WellyForge Update - 27th May 2025

Creating a dynamic, vibrant, cross-city buzz

Author

Ralph Highnam
May 27, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Okay, team, here goes, welcome to WellyForge!

This has been months in the making, thank you to Kevin Sheehy, Maddie White, Ipshita Mandal-Johnson and many others for conversations and ideas along the way.

Wellington has amazing science, tech and investors across our various universities, research labs, companies and start-up, but they don’t seem to interact as much as they should. We’re here to fix that with regular updates on relevant Wellington news & events so we have cross-city awareness.

We’ll also be hosting our own regular meet-ups. The goal? We all learn something new, we all meet someone new, we all have fun, and we start forging new paths ahead for Wellington.

One ask: please let me know of any relevant events coming up that would appeal to “us”, and if there’s someone you’d like to meet or hear speak, let me know, and we will get them on-stage (somehow!).

Thank you,

Now, since we’re a city of action, let’s crack on with it….

Relevant Wellington News

Hi-Tech Awards 2025 at TSB Arena last Friday

Anyone in starts-up should look at these glitzy events and say “next year, we’re going to be up there”, here’s the video of the whole evening:

Wellington had several winners, a full press release of the event is on Scoop but our winners were:

We’ll be hearing from The Village Goldsmith (floating diamonds!) at our first meeting, and we’ll endeavour to get Projectworks and Optimation on stage at some point.

Events Coming Up

Weds 28th May, 4.30pm is a AngelHQ’s member-only night

Thursday 29th May, 5.15pm at Harbourside Function Room is the next Vision for Wellington event and it's all about start-ups & innovation. Mostly tech people, but Prof Stephen Cummings from Victoria will be on stage, along with the ubiquitous Serge van Dam - there might now be a waiting list for tickets.

Friday 30th May, 4.30pm at Fortune Favours, is Welly Biotech & Beers

Thursday 12th June, 5.30pm, Professor Ben Ruck: Superconducting computers, semiconductors, magnets, and other fun with physics, Hunter Building, Victoria

Weds, June 18th, 6-8pm, WellyForge’s first in-person meeting, to be held at Undercurrent at 118 Tory Street, a bohemian style book store, perfect for story telling. We’ll have two short, topical talks and various networking things. Seats will be limited so get tickets early. The speakers will be:

Tuesday 24th June, 3.00pm, Quantum Investments & Startups at Generator, 40 Bowen Street, hosted by IBM’s Quantum Ambassador, Sara Bilal

Weds/Thurs 25/26th June, Electrify “supercharging NZ’s most ambitious women founders”

Other Stuff

  • Outset Ventures announce a $41.5m Fund II, they’re Auckland based but do invest into Wellington, so let’s get their money, and don’t mention the football ;-)

  • MOVAC (Wellington based) are raising a Growth Opportunity Fund with the aim of providing liquidity to early investors in

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