Rockets that operate like aircraft and satellite propulsion of the future – that is what Stefan Powell and the team are building at Dawn Aerospace. Their spaceplane, the Mk-II Aurora will be the first vehicle to fly to sub-orbital space twice in a day, and their satellite propulsion systems are already powering 11 spacecraft in orbit. Dawn now employs over 100 people in NZ, the Netherlands and the US.

www.dawnaerospace.com 

Bill Buckley is New Zealand tech royalty. Do listen to this! Buckley Systems makes ion implanters to put the metal into silicon chips (300 lines in the width of a human hair); its ionising machines make all the flat panel screens for your phones, iPads etc; and they make medical devices and R&D machines. These are all based on using huge precision magnets to direct & accelerate ion streams. They ship over 1,000 tonnes per month from Auckland to the world. 

www.buckleysystems.com 

ZX Security is a specialist cyber security consultancy with staff in New Zealand, Asia & Europe. It tests and finds vulnerabilities in an organisation’s networks, cloud environments, buildings and more. ZX also provides senior leadership security advice specific to customer environments. Ian talks about the importance of the company’s employees in building a company whose customers around the world range from start-ups to a company with over a million employees.

www.zxsecurity.co.nz

Portainer is a container management system for Kubernetes, Docker/Swarm, and Nomad that simplifies container operations so you can deliver software to more places, faster. Neil talks about the challenges of commercialising open source software and of building a business out into the world from New Zealand. The company now has thousands of customers across the world. 

www.portainer.io

Dinosaur Polo Club is an independent game development studio, founded by Peter & Robert Curry. Well known for its award-winning games, Mini Metro and Mini Motorways, the last couple of years have seen the studio grow, and they’re now working on some exciting new games. With an inclusive and supportive culture Chantelle, CEO, and Niamh, COO, talk about growing the business and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

www.dinopoloclub.com

Calocurb’s natural product capsules reduce appetite to help with weight loss. The active ingredient was developed by Plant & Food Research, who work alongside Calocurb in clinical trials. An FDA-approved drug for weight loss in the US has the same course of action, costs a lot more and must be injected – with side effects. Calocurb’s sales of capsules have taken off as a result! Sarah talks about building a business based on science with most functions outsourced. 

www.calocurb.co.nz

Spidertracks was born on the back of huge personal tragedy and an incredibly inefficient search and rescue effort following a high-profile helicopter accident in 2005. Initially solving the problem of locating an aircraft in distress, today Spidertracks is the preferred provider of aircraft tracking, flight following and flight safety insights for thousands of commercial operators across the general aviation sector. 

www.spidertracks.com

CONQA is an online platform to give construction contractors quality assurance as you go – not as an afterthought, making quality assurance into a genuine measure of progress and saving time and money. CONQA can help construction businesses reduce defects, minimise risk, track progress and support your payment claims, altogether enhancing your reputation in the market. It now has close to 60 people across Australia & NZ and is poised for further expansion.www.conqa.com

Darryn and WayBeyond are on a mission to transform the way greenhouse and protected crops are grown using sensors, data, and AI. Three years of deep R&D was followed by the launch of Folium (an IoT network of sensors) and its digital farming platform, FarmRoad in 2020. It now has more than 35 enterprise customers across North America, Europe, Africa, China and Australasia, who represent thousands of hectares growing fresh produce supply fed to millions of people.

www.waybeyond.io

APIMatic makes the integration of its customers APIs as simple as possible. It provides documentation, SDKs, Code Samples, Assisted Authentication, Test Cases, CI/CD integrations - and keeps them updated if the API changes. Its Code Generation Engine emits code in a variety of languages. APIMatic is currently being used in over 190 countries. It employs over 60 people in Auckland, San Francisco and Islamabad.

www.apimatic.io