Caffeine Daily

Veronica Harwood-Stevenson once body-launched herself into a closing train door in Queensland, because her box of live bees was already on board and she wasn’t. That’s one small moment in a 16-year story. There’s a picnic blanket side hustle, a house deposit spent on research, cold calls to every bee expert in New Zealand and Australia, and a pivot from industrial materials to skincare. Plus some very patient investors. What came out of it is Elastrix, a molecule that gets skin producing elastin again, and Silk Doctrine, the patch humble bee bio launched this month. Global beauty brands are paying attention. Read more > https://lnkd.in/ecSvPEqi Bridgit Hawkins Rosie Herdman

My first Caffeine Daily article hits our newsletter today. It’s my new round-up of all our community highlights and events from the last few months, and we’re not planning to slow down any time soon 😂 The one keeping me busy right now? The inaugural Caffeine Prize – just two weeks away, and you should know me by now: it’s going to be something to remember! Founders, operators, investors, if you’re building in Aotearoa, you need to be in this room to hear how our winners really did it. And make sure you stay for the Afterparty… Click to read more 💚 Georgia Dive James Hurman Courteney Peters Ria Sharma

This week, ANDFOODS has launched its dairy-free cream, made from fermented black mung beans, in Singapore. CEO Alex D. took the long way there: Fonterra, a run of tech startups, then a call from Icehouse Ventures about a Massey research project. When Courteney ask him how ANDFOODS got to this point, he points to two key hires. We talked about those secret (human) weapons, the size of the prize in Asia, and what comes next for the company. Read more > https://lnkd.in/eJMxKKri

Tama Toki grew up on Aotea (Great Barrier Island), where there’s no power grid. His home ran on batteries and solar. Now his company, Aotea Energy, makes home batteries that let you buy power at wholesale prices, like your own mini power company. Tama says homes using their system have paid an average of six cents a kilowatt hour for power. On a standard retail plan, you’d pay 25 cents or more. His prediction? “The age of batteries is coming.” Aotea Energy is one of our Caffeine Prize $0M–$1M finalists, alongside Contented and Extraordinary (and sponsored by Lumin!). Tama's story is the latest in our Grounds Up pod specials filmed at the NZ Tech Expo. Get it wherever you get your podcasts! Or here > https://caffeinedaily.co/

Agriculture Minister Todd McClay opened Hectre's new hyperspectral lab on Tuesday, in a space above a pizza restaurant in central Auckland. The lab is home to a three-year, near-$5 million research programme, co-funded by the Government through the Primary Sector Growth Fund, with Hectre funding the balance. The goal is a next-generation version of Hectre's Arc camera that uses light to read a piece of fruit's maturity, starch content and firmness through the skin, catching internal defects before anyone cuts an apple open. Getting to here, "takes years of effort and people that are ultra-committed," says Founder and CEO Matty Blomfield Read more > https://lnkd.in/eX8J_aXg

Today’s medical graduates will start work with an AI colleague in their pocket. GP and Gestalt co-founder Dr. Alastair Dunne wants to make sure they can tell when it’s wrong. Gestalt, which he co-founded with Nick Wright and Jacopo Vecchi across three countries, gives medical students and trainee doctors AI patients to practise consultations on. With fewer experienced doctors around to supervise, it’s a way to build judgement before they’re in front of real patients, and before that “very convincing and very confident” AI is giving them answers. In this week's founder profile, Alastair talks through why the team walked away from building for GP clinics, and how they got from that pivot to a pilot with the College of GPs in under a year. Read more > https://lnkd.in/ezgnusjz

Caffeine exists to share knowledge. But most of the valuable info founders and operators share with us gets one day in the Daily Shot and one LinkedIn tile, and then it’s gone. For the final piece of Gamma week, our head of content, Courteney, seized the opportunity to change that, using Gamma as an enabler. Read more > https://lnkd.in/e-iAT6mM Thanks to our partners at Gamma for supporting us to lift the lid this week!

When Outset Ventures first backed Kwetta in 2021, the Napier company had no product, no prototype, and no signed contract. Now it’s the first investment from Outset’s new $50m growth fund. Momentum Fund I is halfway to its target and built for deep tech’s expensive middle: the slow, costly stretch between technology that works and a product at scale. Read more > https://lnkd.in/eSCMKPj9

Most of the founders we feature build products and sell them. Our business is a bit less simple. We’re emerging media, a startup for startups with two groups to serve: the partners who pay, and the community whose trust makes us worth partnering with in the first place. Get that balance wrong and we lose the thing that matters most. Here's how we do it with help from Gamma. Read more > https://lnkd.in/eNcMPdSv Big thanks to the Gamma team for being the kind of partner that's up for content experiments! Georgia Dive Kelsey Wu Kayden Fu