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.
Also, we’ve been getting questions about our next event and don’t worry, we’re cooking up something special. You’ll hear all the details soon but for now I’ll just say everyone should make sure they’re free on July 30.
Have a great start to your week,
Finn and the Caffeine team
Halter becomes newest NZ unicorn: It may not come as a total surprise to those watching closely but it is certainly cause for celebration - Halter is New Zealand’s latest unicorn. After a $165m series D raise led by Bond, the agri-tech startup is now valued over $1b US (1.65m NZ).
They’re an incredible success story and Caffeine spoke with founder Craig Piggott after it took out the top spot in Deloitte’s fast 50 with a staggering 1500% growth. That momentum is clearly being maintained and I can’t wait to see what the company does next. Check out Caffeine’s interview with Craig here.
Xero to acquire Melio in $4.1b deal: Straight off the back of Halter becoming Aotearoa’s freshest unicorn, one of our most venerable has dropped some exceptional news also worth celebrating.
Xero has struck a landmark deal to acquire U.S.-based fintech Melio in a transaction valued at US $2.5 billion upfront, with the potential to reach US $3 billion including performance earn‑outs over the coming three years. Melio, founded in 2018, boasts 80,000+ small and mid‑sized business clients, processed over US $30 billion last fiscal year, and generated roughly US $153–187 million in annualised revenue.
Once the deal is approved (pending regulatory clearance) Melio’s leadership, including CEO Matan Bar, will remain in place. RNZ has a good quick wrap here.
What if editing documents wasn’t a time suck?
Every founder knows the pain of updating PDFs: messy formatting, large-scale edits that take forever, and digging through folders for the final_final_v2 version of a contract.
PDFs weren’t built to be updated or edited. Version control gets messy fast, formatting breaks easily, and chasing signatures is still weirdly manual.
This is exactly the kind of grunt work AI is quietly removing.
Businesses are moving away from static files and toward dynamic documents that are editable, collaborative, and powered by AI.
Lumin helps users turn outdated PDFs into living documents, speeding up tasks from contract updates to real-time collaboration. You can rework a clause with a quick prompt, instantly find and update information across an entire document, or send it directly for eSigning – all without switching tools or breaking flow.
It’s a subtle but important shift: contracts and business documents are no longer just outputs. They’re live assets that shape how fast you can move, hire, sell, and scale.
With AI now baked into the full document lifecycle, teams are cutting down on bottlenecks, manual edits, and back-and-forth, gaining back hours each week.
Dynamic documents, paired with tools like Lumin Sign’s compliant eSignatures, are where the work’s happening now – and where founders are winning back their time.
Discover AI-powered document editing with Lumin.
Business is Boring: How Pals became Pals: I know we often focus on the techier end of startups here but I think it’s important to pay close attention to those founders doing incredible work with more traditional products too. Simon Pound is joined by Nick Marshall and Mat Croad, two of the co-founders of Pals, to unpack how they turned an overlooked, over-sugared category into a cultural icon. Listen to the full pod here.
Court filings give first details of what OpenAI and Jony Ive are cooking up: Okay, okay I know I literally just gave you guys an update on this story but this is much juicier so stick with me a second. As part of the same court proceeding which led OpenAI to take down the promotional material celebrating the deal, we are also discovering some of the early details about what this mythical new product they’re cooking up could actually be. Interestingly, it’s not (at least at this stage) an in ear device ala the movie ‘Her’ as so many assumed or even a wearable in general. Apparently the goal is not so much to supplant your phone and computer and supplement them. So….an Alexa/Google home that actually works? More detail from the Verge here.
Want to get in touch with a news tip, a slice of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co