How to Deploy $5 Billion in New Zealand's New Wave of Tech Startups

He has a big target. I believe he he has to invest 5 billion into New Zealand startups.

My second day in New Zealand, Peter Jackson came on and decided to record the soundtrack from the the second Lord of the Rings film. You don't build nuclear fusion with a couple of million dollars. You're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars taking rockets to space. New Zealand has the second highest number of launches of rockets in the world. Cheap drones wiping out multi-million dollar airplanes and things. Technology is hugely disruptive in in military warfare. But there's huge beasts of machinery sort of behind the the incumbents as well. It seems like, yeah, a small country like New Zealand, there's no no reason why it couldn't be producing, you know, cheap dropive warfare.

Just go and do it and see what happens.

Ideas are worth like jack [ __ ] Absolute jack [ __ ] Like if you can't execute, there's nothing.

Just take that initiative to actually take whatever crazy ideas that they might have and just try to see what comes with it.

Don't be afraid of ambition. Chase it. Love it. wrap your arms around it and and say it out loud.

New Zealanders don't know any better. They will just get up and give it a shot. That's why we were first to get to the top of Mount Everest. Go to dream that ultimate dream like what is it that you ultimately want to do and it's all achievable. All right. So today we aren't talking to a founder. We're talking to the architect, the New Zealand startup ecosystem funding environment and the guy who controls the single biggest lever in the New Zealand startup ecosystem.

Yeah, that's right. We have James Pinner with us. He's the chief investment officer of NZGCP. That's New Zealand growth capture partners. He manages or he's responsible for the Aspire Fund and the Elevate Fund. And we're going to go into the details there, but basically if you are a VC in New Zealand, you need to know James and you need to be well connected to James. James isn't kind of the typical government official. You know, he spent 15 years in London's cutthroat capital markets and then another five years managing dynastic wealth of Todd Corporation. So, he knows the difference between a 10-year deep tech play and just a science project that goes nowhere.

Yeah. And he has a big target. I believe he he has to invest 5 billion into New Zealand startups in the next years. Um, so we're going to talk about what that means for the New Zealand ecosystem, but we will also find out why he thinks that Ki Saver is the sleeping giant that needs to wake up.

All right, we'll dive in.

Yeah, sounds good.

Well, hope we didn't oversell you, James.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, thanks for the introduction. Great to be here, guys. In my background, I I'm from the UK originally. I came over here to New Zealand about 25 years ago. Um, met my first wife. I always fall in that New Zealand had a great opportunity to have a great startup ecosystem. You know, it's a small country, a long way away from from most western markets, but at the same time, we've got some great entrepreneurs. We've always, you know, seen over the years some great startups coming up. You know, back then it sort of trade me and zero. Now, it's more sort of Rocket Lab and the parties and all these other companies that and hters that are sort of going. So, we've got the bones, we've got the, you know, the important bit. We've got the entrepreneurs and we've got the people who are um sort of can do walk the walk and can execute these deals. Yeah.

I went um was back in London for another 10 years after um being here the first time and my background is more in finance background. So as you mentioned I've um worked in capital markets in London also worked spent a while time working on in films a lot of financing of the some of the first Harry Potter films and uh Charlie and Chocolate Factory and working with Pimemer Studios. So that was that was pretty cool. And then I went worked for in the telecom media and um TMT kind of sector. Did a lot of work for Nokia back then trying to build their empire just until the iPhone came out and um took them bit of a sideswipe. So that was fun times and then yeah eventually came back to L to um New Zealand as you mentioned worked for the Todd family. Um interesting times looking globally and all sorts of yeah big conglomerate really looking at everything from

um we had pass trader was one of the their investments in the tech side through to wine through to mining and oil and gas. Yeah, it was interesting. Half years ago, I got an opportunity to join Enz at GCP and we can talk about it.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I I wanted to double click on the on your role at Todd Corporation. For those who don't know, it's a multi-generational uh kind of family office. They've been in business for over 150 years. How did that time kind of shape your view on long-term venture capital success versus, you know, short-term gains that you might have kind of worked on in your time in London?

Yeah, that's a really interesting question. Yeah, like you say the Todd family, it's sort of two businesses. It's the corporation which is the main businesses and then the there's a separate family office that looks after the the families. Well, it's interesting. It's pivoted since I think it was 1884 it sort of started and started off um providing skill um services to the sheep industry, then the car industry, then got into oil and gas. And

James, that's I mean 1884, wasn't that around the time that the first settlers or not the first settlers, but like a lot of the sellers came to New Zealand?

Yeah, it would have been certainly sort of when the Yeah. the bigger influx of especially British people were coming over. Um the sheep farming industry was growing I think at the time and Jimmy Gold as well at the time. Yeah. So they were servicing servicing that and providing a lot of the tools and machinery to them.

then started getting into cars and importing kits at cars to manufacture then petrol stations were a natural thing after that and then eventually yeah hit oil and gas in I think the first sort of oil wells and well first licenses in the late 50s um and then sort of kept on expanding and yeah so it is interesting yeah sort of it's a it's an old company but has um transformed a lot over those years so it's it's it's had to innovate in terms of what it's been doing and I think that's you know true of any large um corporation that's available alive now, you know, and again, you know, we look at venture and it isn't well certainly in our portfolio, certainly not a short-term again. It's it's about long-term value creation. You a lot of our companies take sort of 14 plus years. We're a very early investment. We'll get into that in a second.

But um you know, you are building multigenerational businesses hopefully and that's what you're aiming for. You're not it's not about a quick return. It's not about where private equity is more of a sort of three to five year timeline. We are looking to build huge businesses and back bit huge businesses.

And did that did that change because I assume yeah your work in London was again focused on sort of shorter term gains

moving to Todd. It's like you're looking at whatever 10 20 50 years. Did that change your perspective and the types of assets you considered and looked at and and if so how?

I guess yes and no. I've always um I've always loved tech and I've always loved um you know innovation however for like like I mentioned I sort of worked in the in TMT in in in London as well. Some of that was long-term sort of corporate building. We're working the bigger clients like Vodafone and OCA at the time but my first startup was that I started working on was 25 years ago. It was a precursor to Airbnb where literally um we're the company was supplying computers to B&Bs because um that was it was such a long time ago. But it's it always fascinated me. It was you know financial engineering and and all those kind of things. Yes, you can make money out of them but it's it's not interesting is it? It's not as cool as you know seeing a company grow a company transform people's lives and do really cool cool stuff to be honest. Yeah.

