The Humble Bee Bio journey began with rare bees, whose genomes it sequenced to uncover novel molecules, including one with a rare and potent property — elastin stimulation. This molecule will soon be available as a hero ingredient for formulation of anti-ageing products. Bridgit is not the founder, she joined to build the business. She says the skills of leading a company are transferable but you need to learn about a new sector and build a network for it.

www.humblebee.co.nz

Heartlab provides a cloud-based cardiology imaging system that helps cardiologists review and report on scans of the heart. Will talks about how they started using AI to improve the reading of ECGs but discovered that the real issue wasn't better diagnosis, it was access to the images at any time on any platform. Heartlab has customers in Australia, NZ, the US and Canada. Will enjoys learning what issues the customers have and building product to solve them.

www.heartlab.com

Levno is an intelligent dairy farm monitoring business – remotely monitoring milk, water, fuel, feed silos and providing information to the farmers and suppliers. It is expanding from a strong base in New Zealand into the UK, Ireland and Australia. Oscar talks about how they've needed to adapt their offshore strategy to establish credibility in new markets and keeping the culture in the company as it grows. And the importance of learning from your peers.

www.levno.com

Virscient designs wireless chips for semiconductor companies and integrates wireless technologies into products for other companies. Dean started the company consulting to a semiconductor company he had worked for and gradually added more engineers. Virscient now employs over 50 people. Dean talks about what he's learned along the way, especially in building the commercial side of the business where he's been greatly helped by his executive Chair, Mark Ingle.

www.virscient.com

Exaba is building a secure, sovereign & highly scalable data protection platform for service providers, data centres, & large enterprises. Peter and Stuart Inglis (CTO) saw the opportunity to give customers their own trusted local alternative to the public cloud. By merging with digital solutions company LuminateOne, Exaba expanded to deliver a complete wrap-around service. Backed from the outset by Guy Haddleton as an investor and advisor, the team is ready to scale globally.

www.exaba.com

Matt is Co-founder, President, and Chief Product Officer of Projectworks, a platform for consulting firms to better manage projects, people and financials. Their niche is boutique management consultants, software services, engineers, and architects. Matt talks about building a product users love and the journey of scaling it to now being used by over 500 consultancies globally and the importance of the team on the journey with you.

www.projectworks.com

Modica is a CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) delivering messaging supported by enterprise analytics, security & world-class support. You choose the channel - voice, video, messaging, chatbots or WhatsApp - and Modica makes it work. Stuart talks about building from a scrappy start-up, through acquisitions, winning in Australia, to a $50M turnover company with operations around the world.

www.modicagroup.com

It's rare to have 3 co-founders still running the company as co-CEOs 8 years after it started and great to hear how they interact! Sharesies mission is to provide financial empowerment to everyone. Sonya, Leighton & Brooke talk about growing Sharesies to 800,000 users & $9 bn under management. 200 people work in the company, which now helps people manage wealth, connects companies to shareholders, and has technology it will productise.

www.sharesies.nz

Desiree shares how she developed Flowpresso, a Class II medical device designed to reset the body through lymphatic therapy. Using compression, heat, and pressure, it helps clear cellular waste, improve sleep, reduce stress, and support recovery—especially after illness. Now used in clinics across the US, NZ, Australia, India, Canada, and the UK. A great story of developing a product to fit a market Desiree knows well.

www.flowpressousa.com

Building Engineering & Design Co (BEDC) takes architectural plans and turns them into structural plans using a human-augmented, patented AI platform. In just 5 years the company has grown to over 450 people: a large design team in the Philippines and people in market in NZ, Australia, the US, Canada and the UK. Ben talks about successful market entry using a channel partner. His advice on how to scale fast: hire great people and retain them.

www.bedc.ai