Hello Everyone:

Revised newsletter format follows, please do provide feedback (another rule of start-ups - constant improvement).

WellyForge5, the Halloween Edition, on Weds Oct 29th 7-9pm is taking shape. Very happy to announce Lane Litz and What Founders Want are the sponsor AND will be running a “Dead Startups Halloween Party” at Mean Doses on Tory St straight after. As their LinkedIn post says “Startups die. Founders are forever”. Going to be an interesting night.

Of the things listed below, please particularly note these:

• Thu Oct 9th, Start-Up World Cup NZ Final, 5/13 of the companies are from Wellington competing to go to San Francisco to compete for a US$1m prize. CreativeHQ are running buses to Kapiti for it.

• Wed Oct 15th, Victoria’s AI Department has a showcase for all of us to get to know them, and they appear to be explicitly looking for industry collaborations.

Rule #1 - Celebrate the Wins

• Volley Payments completes first capital raise, backed by Rod Drury, this is a fintech looking at making it easier for Kiwis to pay and get paid, founders are Jack Callister and James McCann, the raise was reported to be about $500k.

• Welly gaming jobs rising [The Post], hot on the heels of hosting the NZ Game Development Conference, this report says jobs in the game development industry rose 12.8% in Wellington over the last year - “the future of gaming is shining brightly”. Listen to Chantelle Cole on Newstalk ZB, and note the event on Oct 4th, Victoria Games Lab Launch.

• Goodnature named “best small & mighty company” by US org [The Post], they join brands like Adobe and Ralph Lauren. Well done, Dave Shoemack!

• Joint Center for Disaster Research at Massey, 3 top scientists according to Stanford, this is the group based in Mt Cook.

And recent media coverage of local interest:

• Infometric’s says Wellington is the most creative NZ city, it’s all our jobs to turn all that creativity into economic return for the city.

Rule #2 - Understand Your Environment

• Peter Griffin’s podcast with Paul James and Myles Ward to unpack the shake-up of government IT and digital procurement. If Wellington is to be top for GovtTech, we need to understand these changes, and encourage innovation.

• Bridgewest Ventures have a new Venture Fund getting set up for Life Sciences, Med Tech, AI/ML, Advanced Sensors and Clean Tech.

• Rob McNaughton summarized a Nature paper on the Future of Universities with an NZ perspective. I note “breakthrough environments share common traits: small, agile, research units; autonomy with shared infrastructure; project-based teaching; authentic student use of AI; and carefully managed industry-university interfaces.”

• What Founds Want summarized recent NZ angel investment, 2025 has seen $1.49m invested across 29 companies, 70% into software, 20% into deep tech.

Rule #3 - Nothing Falls Thru The Gaps

• Applied Doctorates in energy research now open for industry & academic partners, apply by Oct 27th

• TedXWellington is back and seeking “ideas worth spreading”

• Fintech Lab from CreativeHQ, apply by Oct 29th

Rule #4 - Know the Locals

NEXT TWO WEEKS:

Weds Oct 1st, 5-7.30pm, “SDG Blueprint for Built Environment Futures”, panel discussions at the Victoria Design School.

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

Thu Oct 2nd, 5.30-6.30pm, “Making Clean Metals” by Prof Chris Bumby at the Hunter Building at Vic (Inaugural lecture)

Fri Oct 3rd, 5-5.30pm, “AI in Government 201”, at Rutherford House, Victoria.

Sat Oct 4th, 4pm, Launch of the Game Studies Lab at Victoria, at the Design School, launch & discussion about games and claims they make about society.

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, CreativeHQ is running a bus out from Wellington CBD. Great to see Kapiti Coast District Council backing innovation. 5/13 of the companies are from Wellington.

Mon Oct 13th, 3.45-5pm, AI in Education: Part 1 by Sovereign AI NZ at 150 Willis Street.

Tue Oct 14th, 1-4pm, AI Supercharge Build Your First AI Agents at Rutherford House with Serge van Dam and Dascha Cooper

Weds Oct 15th, 4-7pm, Victoria’s AI Department Showcase in the Hub in Kelburn. “the right forum to explore opportunities for collaboration across academia, industry, and government.”

Thu Oct 16th, 10-11am, Brain-Like Embodied Intelligence, a talk by Prof Yaochu Jin from Westlake University at Vic, LBLT, Laby Building 118

Thu Oct 16th, 11-12pm, Physically Grounded AI for Scientific Discovery, a talk by Prof Yew-Soon Ong from Singapore at Vic, LBLT118 Laby Building.

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

Note: Start Up Weekend Wellington’s October event has been postponed to mid-Nov.

KNOWN, MAJOR, FUTURE EVENTS

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, 7-9pm, WellyForge5 Halloween Edition (Details & Tickets), sponsored by What Founders Want, and note the 9pm+ after party "Dead Startups Halloween Party” (Details & Tickets)

Thu, Oct 30th, 12-1.30pm, “Westpac Smarts: Go from asking to automating with AI”, run by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, with local legend JD Trask as key speaker.

Thu Nov 6th, 4.30-7.30pm, Wellington Start-Up Collective, meet other founders (young & old) and talk through just about anything in a supportive atmosphere

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

Thu 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

Tue-Fri, Nov 18th-22nd, ANZ for Extracellular Vesicles Conference at Harbourside

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), 9th Oct, Kapiti Start-Up Network Meet-Ups

• Fridays (every other), 3rd Oct, Atom - Founders Meet Up at Southern Cross

Rule #5 - 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, you don’t exist if you are not on here

• 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

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