Second wave of Sunrise speakers announced
News from the NZ startup ecosystem, straight to your inbox.
Good morning, Caffeinators!
Welcome to October. A new month, a fresh day to change the world, and we are bursting with news for you this morning team.
We take a deep dive into the kiwi startup Hiringa Engery unlocking the potential of green hydrogen; Blackbird’s Sunrise has just dropped their 2nd wave of speakers and, trust us, you’ll want in; Ideally announces $6m raise and why they couldn’t have done it without AI; GDI is hosting an AMA tomorrow; Kaila Colbin answers your burning questions; and we have another AI power tool for you.
It’s also worth sticking around for the moment a Waymo self-drive car just blocked Kamala Harris’ motorcade 🤭
Have a great day.
Lauren & the CAFFEINE team
Unlocking the potential of green hydrogen with Hiringa Energy.
The race to produce green energy at minimal cost to both people and the planet is underway, and one Kiwi startup says Aotearoa could be at the forefront of the next era of cleantech.
Hiringa Energy recently opened four refuelling stations alongside heavy freight fuel depots, packed with hydrogen fuel created using sustainable energy.
“New Zealand is a great place to make hydrogen a reality just because of the availability of renewable energy and the consolidated transport market,” Hiringa CTO Dan Kahn told Caffeine.
The potential of hydrogen as an energy source has been obvious for over a century. It can be burned in combustion engines or used in a fuel cell to produce energy with zero emissions, with water as the only byproduct.
In a pleasing bit of green circularity, it can also be created from water using a process called electrolysis. The output is called ‘green’ hydrogen when only sustainable power is used.
Kahn, who initially worked in cleantech in Canada, says New Zealand is uniquely placed to showcase the benefits of green hydrogen. Read more.
Second wave of Sunrise speakers announced: The second wave of speakers for #SunriseNZ24 by Blackbird has just dropped (plus, a new program of epic community meetups!) 🌅 Trust us, you don’t want to miss this. On 26 November in Wellington, get ready to be inspired by a powerhouse group of #startup founders, investors, creatives & innovators. At Sunrise, you can immerse yourself in the NZ startup community, become a part of it, and help to shape it. ✨ Check out the speaker lineup and get your tickets here.
🚀 Calling All Kiwi Founders: Got questions about raising capital, going global, or just need advice on where to start? Here's your chance to get expert insights from Jonathan Tan (CA) at GD1’s upcoming Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.
📅 Date: Wednesday, 2nd October
⏰ Time: 10am - 12pmDon't miss out on this opportunity to have your burning questions answered and connect with a leading expert in the startup world⚡ Register now: Sign up here
‘We couldn’t have done it without AI’ - Kiwi Startup Ideally raises $6m: James Donald, co-founder of customer-research platform Ideally, credits generative AI for the startup’s existence. Based in Auckland, the company combines modern AI with a low-tech approach to secure blue-chip clients. Ideally has just revealed a A$5.5 million ($6m) seed extension round, led by Icehouse Ventures and Australia’s OIF Ventures. This follows an earlier $2.2 million seed round, also led by Icehouse. Ideally’s software enables creatives to quickly test brand and marketing ideas through rapid customer surveys. Read more here.
Kaila Colbin was nominated for our ‘Ask a Founder’ hot seat. Kaila is the founder and CEO of Boma and the Crusaders Leadership Programme, a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, and the 2022 Kea WCNZ Friend of New Zealand award winner. A sought-after international speaker, she has presented to over 25,000 people on exponential technological trends and how to approach the future with courage and intelligence. A serial entrepreneur since 22, Kaila has spent 20 years enhancing Aotearoa’s global presence, spearheading initiatives like the SingularityU New Zealand and Australia summits, and co-founding the Ministry of Awesome. She also has extensive governance experience and is dedicated to being an uplifting presence. She answers your questions below. Nominate the next founder at hello@caffeinedaily.co
How can founders in New Zealand leverage exponential technologies to create real-world impact?
Clayton Christensen said there are no disruptive technologies; there are only disruptive business models — but exponential technologies enable disruptive business models. So take solar, which just continues to grow exponentially. So what could you do if the whole business model around energy changes? Right now solar panels are seen as an inaccessible capital expense for a lot of people — a disruptive business model might be something like we'll install the panels for free, give you the power for free, and make money off the power sold back to the grid. In Europe they've had record levels of negative energy prices this year, and that's likely to continue — you could give out panels and batteries for free, make money both ways, from selling power back to the grid and from taking power from the grid when prices go negative.
I'd also be asking, what is the real-world impact we want to achieve, what's getting in the way, and could exponential technologies help us overcome those barriers? So if we're trying to incentivise biodiversity, but we have no feasible way of monitoring it, can we use satellite imagery and AI image recognition to achieve the environmental outcomes we're after?
Finally, what are the values we'd want to see propagated in the world, and is there a way of leveraging exponential technologies to achieve them? For example, what would a business model look like around LLMs that actually honour and reward the data sources that feed them?
More questions than answers I know! But I hope that gives you an idea.
What’s the biggest mindset shift you think Kiwi founders need to embrace to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving tech landscape?
The biggest mindset shift is to think BIG. To not be afraid to be hungry. To be relentless learners. And to see ourselves as absolutely capable of and worthy of competing in any global arena.
You’ve worked across both tech and leadership spaces—what’s a surprising lesson from your journey that every founder should know?
A lesson that was super surprising to me was the near-total alignment between the work I do with Brené Brown — who is famous for her research into courage, empathy, vulnerability and shame — and the work I do with the Crusaders. I confess (don't get mad, guys!) that I would not have thought of a rugby team as models of openness and connection. Learning about their commitment to belonging really reinforced for me that we can be hungry to achieve at the highest possible level — to have the most exacting standards — while also caring deeply for our people. It's a model of leadership that I aspire to and feel privileged to share with the world.
NoteBookLM: Every few months or so, a tool comes along and reminds us of how insanely fast artificial intelligence is evolving. NoteBook LM is an experimental product powered by Google’s Gemini which acts as your ultimate research assistant. You can drag and drop whatever you’re working on into your digital notebook and have the AI keep track of everything for you, summarise relevant information and offer helpful suggestions about where the gaps in your work are.
But where it gets really freaky, is how Notebook LM can generate an eerily lifelike ‘podcast’ audio summary of any information you drop into it. From slideshow to a credit card bill, within minutes you can have a 10 minute podcast made out of virtually any information. Try it for yourself here.
Robotaxis getting political?: If you’ve ever stalled your car somewhere awkward, just know that it could have been worse. Waymo’s self driving car reportedly stalled in front of VP Harris’ motorcade, forcing a police officer to hop in and drive it away. Tech Crunch has a good write up and check out the embedded tweet for video. Read more
