Kiwi innovators. Congratulations on doing a fantastic job! Help us to grow a vibrant ecosystem11/2/2018  Getting scaling knowhow into the hands of startups is imperative for our economy. In order to grow a vibrant ecosystem that helps ventures like yours, we need to know more about our upcoming pioneers. If you are selling innovation and have a bold plan we want to hear from you. Our early pioneering innovators took decades to forge paths into the world’s markets. The scale-up knowledge accumulated by these pioneers along the way enabled them go on to successfully scale other global businesses. The fierce independence that made these business pioneers successful means that while ‘what’ they have built is widely known, it is ‘how’ they are able to repeatedly start and quickly scale businesses that is not widely understood. These people have laid a foundation of scaling knowledge that exists across New Zealand and that is not being fully tapped into, and (it happens that) a large amount of this scale-up knowledge is concentrated within Auckland’s North Shore. Grow North is intent on connecting innovative start-ups into this seam of rich scaling experience to help create a vibrant ecosystem in which hundreds of start-ups will find themselves immersed, surrounded by the knowhow and connections needed to accelerate business growth into international markets. Thanks to the efforts of research firms like TIN100 we now know a lot about NZ’s top pioneering scaling businesses. However, we need to gather more data about the next tier of upcoming innovators. We need your help. If you are a business that is located in Auckland North and you are currently selling innovation and have bold plans for growth we would love to hear from you. If you are a supplier providing highly specialised products and services for pioneering innovators we want to hear from you also. Connect and collaborate to accelerate growth and compete. Contact the Grow North Innovation District kel@grownorth.co.nz 
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 Helping organisations communicate with their staff more effectively. SnapComms uses digital technologies to cut through the clutter and deliver the right messages to the right staff, at the right time. These unmissable channels (and formats) ensure staff are informed of news that’s relevant to them. Information overload is a significant and growing problem. It prevents organisations from being operationally effective and employees from being well informed. SnapComms was quick to spot this growing issue, and more than ten years ago, signed up its first customer - Vodafone New Zealand - to use its simple, user-friendly digital solution for internal comms. To this date, there is still no other supplier in the world who offers the breadth and depth of internal communication channels that SnapComms does. Its purpose is to help large organisations break through the clutter of daily communication and deliver important messages to employees – in ways they can't miss. Based in Takapuna on Auckland’s North Shore, SnapComms provides solutions to solve internal communication challenges. Its employee communication software platform provides seven digital tools. Mobile/desktop alerts, scrolling tickers, screensavers and digital newsletters are just some of the comms channels available to internal communicators, all of which bypass email completely. These help businesses deliver internal messages to staff in the best way and at the right time. Co-founded by Sarah Perry and Chris Leonard, SnapComms is a self-funded, privately owned business that has grown from small beginnings. The majority of its clients are US-based, with a growing client list in Europe and the rest of the world. Innovation is at the heart of the company’s DNA. This is achieved through a number of initiatives. For example, working closely with universities to attract and recruit interns and graduates each year so that fresh ideas are tapped into; regular customer workshop sessions hosted by our Lead Innovator (this often means jumping on planes and spending quality face-time at customers’ premises); and attending relevant conferences around the world to ensure the SnapComms team remains at the forefront of digital communication technology and retain its competitive edge. The business is now a global market leader - serving more than 1.5 million paid enterprise users in 75+ countries (including several Fortune 50 companies). It’s a Deloitte Fast 50 and Fast 500 international company. It won the ICT Exporter of the Year Award in 2015. www.snapcomms.com   In competitive markets, customer loyalty is crucial. And if you are a business dealing with stock, having the right amount in the right place at the right time – and knowing exactly what you’ve got and where – is key to keeping your customers happy. Unleashed Software is committed to making inventory management easier and more efficient for businesses all over the world. The Auckland North company now has customers in almost 90 countries and has been recognised in the Deloitte Technology Asia Pacific Fast 500 for the last three years running. Unleashed Software has recently been mentioned in the Huffington Post as