I think with my financial background, private equity is probably, you know, a natural skill set, but it it just doesn't interest me. I'd rather be seeing things, you know, being able to say we backed a company at the early stages and now look at them now um 10 20 years later. It's it's pretty fascinating. I looked at one company because 2006 or so. Um they they bought in the first prototype of this tablet that you could swallow and as it went through your intestines, it would open up and X-ray you from the inside and do a colonoscopy.

That's really cool. You mentioned you got into um some film financing as well. What was that like?

Fascinating. Like um yeah, it was sort of um heavily involved sort of more from the tax side. So we were having to sort of verify they were spending enough money in the UK which meant going through actors contracts and how money was spent especially on SFX and VFX but you were spending a lot of time on set especially Harry Potter which was one of the few films that was set up with a obviously had an intention of making six seven films so they had a permanent studio

the main dining hall was a permanent feature and so you just got to spend a lot of time sort of running around the um stages and seeing all the actors um all the young kids as they were at the time on the Harry Potter film. films. It is quite amazing sort of being behind the scenes and and actually one of the things that's sort of massively underappreciated is things like the carpentry and the woodwork and all those kind of things that go into building these what look like slimy sewers and things like that. Um there's a hell of a lot of lot of craftsmanship that goes on behind that as well as obviously all the visual effects and things. So

and you get to see that at Hobbiton, right? Well, actually, and also my second day in New Zealand when I came the first time, I went to a cricket match and I um Peter Jackson came on at halfime and we started to record the soundtrack. Well, some of the scenes from the the second Lord of the Rings film. So, again, sort of um that was my um a great introduction to New Zealand got me hooked.

That's cool. What made you interested in New Zealand? Like just you personally. Um, I mean it's obviously coming from London, it's very fast-paced, exciting, large aums, large ticket sizes, big opportunities globally to New Zealand, which I mean at the time that you came was actually fairly fairly.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, it was more by accident actually. I hate to admit it, but I I was doing like a lot of New Zealanders do. Sort of decided after, you know, graduating and having a couple years of work, I'd do a my OE. Uh, so I decided to move to Sydney. Um, uh, pretty much as far as away as I could get from London. And then realistically, I found out I was sort of hanging out with a lot of English people, doing quite English things in a slightly hotter climate. And um, someone recommended that if I wanted to do something different, more outdoorsy, and I sort of, yeah, I love the outdoors, you know, try New Zealand. So, literally hopped on a plane the next day, ended up in Wellington. and um kind of yeah, like I said, the second day uh being filming part of the soundtrack for Peter Jackson and um yeah, the rest is history.

But anyways, but it's an interesting point. So, I'll just sort of, you know, like you say, you know, New Zealand is a small country. Coming from the UK, it's now 75 million people. New Zealand back then was more like 3 million people and I think it's like 60 million sheep. It isn't somewhere you naturally think has got is going to have opportunities for doing cool stuff, you know. Um and and then coming back sort of 10 years later when my kids were sort of school age and wanted to bring them up in New Zealand. Um you sort of fear like what will the opportunities be? But and this is the one thing I really sort of struggle with is New Zealand has such amazing startups, amazing companies that the general public don't know about. We're we're seeing every like I was on a trip last week and we're seeing Dawn Aerospace um doing hypersonic rockets um nuclear fusion going on in Wellington.

you know there's some amazing things going on and hiring hundreds of people and yeah most people don't know about it even in New Zealand let alone around the world

when we talk about yeah talk a lot about the number eight wire mentality in New Zealand the ability to sort of for Kiwis to you know fix anything with a piece of wire and ingenuity and you've set this target of 5 billion investments over the next 5 years and I kind of wonder does that number eight wire mentality is actually that actually a liability when we're talking about deploying billions of dollars and scaling big companies do you feel that needs to change in the culture of New Zealand entrepreneurs.

I'm not sure as entrepreneurs it may be a little bit like I've seen I've seen over the years ambition has perhaps been one of the limiting factors in New Zealand. We haven't been as ambitious and we do have this sort of we kind of excuse our companies don't need much money because we're really good at being lean and mean and we can we can do things on a um per string. But you're right, I think that that has to shift. I was talking to um a third time founder from the US last week and he's raising you know US $15 million as a seed round and he can go so much faster and so much quicker than any New Zealand startup can. Yes, we'll get there eventually but in a increasingly competitive world limiting the amount of capital that we have and having that mindset of having not very much capital is is the best way. Yes, of course there are benefits to them.

We've seen, you know, massively overinflated rounds and what can go wrong there as well and same with VC funds, but there has to be a balance. We we have to be continue to be ambitious. We have to continue to be, you know, we want to compete on a global scale. You know, you don't build nuclear fusion with a couple of million dollars. You're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars taking rockets to space saying, you know. So we are going to we do need to change change our mind shift but we also need to change the amount of capital that's available because because at the moment we are hamstrung by you know how much capital is available. It's all very well me saying we need to deploy 5 billion over the next 5 years but if that's all reliant on high net worth individuals which it is now we're not going to get there.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I would I mean I would maybe double click on that a little bit and I would ask is that true for every industry because I I I know for you know for deep tech and biology and biotech and those kinds of industries where there's regulatory hurdles and there's specialized knowledge that needs to be kind of like applied to a physical substrate you need people for for software. You know we're seeing now you can build any piece of software really from your bedroom in a weekend with the with the tools that exist today. And for those kinds of opportunities and things, I don't know if you need a ton of capital. In fact, like the capital might actually force you to think I need to hire a lot of people when actually what you need to do is just create better better agentic AI products that that maybe don't need all those people to run. What do you think about that?

Yeah, absolutely. I think AI is going to be the exception. I think um well maybe not the exception, but it certainly is different to how it has been. I've seen people predicting that, you know, you're going to see the first billion dollar trillion dollar companies with handfuls of people as opposed to the hundreds of thousands that say Google's got. Yes, deep tech is always going to be harder. Traditionally, software again, it's it's always seen as sort of capital efficient at beginning, but to win those markets, it then becomes quite capital intensive. AI may be that that one trend. We've certainly seen, you know, some of the acceleration of some of those customer um acquisition. people are bootstrapping for a lot longer and actually having not needing to raise money for way longer than traditional with normal software business.

Yeah. And maybe to double click on what you said about how to deploy the 5 billion, I think you said publicly that we are funding too many companies for too long and that we need to concentrate more capital in the winners. Do you think that New Zealand has a kind of zombie startup problem and should we we be quicker in trying something failing and then trying something again?

