀️ Cool people doing cool things: Meet Aidan from Shutl
Shutl is on a mission to reduce reliance on fossil-fueled transportation and change the world’s urban journey habits for good. Their electric bike subscription lets members easily commute and benefit from included maintenance and on-demand repairs.
Kia Ora Aidan! What's your story?
I was born in Central Otago and moved up to Christchurch for University where I studied Mechanical Engineering at UC. I’ve worked for the past 5 years developing light-electric vehicles in the adventure recreation (think a rollercoaster + zipline) and transport sector (think a zipline used for transport around Google's mountain view campus).
Outside of work, I love the outdoors; tramping and mountain biking in the summer, and skiing in the winter. Christchurch is a great place for that. I hold a passion for innovation and developing tech, but am also conscious of ensuring the impact of my work is contributing to enhancing future generations. So Shutl fits pretty well into my skill set and passions.
How was Shutl born?
Connor Read (Shutl - Co-founder) and I both left employment in February this year with 'some' ideas on what we were going to do. After a month of ideating, we stumbled across the challenge of getting the public to adopt greener and healthier methods of transport (ebikes) and the barriers in place to do so.
We carried out some initial research within this space, came up with a few ideas to solve this problem, like electric bike subscription for urban commuters, and launched a couple of landing pages to see if the public would respond to our solution and they did.
How's it going?
It is going great. Just in our infancy, but 3-months in we have gathered a huge amount of feedback, launched a paid 20 ebike pilot in Christchurch to understand the market needs and demand, and have amassed 500 registrations between Auckland and Christchurch.
We are also super excited about our "Shutl for Business" offering, where we are enabling enterprises to offer ebikes-as-a-benefit to enable greener and healthier commuting habits within their team. To date, we are having around 50 active discussions with businesses, have half a dozen signed letters of intent and have pencilled in around 100 ebikes for Auckland businesses in Q1 2023. Big potential and growing by the week 🚀
What's your vision for the future?
I am super motivated to create a future that we can be proud of. All about access over ownership. Time to ditch the poorly utilized private car and jump on a method of transport that makes sense.
Do you have an ask for the community?
Any soft-intros into potential businesses in Auckland that could be interested in offering ebikes-as-a-benefit would be greatly appreciated. Looking for those internal champions. (C-Suite, HR Managers, Sustainability leads)
Sign-up to our registration list and jump on your very own Shutl. (Auckland || Q1-2023)
Share the idea of Shutl amongst your friends, family and workplace.
Watch this space! Want to connect and chat? Feel free to reach out - aidan@rideshutl.com
🤩 Funding, Accelerators, and Incubators
If you’re looking for student talent to supercharge your R&D project, check out the Callaghan Innovation R&D Experience Grant
If you’re a female founder looking to take your startup to the next level consider applying for the Atto Accelerator 2022
If you’re a Māori business owner wanting to build your confidence in navigating digital tools and systems, see if you’re eligible for the Digital Boost Programme
💼 Cool jobs
Mint Innovation are looking for a research scientist
Arataki Systems and Social Good are looking for a project coordinator to support their new kaupapa Māori business in the digi-tech space
Want more? Check out the Matchstiq, Icehouse, HIRE HER and AirTree job boards.
📆 Upcoming Events
🌅 Sunrise Festival 🌅
Sunrise festival will kick off on September 6th in Auckland ☀️ We will hear from the minds behind NZ's most ambitious startups (think including Craig from Halter, Alliv from Kami, Vaughan from Vend and Fia from Astrix Astronautics).
If you haven’t already got your ticket, head here and use the code BBCOMMUNITY to grab yours at a discount
👱🏻 In Person
Women Tech Founders Aotearoa | AKL Catch Up (24 August) If you’re based in Auckland, get to know other tech founders at this monthly catch up at Manzana.
Spotlight on Asian FinTech Markets (29 August) Catch up on the latest news in the Asian FinTech sector
Ministry of Awesome Startup Breakfast Club (1 September) Learn about How to Embed Sustainability into your Startup Strategy at this months Startup Breakfast Club
✨ If you want to keep up with the latest events, make sure to check out the Kiwi Startup Supercalendar - a subscribable google cal pulling together all the events in the NZ startup ecosystem. If you’re an event organiser, make sure to add your event to Pauli’s event excel spreadsheet and I’ll include it on the calendar✨
I would also love to hear your thoughts via this cheeky one-minute survey, a LinkedIn DM, or a reply to this email 🙌
Ngā mihi nui,
Izzy 👩🏽💻