one of the top 10 small business tools globally. Unleashed was developed in Massey University’s E-Centre in Albany, making the most of Massey University’s resource and dedication to helping innovative ideas go from garage to global. It was here that CEO and founder Gareth Berry, who is now on the Grow North Innovation District Steering Committee, was introduced to investors to bring his vision to life. His goal was to create software that allowed customers to take control of their inventory health in real time. Through Unleashed Software, customer retention can be improved by analysing past inventory trends to predict optimal future levels of stock. Efficiency can be improved by knowing exactly where stock is at all times, so any enquiries can be responded to with an accurate prediction of delivery times. Transactions are monitored in real time, and an accurate stock count is available anytime, anywhere. After their initial investors came on board, more companies started to pay attention to this Kiwi company that's punching well above its weight. After raising $18 million in capital in just a few short years, Unleashed Software has this year announced a Series C investment of NZ$7.0 million from Movac, New Zealand’s largest and most experienced technology investment company. The investment funds will go towards fuelling the development of the next generation inventory management software and support the global growth of the company that now services customers in nearly 90 countries in the wholesale, distribution and manufacturing sectors. CEO of Unleashed Software Gareth Berry says: “We have been building both our core product and markets for eight years now. We see big opportunities in the United Kingdom and the United States markets where businesses are starting to migrate and adopt best-in-breed component solutions to run their businesses. This presents an amazing opportunity for us, with a substantial amount of growth in our businesses forecast to come from the Northern Hemisphere over the next few years.”    Leaders representing some of New Zealand's highest performing technology businesses at the 2017 TIN Report launch Inclusion in the ranks of the top technology companies in New Zealand is a benchmark that many companies aspire, bringing kudos, connections and benefits. The information collected by TIN is helping the government, business and the investment community understand NZ’s fastest growing export sector. The TIN Report is firmly established as NZ’s leading source of information on NZ’s most successful tech exporters. TIN was formed by Greg Shanahan in 1999 with the simple objective of supporting the growth of NZ’s Technology Export Sector; focussed on High-tech Manufacturing, ICT and Biotechnology. In 2005 TIN produced its first TIN Report beginning an annual benchmarking study of NZ’s largest technology exporters. The first Report included just 50 companies but it has grown considerably to where in 2017, it included 300 companies. The catalyst for TIN’s creation was a major event TIN organised for the 2000 defence of the America’s Cup in Auckland which attracted some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley at the time, including, the late Tom Perkins, founder of legendary venture capital company Klein Perkins, Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, John Sculley, former Apple CEO, and Bill Koch, son Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, at the time America’s largest private company. From their event, TIN set about building a network of NZ’s most successful exporters through regular events focussed on either capital raising or inspirational examples of business growth. TIN also publishes “The Investor’s Guide to the NZ Technology Sector “in partnership with MBIE and is distributed to over 3000 investment and professional service firms in the Asia Pacific Region. Based in the Grow North Innovation District, TIN continues to expand, hosting events across the country, including TINShed events for CEO’s and larger TINTalk Events for the broader business community. In 2017 the revenue of 200 largest companies in the TIN Report passed the NZ$10B milestone for the first time and produced an equivalent export value of 10% of NZ’s exports. Total employee figures surged past 43,000. The momentum of NZ’s tech export sector is now firmly established. It is changing NZ and the way that we think about our country, in ways that we could have only imagined when TIN began in 1999. See a snapshot of the 2017 TIN Report: https://tin100.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017-TIN-Report-Snapshot.pdf TIN and the Grow North Innovation District have joined forces to collect and analyse data on the top emerging innovative businesses within the Grow North district. The Grow North TIN Report findings will be discussed at the Grow North Innovation Event to be held at the B:Hive Takapuna on 07 May 2018.
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AuthorsGrow North articles are written by CEOs that call the Grow North Innovation District home. Edited by Kel Marsh. A free service. See more Innovative Kiwi stories
March 2019
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