Yes. And sure. Um I think there's there's two elements to it. I think one of the things we talk about is 5,000 startups. So really what I'm talking there is sort of around about a thousand new startups a year. So that those numbers 5,000 startups is based on global averages. So you look at any sort of population, it's generally about a thousand startups per million population. So you go to Victoria, Australia or Ireland or Singapore, you know, these are the kind of numbers we're talking. But that is generally sort of presupposed on sort of like a thousand startups and half of them fell or 40% fall each sort of round and and they drop off quite quickly. Whereas in New Zealand we have historically New Zealanders are very nice people. Um and there's nothing wrong with that.

But I think in terms of startups sometimes we do well we do we we let companies we keep funding them for a little bit too long. Generally, if you think about sort of if a company fails in the US, generally that that founder is going, "Okay, I'll just brush myself off and I'll get on to the next one." And they've learned so much from that. And and investors are looking at those serial founders who've done it two or three times. You know, hopefully they've had some successes along the way, even better. But, you know, even if you haven't, you've learned so much. But we're not allowing that recycling of talent.

you know those people that have been on that 10 year journey because we kept a startup going and it's you know like you say sort of become a zombie sort of startup those people could be working for that next generation of startups or creating that next generation of startups and helping those accelerate even quicker we saw especially over the last 20 2021 onwards 21 to 23 I especially in New Zealand a lot of companies a lot of the money going was on to follow investments it wasn't going into new companies that people willing to take those risks and therefore there was a sort of a lull of new and exciting companies is going forward and people trying to preserve what's there, but you've always we've all got limited cash. Um I'd love to have unlimited capital to be able to deploy into lots and lots of companies.

Um but you have to think about the opportunity cost at all times and if you're funding that one which is yeah just sort of eating along, you know, you'll always get it wrong. We always get it wrong and there'll be like one of those companies you you pulled the pin on it could have been successful. But at the same time, you look at the opportunity cost of, you know, pulling that money into an early stage company that's going to go on and become really successful. I think that's we've got to be mindful of that all the time.

Yeah.

You know, VC maths as well as I do. You know, when in your own portfolio, you've got to be concentrating into the winners because that's, you know, it is a power law game. When you when you say that, I mean, are you saying that just from like a gut feel or or are there actually numbers to support the fact that New Zealand, you know, funds a lot more existing companies versus new companies compared to like Silicon Valley or something?

Yeah, there certainly are stats around um how long we take to get to certain levels of revenue, certain levels of, you know, series A rounds and things like that. So, we are generally taking quite a lot longer. Part of that is obviously is the lack of capital. So, we can't, you know, pro resource to build teams and go quicker. But I think it's also it's an element of um yeah we aren't we are keeping company the average length of duration of companies is a lot longer.

Makes sense. Um you mentioned earlier that that 5 billion number is is unattainable unless you get new sources of capital right and I think um there billions sitting in Kiwi Saber and most of that is invested into Australian banks and the S&P 500. Um, I think it would make a lot of sense to invest some of that into your fund as ZGCP and into other funds and funds of funds and basically channel some of that money into growing our local ecosystem. Um, because that that would just give dividends all the way all the way through, right? Um, so why is it so hard to get New Zealanders to to do that? What's the problem?

Yeah. Look and I think there's different funds obviously you know one of our funds is but our direct fund is is a very very high risk fund that's why we exist is because we we take the higher risk you know before the private investors generally want to come in but yeah certainly like venture capital is is an asset class that's been proven around the world it is still young in New Zealand so I I couldn't hand on heart say you know there are 10 20 funds with proven track records in New Zealand that you should definitely put whereas in the US you've got 4,000 VC funds to choose from you can be picking the top percent, top 10% or top quartile. So it is still immature. But at the same time, what what I I struggle with the most is that we've got, you know, I think it's about $120 billion in Kiwis Saver at the moment. Globally, when you talk to pension funds, they have a balance.

They're in equities, their bonds. They're also in what we call alternative assets, you know, property, infrastructure, private equity, VCs, kind of the highest risk because they they do give different types of returns over over long periods. in New Zealand the Kiwi savers most of them and there are exceptions and I I you know great and we want to keep supporting the ones that are doing things differently but most of them are below 3% in alternatives full stop I think 3% is actually the highest of any Kiwi saver whereas globally that's more like 15 to 20%. some of the best endowment funds in the US, you look at Yale and um and Harvard and Stanford, they've been 30 plus 30 to 40% in alternatives and a lot of that in VC.

So moment a lot of the money is going to public equities and until we get some you know there's more of a balanced um sort of portfolio then it's going to be hard to see them coming into VC which will be you know we need to prove up the asset class but you're right there's plenty a tiny small allocation of that 120 billion you know 1% of that is you know seismic shift in sort of the amount of money going into New Zealand 5% as we said is you know that's that's $6 billion there which would transform the newal market. Then you've got, you know, Enz Super and ACC, which is another 150 billion plus. Then you've got corporate venture, which is pretty rare in New Zealand. You've got um EWS um looking to sort of invest in this space. So there's huge opportunities there.

But at the same time, let's we have to be honest like we haven't got a proven track record yet as an asset class in New Zealand that we should be encouraging everyone to do it. But certainly I think as a part of a balanced portfolio it does make sense to and have a you know again you should be investing in a portfolio either companies or funds depending on what what you're looking because it is a risky um a risky asset class but there's huge potential there.

But but James I mean I I would also push back on that a little bit like whenever you I mean I'm sure you've pitched all these guys and you've explained why they should be investing in into your fund of funds or into individual VC funds. I mean um there have been exits in New Zealand, right? And a lot there've been a lot of exits um a lot of exits have earned a lot of money. So when you say it's not a proven asset class, what do you mean?

So so if I was an institutional investor like a pension fund, what I'd probably be looking at is looking at um investing in maybe say 10 10 plus funds. So running a sort of balanced portfolio of 10 different VC funds. At the moment I don't there aren't 10 New Zealand VC funds with proven distributed returns that have you know um with a track record of multiple vintages of doing so.

So I think at the moment we're probably a little a little bit we'll get there don't get me wrong I think I'm very confident we will be there in in sort of 5 10 years and there are balance you know you could you could invest some into some Australian funds and some New Zealand funds but also you know you can pick some VC funds individually who have got track records or emerging managers and we've seen globally that emerging managers obviously often outperform established managers so there is there is definitely room to invest in these spaces especially if you're talking a relatively small portion of your portfolio. I think that that sort of balanced risk appetite is is worthwhile.

