The Business of Tech

New Zealand wants more from its science system – more startups, more export revenue and more high-paying jobs. But in the rush to commercialise research, are we putting the discoveries that fuel future breakthroughs at risk?

That tension sits at the heart of the latest episode of The Business of Tech, featuring Professor Frank Bloomfield, the University of Auckland’s deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation.

Wi...

Salesforce New Zealand country manager Richard Phillimore-Smith says the next phase of artificial intelligence will hinge on whether organisations can put trusted data, established workflows and people together to solve real business problems.

Speaking to The Business of Tech at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, Phillimore-Smith said the event reflected an industry at a turning point. The gathering brought ...

The tech giants have become the infrastructure of modern life. They mediate how we shop, communicate, advertise, store data and increasingly use artificial intelligence. 

Yet the tools governments use to contain their power were designed for an earlier economic age.

Professor Susan Watson believes we may be looking for solutions in the wrong place. An internationally respected corporate law and governance scholar, Watson is De...

New Zealand-founded robotics company Syos Aerospace is building autonomous aircraft, drone boats, ground vehicles and underwater robots from its Mt. Maunganui base 

In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, Syos founder Sam Vye tells me how a conservation-drone project in the Galápagos helped inspire the creation of Syos, now one of the country’s most ambitious dual-use tech companies.

Vye arrived in New Zealand in ...

Australasian venture-capital heavyweight Blackbird has closed a record $1.25 billion sixth fund – and its New Zealand general partner Phoebe Harrop Meadows says Kiwi companies are central to its investment strategy.

The fund, described by Blackbird as the largest venture-capital raise in ANZ history, underscores the firm’s rise from a small Australian startup investor into one of the region’s most consequential ba...

What if space was not simply a place to launch satellites – but a factory floor for making things that cannot be produced on Earth?

That is the bet being made by Auckland startup Outlier Space, which has raised around US$7.35 million (NZ$12.3 million) in pre-seed funding to build reusable spacecraft that carry customer payloads into microgravity, operate them in orbit, then return them safely to Earth. Its first mission is bo...

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is about to turn 80 – and is still plainly more interested in the next deal, the next big export market and the next practical problem to fix than in winding down.

In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, Brown delivers a typically uncensored account of how he thinks Auckland should use technology to drive economic growth. He has little patience for glossy AI rhetoric, power-hungry data...

The engineer who helped make GitHub Copilot a global force is building its open alternative from Christchurch

For millions of software developers, GitHub Copilot was the moment artificial intelligence stopped being an abstract promise and became a practical colleague.

Suddenly, AI could sit in the coding environment, suggest the next line, explain unfamiliar code and help turn an idea into working software. It changed expectations ...

New Zealand’s startup scene loves a good success story, but few have moved as fast – or gone as deep – as Wellington energy software venture Factor.

In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Factor co‑founder Jessica Venning‑Bryan to she and co-founder Simon Pohlen assembled a team with serious domain expertise, built a specialised energy pricing platform, landed major customers offshore, and...

Australian fintech pioneer and serial entrepreneur Dom Pym knows a thing or two about starting companies and scaling them into market-leading players.

This week’s episode of The Business of Tech dives into Pym’s extraordinary journey, from bootstrapping niche financial platforms to building one of Australia’s most popular digital banks – Up – and then reinventing himself as one of the region’s mo...

New Zealand isn't exactly famous for producing automotive brands, but FTN Motion is trying to change that.

In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, the company’s co-founders Luke Sinclair and Kendall Bristow recount how a backyard BMX hack led to them creating one of the country's most distinctive electric vehicle startups.

That was almost a decade ago, when two mechanical engineering graduates from Waikato University s...

Queenstown has long been associated with jet boats, ski fields and postcard-perfect mountains. 

But if veteran entrepreneur and online travel heavyweight Roger Sharp has his way, the resort town’s next big export won’t be adrenaline, it will be software.

Sharp, who has spent decades at the cutting edge of online travel with companies like Webjet, Lastminute.com.au and WebBeds, is on a mission to diversify Queenstow...

The National Party is aiming to introduce legislation for its proposed social media ban for under‑16s before November’s election.

The move, replicating a ban already in place across the Tasman, might look like a neat political fix – but it is far more likely to fail, backfire and leave our kids and critical infrastructure less safe.

That’s the stark warning from veteran tech consultant and internet governance expe...

Australian startup Heidi Health has become one of the most visible examples of AI actually shifting the dial on healthcare productivity – and New Zealand is at the forefront of that story. 

In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to Heidi co‑founder Yu Liu about the company’s journey from student training tool to AI “care partner” for clinicians, and its audacious goal of doubling g...

Another New Zealander has joined the global AI big league. 

Auckland-raised engineer Jeff Hawke is now co‑founder and chief technology officer of Odyssey, a Palo Alto‑ and London‑based frontier lab that has just raised an eye‑watering US$310 million at a US$1.45 (NZ$2.55 billion) valuation – making it one of the world’s hottest AI “world model” startups.

On this week’s episode of The Business of T...

China is racing ahead in artificial intelligence and robotics – and New Zealand risks being left on the sidelines if it doesn’t pay close attention.

In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech, I talk to two Kiwis who’ve just had a rare front‑row seat on China’s AI boom – Auckland-based ElementX co‑founder and chief technology officer Ming Cheuk, and Christchurch AI engineer and consultant Bla...

The Government’s plan to cut 8,700 public sector jobs and save $2.4 billion has been framed largely as a brutal cost‑cutting exercise. 

In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech podcast, Hamilton‑based technologist Brandon Hutcheson argues it could instead be the catalyst for a once‑in‑a‑generation redesign of how government works – if we get the AI strategy right. He admits, that's a big "if".

Hutcheson...

When it comes to scaling high‑growth tech companies, AJ Tills has been in the engine room. 

As one of Uber’s earliest hires in New Zealand, he helped the ride‑hailing giant push through regulatory resistance and turn the controversial startup into a default verb for getting around town, briefly serving as Uber’s US and Canada marketing chief of staff in New York. 

Later, as chief marketing officer at Jamie Bea...

Starlink has quickly become the hero – and potential hazard – of rural broadband in New Zealand. 

In a few short years, Elon Musk’s low-Earth orbit satellite service has gone from curiosity to default option for many farms, small towns and remote communities that never made it onto the fibre map. It’s racked up 58,000 subscribers and generated around $100 million in revenue last year, delivering broadba...