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Grassroots to Global: Innovation the Kiwi Way | NZVC Portfolio Day

Nicole Freed, Daisy Lab; Ben Scales, CEO of KiwiFibre; Jeremy Bryant, Aimer Farming & Amos Palfreyman, Founder of Miruku · 23 November 2025

Mark Pavlyukovskyy and Hendrik Remigereau host TechMates, the NZVC podcast. The guest on this episode is Nicole Freed, Daisy Lab; Ben Scales, CEO of KiwiFibre; Jeremy Bryant, Aimer Farming & Amos Palfreyman, Founder of Miruku, and it went out on 23 November 2025. It covers the NZVC portfolio companies KiwiFibre Innovations and Miruku.

Guest

Nicole Freed, Daisy Lab; Ben Scales, CEO of KiwiFibre; Jeremy Bryant, Aimer Farming & Amos Palfreyman, Founder of Miruku

Date

23 November 2025

Companies

KiwiFibre Innovations · Miruku

Watch

YouTube

Listen

Spotify

This Portfolio Day panel brings together four New Zealand founders: Nicole Freed (Daisy Lab, precision-fermented dairy proteins), Ben Scales (KiwiFibre, harakeke composites), Jeremy Bryant (Aimer Farming, AI pasture insights), and Amos Palfreyman (Miruku, plant-based molecular farming). Hosted by Mark Pavlyukovskyy and Hendrik Remigereau, the conversation covers why New Zealand's agricultural legacy, dairy infrastructure, talent, native plants, and high-trust ecosystem suit agtech and bio-innovation. Origin stories run from barbecued plastic prototypes to growing milk proteins in yeast and plants.

• Dairy without cows: precision fermentation at Daisy Lab.
• Harakeke to carbon-free composites: KiwiFibre's indigenous-led materials.
• Molecular farming in plants: Miruku's dairy proteins grown through photosynthesis.
• Founder resilience: near-empty payrolls, naivete as superpower, and obsession with the mission.

Companies in this episode

• KiwiFibre Innovations Deep Tech KiwiFibre Innovations turns New Zealand harakeke, or flax, into high-performance natural-fibre composites that stand in for petrochemical materials like fibreglass and carbon fibre. Read about KiwiFibre Innovations
• Miruku Ag-tech and Climate Miruku is a New Zealand food technology company making animal-free dairy proteins and fats through molecular farming, engineering oilseed crops to produce the same molecules found in milk. Read about Miruku

Listen on Spotify

NZVC Portfolio Day, AgTech, biotech, precision fermentation, molecular farming, materials, dairy, deep tech

More TechMates episodes on this

• Born Global: Founding from New Zealand to the World | NZVC Portfolio DayJamie France, Founder of Newton Space, Anna Henwood, CEO of Stickybeak & Steph Kennard, Co-founder of Bonnet · 29 January 2026
• Why Big Tech Failed at This Simple Farming TaskLiam Kampshof, Founder of Bovonic · 9 October 2025
• Dairy Without Cows: The Science Changing Food ForeverIrina Miller, Founder of Daisy Lab · 16 June 2025