That makes sense. Whenever whenever you think about like VC when you look at funds globally, I think I remember seeing some statistic like 75% of funds globally don't even return 1x, right? And even if you look at like a bunch of funds like a bunch of vintages in a certain fund, their returns could be all over the place. Maybe a certain Sequoia fund is actually really good, but a certain Sequoia fund is just is just average. And so on net you build a brand and like on net maybe you return more than you you you've you you've gotten invested but but that can marry. And so when you think about that right um and again thinking of you as like pitching this idea to like Kiwi Saba Renzy Super like how do you explain that?

Did you just say look it's it's all about the managers and if the manager like we're betting on the managers and like sometimes go some is bad but but on net it's we're betting on kind of like the the jockey basically or or is it like or is there something else like you have to kind of sell to them? Well one with a lot of sort of institutional investors it's the asset class itself. So what does the average return of a fund manager in that jurisdiction return? And you're absolutely right. So the average fund manager in the US probably does return less than one.

Um so then in America you're picking okay I need to pick the top 25% at least and then I've got a good chance of getting returns at the same time there is a chance that any single manager returns are zero so it's a power law game high risk every single one of them could go to zero so as an institutional investor I want a portfolio now of funds um so one I've got a an asset class which or a portion of the asset class which averages to at least of x if not higher ideally higher benchmark of returns for the risk and And then on that then I'm selecting within that the best managers and a portfolio of them to to again balance my risk cuz that's that's how I sort of from an institutional point of view. Um and you know depend you know NZ Super is an $85 billion fund. They have access to global markets now.

They're also so big that their minimum check size is you know probably bigger than most New Zealand funds in New Zealand at the moment. So they they have you know they have a nice problem to solve. They've got you know global markets to be able to choose from. Um and but also I think from yes sort of Kiwi Saver point of view there is huge opportunity to to do good for New Zealand. You've got um you know you don't have to take huge amounts of risk in your portfolio but you the impact you could have and the circularity of sort of the benefits of that because they are that's funding the next generation of New Zealand you know future businesses. They're future sort of economy leaders of this country. You know Rocket Lab is now a you know multi-billion dollar business. There'll be plenty more of those as as we go through. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, speaking of um kind of yeah risk and risky investments and portfolio strategy, you you've um you've shifted the Aspire fund to invest even earlier pre- series A in a lot of cases. And a lot of critics say, you know, the private markets are not investing here and you're investing. Are you sort of are you investing because the opportunity is big or because the private angels are too riskaverse or or are you are you maybe misallocating funds because if there's no private investment, maybe there's something wrong with the company. What is your kind of like philosophy on on that? So it goes to what we sort of we call it intervention logic.

So so why why is government even involved in this space and and for us we've got two two elements and you're talking about our direct fund which is called the buyer seed fund that exists and to essentially fill gaps where things are too risky for private investors. Now a lot of people sort of think government they shouldn't be investing in that risky stuff. That's exactly what we should be doing. We should be the highest risk takers in the market. We go there to help those early stage companies take that risk, get to the next stage, slightly derisk and then people like you guys come in and say, "Okay, now that riskreward is in my sort of wheelhouse and and we can seed more and more companies." So, as a government, you know, we fund science and research and innovation for the public benefit to create and a lot of commercialization is hopefully going to come out of that. We we fund grants.

So, we certain projects and R&D projects we happily fund and this is just an extension of that. we are investing into that early stage of those companies that are formed um and providing them the financial support to yeah as I said to get to the point where then private investors can step in. We we do do it alongside private investors. We have a minimum requirement of onetoone matching capital. So we always require someone and at that early stage it's generally more like a sort of like you said an angel investor who's um willing to take a bit of risk in their own private capital. Um yeah, and then we do we follow on so where there's a sort of combination of sort of where we see the biggest capital gaps and in New Zealand at the moment that's more on the deep tech side of things. Um we then follow on to support those companies alongside private investors as well.

Then we'll step out as soon as there's enough sort of private capital.

Makes sense. Yeah. And actually maybe yeah can speak to what industries you think are interesting and and exciting in New Zealand right now. I mean, I think as as I alluded to earlier, I think personally, I think, you know, software is really it's really easy to build now, which makes it much harder to be defensible. What do what do you think about deep tech? Is is that kind of the area that New Zealand is really good at or is it act? What are your thoughts? And what is your perspective of the market as a whole? And what yeah, what can New Zealand really excel at?

Um, interesting question. Space is an obvious one for me and if you'd asked me this 20 years ago, I would have said, "No, why? It doesn't make sense." But we actually had and I was just been on a talking to a few sort of space companies recently. We have an aeronautical companies. We have an amazing regulatory environment to to launch and test space rockets and airplanes and things. And that is now with you and the benefit of Rocket Lab. You're now seeing spin-offs from Rocket Lab coming ex CEO exam employees of Rocket Lab setting up their businesses and so on and that's spinning off and New Zealand has the second highest number of launches of rockets in the world. That's crazy.

Rocket Lab is the second biggest satellite launch provider in the world. Yeah. After SpaceX.

Yeah, it's fantastic. You know, and it's a it's a global name now, which is great.

Um, so space is one space and and I'd say aeronautics generally. I think there's lots of opportunities that are coming and we're seeing things from like we mentioned Dawn earlier, Zeno, Newton, all sorts of different space industry. It's really hard at the moment to fund these things, especially everyone's in US is focusing a lot on AI and a lot of the money is going there. So, we are having to see these things being funded for a bit longer. But I think New Zealand has some great innovation there.

Industrial clean techch is one I'm really excited about. I think we've seen over the last few years, you've got New Zealand technology being used to recycle or clear up sort of waste products from large industrial products. You've got aquaors through waste water. You've got zinc recovery recover recovering zinc from iron or furnaces and um

innovation etc. So there's lots of those kind of things going on. Software yes we've we've always been good at software AI I'm not so sure at this stage. I think we we're well my pretty strong view is we're behind the curve on that. I'm not sure partly that is New Zealand's humbleness of not trying to define a company as AI whereas I guess I'm sure in the US everything would be AI.

Everything is AI. Everything absolutely everything. the the laundry the laundry store down the street is.

Yeah, exactly.

But James James, maybe to double click on that because you mentioned earlier that you see the mandate of NZGCP to kind of absorb the market failure of going in the super risky early stages. In terms of industry, do you see it similarly that NZGCP should actually probably be very active in AI because the market is not able to fund it for whatever reason or do you think that there's like space which is a big opportunity and that's where it should be or is it both? It's a bit of both. I guess our mandate isn't to create companies. So, it's only we can only really invest in what we see and we haven't seen a lot of AI companies. So, we we have invested in what a couple that we've seen. Yeah. And it's it's always a challenge with government of of picking winners and trying to understand what would be useful in some degrees. You know, that's what our science systems trying to do.

