ICYMI: Startup news and resources from the week that was
What you might have missed last week on Caffeine.
Welcome to Monday!
As always, on Monday we recap a few of our favorite stories or resources from the week that was then tomorrow kick back into our full newsletter from Tuesday.
Have a great start to your week,
Finn and the Caffeine team
Kami acquires Book Creator: I don’t think I need to introduce you guys to Kami, particularly since I talked to their co-founder in these very pages almost a year ago exactly after they were valued at $300m
If you’ve somehow managed to miss them, they’re the NZ-founded edtech platform used in over 180 countries which absolutely exploded over the COVID lockdowns. Last week it announced it has acquired UK based edtech platform and multimedia workbook creation tool, Book Creator, in a move which will take the number of users on the platform to over 70m.
I think there will be trend toward consolidation in the edtech market (and a lot of other places, frankly) over the coming years so wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first in a series of acquisitions. I will be hopping on another call with co-founder Hengjie tomorrow for an update on the business which you can read all about in next week’s Caffeine.
Govt to invest $70m in contestable AI research funding: At the Summit last week I was particularly interested to hear what Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Dr Shane Reti had to say as I’ve made no secret of my opinion NZ is behind the 8 Ball when it comes to state level action.
So was more than pleased to see hear him announce $70 million over seven years through the Newly minted Institute for Advanced Technology. The funding isn’t exactly new money and falls under the budget earmarked in Budget 2025 for R&D. But with the funding reprioritised from Callaghan Innovation and contestable funds to form the Institute of Advanced Technology, the Government will still be more than doubling its contestable AI funding.
Implementation will roll out in two phases, with one granting seed funding to a certain number of ambitious proposals and then a second phase where those proposals are developed into full platforms is finalised.
The Minister noted in his speech that with this budget set aside, direct Government funding in AI is now well over $100 million which as a proportion of Government funded R&D is over 10%.
Check out more info in the full speech available in press release form here.
Wellumio targets NZ $8.5M for Series Pre-A raise: We love some healthtech news in Caffeine and now Wellumio, a startup building the future of stroke diagnostics is targeting NZ $8.5M for its Series Pre-A raise (with a minimum raise of NZ $7M and a maximum of NZ$8.5m).
The problem proposition is that less than 5% of stroke patients receive treatment within the critical 'golden hour' when the chance of disability free survival is highest. This means access to fast, accurate diagnosis tools can significantly improve diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.Their proposed solution is the Axana scanner which brings some essential diagnostics to the bedside and they claim can reduce diagnosis time by over 90% while providing critical insights into the severity and extent of stroke-related damage.
Nuance Capital is leading the Series Pre-A round investment round, with other New Zealand VCs, and Snowball Effect campaign investors targeted to join the round. Wellumio raised a $4.25 million seed round in 2023 (investors included Outset Ventures, Nuance Capital, NZGCP’s Aspire Fund, Cure Kids Ventures, and Movac).
After talking about the world eating progress of OpenAI above, it’s nice to talk about a startup working in the physical world to do an unambiguous good.
Pod Pick: How to get Chat GPT to recommend your product - Great listen from Lenny’s Newslettter here ( which you should also sub to). When I’m not Caffeinating, I do some PR and comms work too and something that’s increasingly important to all the businesses I work with is how they get their name ranked higher in AI generated answers. The previous age of internet was dominated by SEO, search engine optimisation, the new age will be dominated by AEO - or put simply, how to get Chat GPT to recommend your product.
If anyone builds it, everyone dies: As a parting shot I’m throwing out one for the A.I doomers in the audience. Eliezer Yudkowsky is perhaps the loudest and best known voice warning that we are on a path to catastrophe and he has a new book (landing this Thursday in NZ) with perhaps the most frighteningly effective tile I’ve ever heard. If you want to hear a summary of his thoughts, check out this interview he did with the NYT or pick it up yourself as its out now. I’m not saying I agree with Eliezer and many people smarter than me don’t but he’s a serious thinker making a serious argument which is at the very least worth engaging with. It’s literally the fate of the world at stake, afterall.
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