Hello Everyone:

See you tonight for another action-packed and entertaining WellyForge4 [details & final few tickets] Thanks again to Diana Minnee and Astronort for sponsoring. Remember the rules: learn something new, meet someone new and be entertained.

Of the things listed below, please particularly note these deadlines:

• Aurora Climate Activate (pre-accelerator program), apply by Sept 18th

• Fintech Lab from CreativeHQ, apply by Oct 29th

Rule #1 - Celebrate the Wins

• Marloo raises $5m for AI assistant for financial advisers, former Sharesies and Hnry employees backed by Blackbird, Icehouse and others.

• Paihau Robinson Research Institute (part of Vic) announced Heki on way to International Space Station, “Heki is a small but powerful technology demonstration that will test a superconducting magnet and its unique power supply in space for the first time”

• Starboard Maritime Intelligence announce partnership with Tampnet to protect offshore cables and energy assets.

• Advemto celebrate nailing one of its big science risks - “time resolving fluorescent photons as cells flow past the sensors”, this is a Vic spin-out.

• Eight360 of Petone launch Moon Rover for their NOVA platform, need to get out to play with one of these things!

And recent media coverage of local interest:

• Vision for Wellington have put out their final report, “compact, creative and impossible to ignore” is the buzz line, section 2 “Get Back in Business” includes becoming business friendly, turbocharging start-ups and other initiatives - this is excellent work, and you can see the WCC mayoral candidates respond on Sept 25th at Harbourside.

• Podcast by LabMates founder Dr Maddie White with Jessie Jie-Youen Chang - “spotted a real problem in scientific networking …and decide to solve it”.

• RNZ Interview with Wellumio the stroke detection company based on the Terrace. Business Desk reports they are raising $7m+ currently to accelerate getting their device to help detect strokes within “the golden hour”.

• John Roche (Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser) visited the MacDiarmid Institute at Vic and heard about their science but also start-ups like Liquium.

• “Rethinking Philanthropy” by Mark Pascall from Wellbeing Protcol in Alliance Magazine

• Carbon Invoice & Sharesies Team Up

• Govt Procurement and NZ Companies - Serge van Dam noting new NZ regulations asking for local companies to be given first consideration.

• Weta Workshop signs Saudi deals [The Post] around showcasing culture and MOUs with Saudia orgs building up towards Expo 2030.

Rule #2 - Meet the Locals

Wed Sept 17th, 5pm, Hutt City Mayor Candidates talking to the business community, hopefully the Gracefield site comes up as a topic

Wed Sept 17th, 4.30-6.30pm Angel HQ AGM & Members meeting (member only, so join!)

Wed Sept 17th, 7pm - WellyForge4, Full Details & Formal Tickets

Thu Sept 18th, 5-7pm, “Summer of Tech, Greet & Meet”, register asap to meet with the region’s future talent.

Thu Sept 18th, 5-7pm, Wellington AI Agent Meetup

Thu Sept 18th, 6-9pm, , TEQ Talk run by the Visual Effects Society and Visual Effects Professional Guild, being hosted at Vic. “TEQ Talks are about sparking cross-industry conversations and celebrating Aotearoa’s innovation edge”. Speakers are all Wellington based - 37Degrees Studio, Doze Animation Lab, Vic, and PikPok.

Sat Sept 20th, 11am-12, “Art & AI: Brit Bunkley in Conversation with Megan Dunn” at the National Library, Bunkley is a artist and filmmaker.

Mon Sept 22nd, 8.30-12.30pm, “The Power of Ambition - Elevate your Tech Team” with David Hansen at Level 12, Rutherford House organized by Taiawa & Vic.

Mon Sept 22nd, 5-7pm, “Fuel your Startup’s Ambition” with David Hansen, Level 12 Rutherford House, organized by Taiawa & Vic.

Weds Sept 24th, 6.30pm, Angel HQ | Booster Event to hear from 3 companies funded by the Booster Innovation Fund (Wellumio, Inhibit and Macso) [By invitation]

Thu Sept 25th, 5-6.30pm, “From Vision to Action” at Harbourside Function Venue, hear the WCC mayoral candidates respond to the Vision for Wellington report & ideas.

Thu Sept 25th, 7-8pm, “Earthquakes on the Alpine Fault” by Prof John Townend in the Old Govt Buildings at Vic. (Btw, I’m fascinated by these talks because of the quakes and the science, but also the tech behind the computing).

Thu-Sat, Sept 25-27th, NZ Game Developers Conference 2025 at Takina, celebration of NZ’s gaming industry

Fri Sept 26th, 4.30-6.30pm., BioTech N Beers “From Banks to BioTechs” the John Robson & BioOra story at 76 Manners St.