We're trying to think about missions we want to solve. So, what are the big global impact issues or what are the big future trends we're trying to solve like AI and quantum and and things like that. Um but at the same time you want to double down on what you can see in front of you if it's working. So space is one area where I don't think with a lot of foresight you know Rocket Lab came and we knew as a country that that was going to happen but now we've seen all the spin-offs. We've got to double down on that and you know keep keep backing it. Um so it is it's it's tricky. It's a bit of both I think. Um you got to be as um my friend Randy Commasar will always say you got to make your luck. You got to give yourself the best ingredients and opportunities to to be lucky. So I think that's what we got to keep doing and then once you get it, make sure you look at make sure you jump on it.

Yeah. Why why medical device? I mean so with Rocket Lab, right? Like I mean I think uh the founder of Rocket Lab, he just was a very strong willed individual is the story that I kind of understood it who kind of made made this company happen against every single kind of resistance you you could find, right? And he persevered through that. Why medical devices and why clean tech?

Is is that a little bit just kind of arbitrary and just it just so happened or is there like for example with the aerospace and the rocket lab right I think because of as it grew I think New Zealand actually changed regulation to accommodate it right which then empowered more companies but with medical stuff I mean New Zealand does have fairly lacks clinical testing clinical trials regulations compared to the US compared to the the FDA rules you have to go through we have one of our companies actually doing clinical trials in New Zealand because of that so I guess is some of that regulatory or was some of that just sort of arbitrary and and the founder just happened to be born in New Zealand and started this company because he was really he really believed in it.

Yeah, I don't I actually don't know the answer. I think there's an element of, you know, we're a clean green country. Sort of

clean tech is um is there and we naturally don't lean ourselves to because we're sort of 90% renewables. We don't lean ourselves to sort of energy innovation. It's more other things that are sort of clean. Um medical devices again it's you there's fisher and ple um healthcare and and there's a bit of history there. So maybe it's partly out of that as well. We are a very strong engineering country. Um, so I think that's that's sort of where we're applying those engineering mindsets to to solving medical problems.

Yeah. It's hard to pin down really.

What about act? How do you what do you think about act? You didn't mention that.

I have a slightly controversial I don't have as controversial. I I don't think we have a strong act um potential in New Zealand. Partly because we're a pastoral farming. So we we rely on grass farming. And really the only countries that do that are Ireland, Chile and few other sort of places in South America. So most of the innovation we create isn't globally scalable on a venture sort of scale. So um as opposed to you know if you're selling into um sort of cornbased um model like a US the other side of it is we have very fragmented sort of farm ownership which means that sort of getting concentration of product and solutions out there. It means there's very disagregated solutions and point solutions.

So I think both of those for me lean towards we don't actually see a lot of vent a tech structurally the The market in New Zealand is so different from the global market that it's hard to scale and eventually.

Yeah.

Interesting. That's a very interesting

amazing farmers. Don't get me wrong. We have great technology in farming and um competitive advantage on producing grass-fed beef, but that doesn't mean we have amazing a tech which is venture scalable. Now, how do you explain I mean, but aren't there certain applications and problems that all farmers face which I guess halter maybe proves that there's certain applications that regardless of how you're doing your farming, you still need to solve.

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, like there'll always be and that's a good point to prove me wrong. Yeah, I think there's always going to be exceptions and you know, you look at Zespri and and the you know, Kiwi fruit innovation as well. It's another huge global innovation that's done really well. I just yeah we just um I must we don't see as much sort of global scalable hectare. I think for those structural reasons though you're right something which can apply to cows globally um and other ruminants will will obviously have a big market.

James what's your um kind of timeline when you think about investments. I mean in VC we typically think about kind of 10 years as like the horizon in which we need to return capital. Do you have a slightly longer view as kind of a government entity? Um and how does that change maybe with AI and other technologies?

Yeah. Yeah. We're um we invest at the early stages. So generally we're looking 13 14 years probably to an exit. Um one of our biggest exit we had about 2 years ago was Cami and that was that was a software education company but that was a 14-year sort of first investment to exit. I think yeah hopefully hopefully we will see as you know New Zealand companies get better accelerated funded and can accelerate some of those timelines those times compressed. I think you're right. If we you know software and AI we generally expect to be a lot soon a lot quicker than that. Actually I was interesting looking at some presentations I think it was and Horus last week looking at the timelines from sort of deep tech comp of investment through to exit in Europe and America both really compressed as sort of getting below 5 years in some places.

We are sort of you know in a way we are reliant on exits to um to be able to reinvest. So we are definitely reliant on those exits, but at the same time, we're we are taking a long-term view of we're trying to create economic impact for the benefit of New Zealand. So recycling that money as quickly as possible is is definitely sort of lower down on our priority list.

Makes sense. Makes sense. And um so you're you're a fund of funds and so you're sort of the kingmaker in a lot of ways. If you had a magic wand and you could create a new VC fund in New Zealand tomorrow um that doesn't exist yet, what would it focus on and like where do you think is the white space and opportunity? That's an interesting question. I I think to be honest we've got a lot of funds across all stages now. So we have got a lot of sort of earlier stage funds all the way through to um bit later stage than New Zealand as probably used to. It'd be nice to have like a sort of US v US series B plus sort of fund in New Zealand because we are entirely relying and I think to be honest we probably always will be relying on overseas investors for that later stage grow capital.

I think yeah we we do sort of struggle with scale a bit and a lot of the funds are are still sort of around that sort of 50 million 50 million mark and and ultimately I think to to get to the 5,000 startups we are going to need to see two $300 million funds quite regularly and probably more like 20 or 30 of them as opposed to you know at the moment we had one or two so I think it's it's really about scaling and sort of bringing that sort of professionalism to those funds rather than any particular sort of asset class or any particular sector sort of focus.

Um and again this is one of those tricky ones where um you know at the moment with the size of New Zealand you know is a specialist fund versus a generous fund sort of the right approach and we've seen you know a broad range of sort of um generalist deep tech and generalist across the market or generalist software seen a little bit of sort of specialtity maybe fintech and things but we haven't seen sort of super niche um focused funds and I think that's probably appropriate for the size of the market at this stage. But as the market grows, you know, you do see, you know, as like I said, US is much more evolved market. So you see funds by um stage of investment versus um like sector as well. So we'll get there I think eventually.

