NZVC Meet-Up: Innovating Across Sectors
Kia Ora friends!
NZVC Founder + Investor Meet Up
NZVC hosted a Founder + Investor Session with Venture Partner Andre Rowell at Zenno Astronautics HQ in Auckland on May 10. This was an intimate round table discussion to share lessons from founders pioneering different sectors and insights from investors in terms of current hurdles, success stories, and future potential for New Zealand Startups.
Zenno Astronautics CEO and co-founder Max Arshavsky gave an update on their achievement of surpassing $75 million in product sales for their Z01 superconducting magnetorquer - a pioneering technology that utilizes superconducting magnets for spacecraft attitude control. This fuel-free satellite pointing system offers numerous advantages, such as expanded capabilities for attitude control in space and enhanced satellite orbit time.
Dotterel Technologies CEO Shaun Edlin gave an update on their growth in the US market including the news of winning the 2023 NAB Show Product of the Year in the Audio category with their Konos microphone. This is the “Oscars” of audio hardware and a significant achievement and a major milestone for the company.
Simfuni CEO and Co-Founder Shaun Quincey then spoke about their development of a digital payments and software platform targeting the antiquated insurance market providing self-service payment tools, integration with workflow software, premium funding options, and compliance services to streamline insurance sales and capture significant revenue opportunity in the process.
Investors also spoke about their views on the opportunities within the New Zealand ecosystem, doubling down on key sectors to leverage New Zealand’s geography and also leveraging NZVC’s bridge to the world.
Startup of the month: Andromeda Surgical
Andromeda Surgical is building an autonomous robotic platform that empowers any surgeon to perform any procedure consistently at elite level for faster procedures, fewer errors, and better outcomes. Their first application is holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP): automating a difficult procedure to bring faster recovery and more durable results to 500 million global BPH (enlarged prostate) patients. HoLEP involves transurethral removal of all enlarged tissue from the prostate using a holmium laser to permanently resolve BPH symptoms. This surgery is currently performed in <5% of the BPH cases because it is really complicated and the surgeon has to hold in his head a lot of the visual and ultrasound information. A robotic procedure is a lot more precise and data based.
The founder Nick Damiano has an impressive background from Stanford Biodesign and is a 2x CEO who has built two companies valued > $1B total. His vision is to create the first open surgical platform that Andromeda or third parties can use to perform any procedure on the autonomously via their APIs, leveraging realtime image guidance & standard tools.
This is a US based startup but interestingly the HoLEP inventor & world expert Dr. Peter Gilling is from New Zealand (https://urobop.co.nz/peter-gilling). He is a lead scientific advisor to Andromeda and is personally championing the robotic approach to this surgery.
We are delighted to help bring this advanced prostate surgery that was pioneered in New Zealand to the global markets.
Best regards,
Mark Pavlyukovskyy, Ajay Gupta, and Glen Anderson