Tue Sept 30th, 6-8pm, Ask an Astrobiologist at Vic, three top astrobiologists talk about many deep subjects, like, how did life begin?

Thu Oct 2nd, 12-1pm, “Geophysical Sensing Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing” by Prof John Townend in Kelburn

Tue Oct 7th, 8.30-10.00am, Sustainable Business Network. Victoria and the MacDiarmid Institute are co-hosting a network meeting at the Marae at Victoria

Thu Oct 9th, 5-8.30pm, Startup World Cup, NZ Final hosted in Kapiti

Fri-Sun, Oct 10-12th, Startup Weekend Wellington at Rutherford House

Thu Oct 16th, 8.30am-6pm, AI for Adults: A Mind-blowing Exploration for Tech Companies, Level 12, Rutherford House, organized by Taiawa & Vic.

Fri-Mon, Oct 24th-28th, POWER UP! Game Jam for Women, a virtual event but being run out of Wellington by XEquals based on Cuba.

Wed, Oct 29th, 6.15pm, Invite:WellyForge5 (hmm, close to Halloween)

Thu-Sat, Nov 6-8th, Kawaiicon 2025, at the Michael Fowler Center, hacker paradise.

Sat Nov 6th, iSANZ (Cybersecurity) Awards Gala Dinner, Shed 6.

Mon-Wed, Nov 10-13th, ICDE (International Council for Open & Distance Education) is being hosted at Takina with AI a major focus

Mon-Sun, Nov 17-23rd, KohaCon25, conference for the world’s open source library system (Koha).

Mon-Fri, Nov 17th-21st, Pacific Rim International Conference on AI (PRICAI) is being held at Takina with plenty of input from the AI people at Victoria

Wed-Fri, Nov 19th-21st, Synbio (synthetic biology) is at Te Papa, organized by Mark Calcott

Fri Nov 21st, 6pm. Wellington Regional Business Excellence Awards 2025 in Upper Hutt

Fri-Sun Nov 21-23rd, Kiwi PyCon (Python!) at Shed 6

Recurring Events:

The Atom at Victoria is open for any unfunded Founders (Students, Early Stage, Idea Stage) and is run by Entrepreneur in Residence, Adiraj Gupta - Email [email protected] , or join the Facebook community.

• Mondays 8-9am, Atom - Founder Mentoring ON-LINE

• Weds 12-1pm, Atom - Founder Support Drop-In Hour

• Thursdays (every other), 25th Sept, Kapiti Start-Up Network Meet-Ups

• Fridays (every other), 19th Sept, Atom - Founders Meet Up at Southern Cross

Reminders:

• Aurora Climate Activate, 13th Oct - 5th Dec, apply by Sept 18th

• SummerOfTech are looking for employers ready to help junior talent

• TedXWellington is back and seeking “ideas worth spreading”

• Taiawa incubator has space - contact [email protected] for details

Rule #3 - Understand the Wider Environment

• Global Innovation Index 2025 from the world patent organization uses patents, papers and venture capital to spot innovation clusters. The big cities rule (Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Fran etc), would have been good to see this by size of population. Auckland is the only NZ city to get a mention, coming in outside the top 100. We should talk about IP at some point….

• Rod McNaughton arguing we should teach entrepreneurship at school [The Post] - “Entrepreneurship education is about building self-confidence, learning how to act when the available information is incomplete, developing the ability to navigate ambiguity and uncertainty, solving problems creatively, and bringing together the people and resources to make things happen”

Reminders:

• Applied Doctorates in energy research now open for industry & academic partners (NB: Reach out if you are in industry and want us to find you a local academic!).

Rule #4 - Your Local Community Index

• AngelHQ for contacting the local angel community

• Angelic Drop In (ADI) Clinics in Wellington, and general info

• Atom at Victoria, contact Entrepreneur in Residence, Adiraj Gupta

• Ecosystem Map 

• Glean Report for a full round down of knowledge events in Welly

• LabMates for scientists of any career stage to connect & collaborate

• MacDiarmid Institute invites companies with R&D challenges to present to their Science Advisory Panels for science matchmaking

• Momentum for students with ideas

• Morgo for NZ entrepreneurs (run from Wellington by Jenny Morel)

• Movac, Wellington’s local VC

• Start-Up Coaching (Free, via CreativeHQ)

• Start-Up Wellington (the people behind Start-Up Weekend)

• Taiawa Wellington Tech Hub (WCC/Vic), run by Dascha Cooper

• Virtual CXO’s, you can filter under each role for Wellington

• Wellington Gold Awards (Hall of Fame)

• Wellington NZ Business Support

• Wellington Start Up Collective to meet non-advising fellow start-up nuts

• WhatFoundersWant useful stuff from Wellington-based Lane Litz

WellyForge