Is your um who do you look up to? I mean I guess as you as you you sort of this double mandate of growing the fund but also growing the ecosystem like returning your your capital but also like building this ecosystem, right? Who who do you look up to? Are there countries or funds or sovereign wealth funds that that have done a really good job that you look up to?

We um I'd say the top three I I was lucky to spend bit of time with two of them last year is Enterprise Island. 5 million population, very reliant on prime industries historically and they have grown to pretty much 5,000 startups. They've got real sort of they man, you know, they for other reasons they're close to Europe and and so on. So they've got a whole mature tech sector as well as a growing startup ecosystem but they have a really joined up way of build of doing that some great models that we we want to replicate. Australia and Victoria in particular. So launch fre and breakthrough. They've done both done some great things. They've got a slightly more scale than us. But at the same time, they've got five million people and got to four or 5,000 startups. And then Singapore again, it's they put a lot of money behind and a long-term commitment to doing this.

And so I think what's great is we can sort of pick and choose some of the best approaches that we've seen overseas. And we've got proven track records of what does and what doesn't work. So we're not just sort of blindly sort of taking ideas. And what's been amazing is each one of them has been incredibly willing to collaborate with us and wants to build bridges between New Zealand and Singapore and Australia and Ireland.

Yeah, they're the kind of um you similar size economies or sort of jurisdictions that I think have just a bit more mature than where we are. So we can look ahead bit like a founder you know you can you can look at another startup who's a couple years ahead in journey and say okay well what can I learn from that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking to that, you know, kind of ecosystem of countries, even small countries collaborating, we're kind of now living through this very some ways disturbing, some ways interesting to observe time where um the global order is changing. The US is stepping stepping back. The Canadian prime minister had that speech at Davos about the geopolitical alliance is shifting and New Zealand is at a very interesting place where it's part of the five eyes. It's English speaking.

It's very very clearly in the western camp but it biggest trading partner is China right um kind of has to like strike that that balance very carefully um of shifting of shift shifting um alliances how do you think about what that means for for startups and funds does that mean that startups and funds and and maybe even as as a government organization do you need to think about hey maybe we should be focusing on the smaller countries even maybe US is the biggest market But actually, if it's an unreliable partner and we're going to get slapped with tariffs arbitrarily at a moment's notice, maybe a more resilient strategy is working with Japan and Australia and Ireland and the UK. Yeah, it is tricky. I'll be careful as a sort of government employee. What I I say does have to walk a fine line. I think it's done a really good job.

Like you say, China is our biggest trading partner, but we're obviously clearly very western aligned. I think of it as sort of as the opportunity I think is and this is one area where I've sort of, you know, you're right.

We we've New Zealanders have generally startups at least have gone Australia US historically US is kind of like the primary market but we've seen success other places Tradeify for example spent a lot of time going well went to the UK and then was going to France and we've seen that that sort of UK Ireland sort of pathway expand what we haven't seen really as much into Asia and I and I don't know why there's there's huge markets over there we've we've now got a you know free trade agreement with India four five billion you know huge huge markets and um largely English speaking and um very entrepreneurial I've spent a lot of time in India it's a great place and I think we have a lot of similarities and huge like I said huge markets and then yeah that's just the tip of the iceberg and then you've got you know Indonesia and Philippines and huge huge markets that we could be selling into but we always go straight to the US yes the prize of the US is you know very well wealthy individuals and big markets But it's not it's not easy either.

US is is every stage and every city is is slightly different as well. But at the same time, you've got capital and talent. So it's it's a balance of sort of um sort of where is the right place for you. And I don't think there is a single right answer. It is. Yeah. I think especially when you got countries with different languages, maybe it is a little bit trickier to sort of go there. But I think there's huge untapped opportunities there.

But do you do you think we're going to see Yeah. Do you do you think we're going to see different strategies adopted by startups in this new world order?

Yeah, I I think so. I think there's, you know, every sort of challenge is an opportunity and and that's what our founders are fantastic at navigating. Um, and I do hope, yeah, we we see this as an opportunity to enter into new markets and give new markets a try.

I think there's it's going to be interesting, I think, especially Europe and how that sort of plays off. And then you know the other side of this geopolitical argument is the yeah whole sort of dual use defense piece as well which is something obviously we're having to look into um mindsets is very are shifting a lot in that space. Yeah, there might there might

Yeah, just to to double click on this, there might be an opportunity even for countries like New Zealand because before we had globalization and tech that would create like when it take all markets and there would only be one cloud provider that's really big and one defense company that's really big and one rocket launch company that's really big. But perhaps now we can in this new world there needs to be a few alternatives. Do you think New Zealand can play a role in that?

Absolutely. Yeah, you look at, you know, was it Operation Spiderweb in Ukraine and, you know, you've got cheap drones wiping out multi-million dollar airplanes and things. So, and you've got I can't remember the name, but yeah, startups, multi-billion dollar startups and in the US now sort of trying to disrupt these big prime technology is hugely disruptive in in military warfare, but there's huge beasts of machinery sort of behind the the incumbents as well. Yeah. Um it seems like yeah a small country like New Zealand there's no no reason why it couldn't be producing you know cheap copive warfare um and also you know we've got companies that are working on things like cyber security as well um I'm sure you guys are familiar with Kryton trying to build secure operating systems which you know on the defense side as well as the um the military sides.

Yeah. Well, well, that's that's a good that's a great kind of like I think point you raise because I think New Zealand is sort of I think the um only I don't know I think this is the only country where I I heard some where you know there's a lot of um kind of protests and there's a big kind of public policy stance around not hosting US nuclear submarines back in the 70s or something are very proud of that of that that kind of perception and what that means and what that says about them. Um, and we've heard from a lot of our founders who are working in in deep tech and hardware that that could be dual use. They are I think at a first pass very hesitant to work with defense or to go into defense or to work with American defense companies. But I think and and and you know I think I think Rocket Lab initially you know had to make that choice. Initially they weren't want to do that either.

Eventually they made that choice and I think they're now one of their biggest customers the US government for for satellite launch. Yeah. What do you think about that? I mean, do you guys as as a fund have restrictions on companies that are in defense? I remember when we were applying or or getting the certification for AIP, for example, I think we had to certify that we don't invest in a companies that I don't remember exact language, but it was something like, you know, they couldn't be kind of defense related or they couldn't be offensive capabilities or something.

So there was there's definitely um I think a position in the government that that makes that sort of off limits whereas it feels like now that's actually a very interesting opportunity not only from a financial point of view but also from a strategic point of view of New Zealand having its own industry to eventually you know if in the worst case defend itself.

Yeah it's a live topic we are literally you know in the next couple weeks sort of taking to the board some thoughts around how do we how do we evolve our um policies on this. Yes, the geopolitical landscape's changing. Yes, warfare is changing. You know, we we've talked about sort of disruptive technologies and drones and things like that. But also, you know, the way civilian infrastructure is being challenged as well and attacked. So, and cyber security on top of that, there's there's all sorts of different ways and it becomes even more broad. Currently we our our policy is sort of restricted to indiscriminate weapons, things like cluster bombs and um weapons that are you know things that are actual weapons that are going to harm civilians, mines or those kind of things.

But we had a on top of that we have a sort of a general consensus that we don't really do military um at a stage without it being a hard and fast rule. So we have to navigate that quite carefully and obviously our main concern is damaging the reputation of New Zealand. So we're very mindful of that. But as you say like mindset's globally shifting even in it's literally sort of month by month at this stage that um we've gone from over the last sort of until three years ago a massive drop off for for years in terms of defense spending globally and now it's seems to be all reversing over the next 10 years.

I mean yeah like we've seen it in Europe right like beginning of the Ukraine war suddenly the the mainstream politics shifted from being super pacifist to we need to invest massively into defense.

Yeah. And I think like in this market in Australia and New Zealand, I think that discussion is just ongoing. It's not as imminent as in Europe because we don't have kind of Russia at the gates here. But

but it's definitely a discussion that yeah, we've seen also with like super funds and all of other kind of IPs that are getting more and more interested in that topic.

Yeah. And it gets tricky as well when you've got especially a startup who you know they they'll pivot from left to right and you sort of what wasn't a defense company becomes a defense company could be anyway. So or it's a small part of their

That's right. That's right. Or they could permit it to be an AI company.

You never know.

Even if like when when we started investing in this market, I think the general consensus was like, okay, an exit to the US would be a really good outcome for a startup for from New Zealand. Now with the kind of fragmentation that we have we're talking about, do you think it's desirable over the next few years to try and keep companies more in New Zealand? um even you know like having more growth capital potentially that's something the government should also play a role in or trying to attract more growth capital so that the HQs are actually staying in New Zealand.

Yeah, I I think I think there's a balance because the reality is in the short term and probably the long term there is more capital and there are there is more talent overseas. Um that said, the longer we can keep companies in New Zealand, obviously the more talent develops, the more capital appreciation there is by those investors and therefore when it's recycled, there's more money to flow into the next generation of startups. Obviously, we want to do keep as much of that as possible or keep companies here as long as possible. But as long as it's not at the detriment to them getting that expansion and be able to compete globally.

I think what I've seen as well work really well is we've seen companies successfully sort of keep their head their sort of research and development arms in New Zealand but expand their market expansion overseas and I think that's that works really well because we get to keep that a lot of that retain talent and um sort of and those are the kind of people that would then go for spin-off for next generation of companies as well. So so I love that sort of combination of being able to do both at the same time but yeah there's no sort of easy answer on that one.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you how do you think about I mean one of the things that we find in our fund specifically but but also I think our startups find that as well is is finding great talent. A lot of times talent in New Zealand is generally cheaper than places like Australia and the US. So that helps with the burn but but finding the best of the best is often hard both because it's a small market but also because often times they leave and they go to other places where they get paid better etc. How do you think about that?

that is sort of at least I think for the next five t years humans will still be required for a lot of the work and before AI takes over given New Zealand's sort of yeah reputation and sort of market dynamics of just paying lower salaries just generally right than Australia and the US beyond just funding companies more money do you think there are strategies I don't know that you as an organization or or maybe the government or or I don't know maybe startups themselves or the funds can undertake to either develop talent or bring talent from overseas how do you think about that piece

yeah it's It's it's probably all of the above. Um yeah, I think there is a lack of talent, especially because we haven't had a lot of companies that have scaled globally. There just aren't people who have the experience in of in New Zealand who have done that. You know, it's grow and this is the great thing as you get more companies scaling. There's, you know, more people to learn from and more people have done it to recycle into the next companies. So those things will happen. We'll get there eventually as long as we keep building the ecosystem. Um, at the same time, you know, connectivity with other markets is probably easier than it's ever been. So, getting access to people, you know, locally who have been done this before or internationally, you know, Australia is just on our doorstep. It's a 3-hour flight away and, you know, very easy phone call.

US, you know, West Coast is 3-hour time zone, different, you know, we can pick up the phone to people and get download some of these skills and talk to people. There was a a survey done a couple of years ago by startup genome which looks at startup ecosystems globally. New Zealanders are great at talking to people. We are terrible at asking for help and that's the one thing we need to shift. So yes we we can make the introductions and connections but we actually then don't do the follow through and ask for help and I've seen it time again. So I think and then yeah and then on top of that yes you know we need to be thinking about our education system in terms of building skills for the future. Unfortunately, those kind of things take time.

But, you know, we should be, you know, as a nation thinking about what are the skills we're going to need, how are we going to, you know, as we grow in the tech sector and create all these jobs. Um, there's huge sort of workforce changes that are going to be needed and great opportunities, great opportunities to, you know, these are high paid jobs. And then, yes, on top of that, yeah, we do need to pay more. We need to pay, we want globally competitive people. We need to pay globally competitive salaries. The other sort of weird anomaly with that as well is that because we haven't had enough success, a lot of New Zealanders don't realize how valuable esops are and shares share options are because they haven't seen like if you're in Silicon Valley, you've seen your friends become millionaires. I think Rocket Labs created 150 millionaires now.

So once you start seeing the value of those then then we can start bringing more people. You don't need no need to be paying them high salaries. You can reward them in shares and options and things like that as well which then also sort of brings up There's also huge pools of talent in sitting in corporates around the country and in all sorts of industries that we are and um yeah huge swaves of the economy. I'm absolutely sure we have the raw capability. We just haven't given people opportunities and training.

Yeah, we've been talking a lot about the challenges I guess for New Zealand, but you also spend a lot of time overseas kind of pitching New Zealand, right? And talking about how great it is to build startups here. What's like how do you pitch New Zealand as a place to build the next technology companies? It's it's really the ideas I think. Um, you know, and again, we we hear back feedback from Asia that we've got all the capital, but we don't have as many sort of ideas as you like seem to have in New Zealand. And so, we're great at generating ideas and generating the companies. We we have this this sort of this mindset of I'm going to just why is why has everyone tried it this way? Why doesn't why has no one done it this way before? We can create rocket labs, you know, in New Zealand to split the atom. You know, we we are now working on nuclear fusion.

we are doing huge things that um so we have the ability it's a great place to live it's a great place to work we've all um immigrated here because it's a beautiful country and a beautiful place to live and I think we've seen a lot of um a lot of investors and startups um have similar sort of journeys so you can and and I think there is a talent um here it's it's probably not as visible or as easy to get hold of in America as it is in America or overseas but so we have all the raw ingredients and and it's just the people of great and it's a great place to live So why not do both?

Yeah.

No, I would just add I think the the other case that that we always make to our LPS is also it's still a nent emerging market compared to the US, right? So there's so much more opportunity to have an impact uh and get involved in the early stages rather than kind of elbowing your way into into the market. Sorry, Mark. Yeah, I was wondering, you know, like I imagine 20, 30 years down the line, you um you did everything that you wanted to do and you helped grow the New Zealand ecosystem and you created large pools of capital, very mature VC ecosystem, thousands of startups per year.

one kind of I don't know repercussion or or kind of maybe intended maybe unintended effect is um the divergence of wealth that would create that you see in places like Silicon Valley and just just I think the US as a whole right where um I think if you you obviously own large share of a company like the company becomes a category leader just just by definition sort of become very wealthy and New Zealand's a very egalitarian place in a lot of ways. How do you think that would change the culture um if everything that you kind of want you know comes to be comes to pass?

Yeah, it's an interesting challenge. I'm not sure we yeah we have seen that yet with some of the successful and I won't name names but um I guess I see it more as the opportunity like you look at sort of people what high paid tech jobs can do for whole families not just individuals and I think sort of there is actually a growing inequality in New Zealand already and I know we like to call ourselves egalitarian but the reality is there is definitely already that sort of have not having you know property owners versus non-propy owners and we know the house p house prices have been as you know they're getting slightly better but they have been very unaffordable. So I see it more as an opportunity for sort of bringing everybody up and I think creating tech jobs and the reality as well as we do what we want to do collectively for this ecosystem.

The economic impact for New Zealand is is lots you know tens of thousands more high pay jobs means more tax being generated which means we can build the hospitals and we can build the schooling and education systems we want. It's all that sort of the the other public benefit in New Zealand that and then it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy of we keep expanding and hopefully building everybody up and having having all the wonderful sort of infrastructure that we we all all want as a a nation.

Me um slightly adjacent question to that like what kind of policy do you think could be really impact impactful in New Zealand that's not necessarily techreated? if you could change anything in like tax structure or immigration or whatever it is like what do you think is like has such a big impact on tech that you'd rather that you'd like to see a change?

Yeah, I think opening up of immigration policies to allow more tech and you know we especially to we've talked about talent and availability of talent making it easy to to attract talent that is is hard to come by. I also think you know some kind of incentive to get people investing less in property and investing in the tech sector.

I think that would be that would be huge and similar you know whether it's Kiwi savers or individuals having some incentive to get people investing in the space because then we've got like I said we've got the raw ingredients we've got the capability to build so if we can get put some more capital into the flywheel that will make a huge difference and then and then I think sort of the other side of which I think is is well underway is a sort of partnership partnerships with overseas jurisdictions and just sort of building on those and and that doesn't need to be government you know that's each of us individually there's huge you know like I said the Australian market sitting on our doorstep they're very collaborative we're we can work really closely with them and build them the sort of Asia Pacific market up that way um and Southeast Asia as well similarly so I think there's um yeah greater collaboration and sort of um partnerships globally will help me one more kind of more personal question I mean you've you've invested in a lot of different capacities yourself with a lot of very interesting people who are all creating and pushing the boundaries in some way, whether it's entrepreneurs or filmmakers or fund managers, what insights has they given you into the types of personalities that that drive the world and innovation forward?

Are there certain commonalities and traits that those people share or do you think everyone's sort of different and different traits are well suited for different environments?

Everyone's different obviously. Yeah, very um that's I guess a bit a bit of a try to answer, but um I'd say there's neurodyiversity is probably a sort of commonality across a lot of the um areas. um especially in sort of startup founders um and so on. Um and it's really yeah ambition and sort of purpose I think are the sort of key drivers we look for it's it's I get very nervous when someone I ask someone why they're doing something and it's it's about making money or becoming a millionaire or whatever. What is the impact you want to have? What is the why personal why you're doing it is is a huge determinant on whether um people will be successful. We we all know whatever you're doing your career will be difficult and there will be setbacks and it's having that sort of personal why and ambition to which will drive you through when times get hard.

What is what is your why

legacy and impact really it is like I genuinely always I fell in love with New Zealand pretty much the day I arrived and I wanted to help New Zealand be better. I love tech. I love gadgets and it just the two sort of came together and like I said so six and a half years ago I found out about a job at NZGCP to come and set up Elevate and I was like wow that's like serendipity I can have an impact and and that's all I want you know I want us to be able to look back in 10 20 years time and say yeah we played a part you know we're not going to do it all on our own we need everybody to sort of work with and and I love that I love sort of partnering with people and there's so many people in New Zealand are sort of passionate about this um and we can get us all working together. I think we we can do it. No, I know we can. It's going to take a bit of person.

That's awesome. I love that. That's great. Thank you, Dave. Yeah, maybe we'll do a quick fire. What is the one sector in New Zealand that is overhyped right now?

Um, act tech.

What is the one se What is the one sector that is criminally underfunded?

Medical devices.

True or false? New Zealand will have a nuclear fusion power plant before we fix Auckland traffic.

True.

Biggest mistake New Zealand founders make when pitching international investors? underelling themselves in the opportunity.

Awesome. Great. Well, yeah, thanks James. Um, this was really great. I think we have a lot of entrepreneurs from New Zealand listening to this very early stage. Any kind of last pieces of advice that you'd give to people who are trying to build big tech companies from New Zealand?

No, I mean just just be ambitious. Yeah, I think we don't underell yourself. We have a history of doing amazing things. I'm sure your ideas are amazing. Go out and talk to people. Ask those questions. Ask for help. Don't just have a coffee and get to know someone, you know, actually reach out and ask for help. Um, reach out to us um to you guys as well. Like just don't understand yourself and just Yeah, think big.

Perfect. That sounds great. Well, thanks so much. This was really cool. Thanks, James.

No worries. Thanks a lot. You enjoyed that.

Thank you for tuning in, Techmates. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share with friends. We'll be back soon with more stories of Kiwi and Aussie founders reshaping the future and disrupting Down Under. Until next time, keep dreaming big and daring to disrupt.