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.
And for those of you who prefer to listen/watch your news, I’m mixing up the newsletter today with a video recap of some of the recent stories which interested me. Do you want more audio and video from Caffeine? Hit me up at on finn@caffeinedaily.co or hello@cafffeinedaily.co
Have a great start to your week,
Finn and the Caffeine team
Sea-Flux secures nearly NZ$3 million investment: One of my favourite things in startup land is hearing someone solve a problem I didn’t know existed before. Like when I heard that New Zealand maritime technology company Sea-Flux just secured nearly NZ$3 million in strategic investment to scale up delivering a cloud-based vessel management app.
It consolidates compliance, safety, maintenance, and crew management into one system with offline capabilities. Unlike traditional server-based tools, it enables full-crew engagement via smartphones and tablets, reducing costs, risks, and administrative burden.
Founder and former superyacht skipper Tai Ellis created Sea-Flux after years of frustration with fragmented, manual systems at sea.
I have no experience with the frustration of running the complex logistics of a superyacht or any other kind of vessel but the moment someone tells me its hard I have a very easy time believing them. There’s also famously a fair amount of money at sea so feels like a slam dunk for a founder to start solving some problems offshore.
Sea-Flux now has more than 9,000 users over 1,300 vessels, including Coastguards, Harbour authorities, tug and barge, fishing and aquaculture fleets, ferry operators, tourism ventures, superyachts, and domestic commercial operators worldwide.
The funding was led by Punakaiki Fund and joined by existing shareholders, will support further expansion through New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the Middle East, alongside investment in streamlining customer onboarding, international sales, and continued product development.
Tom Culley, head of Investor Relations at 2040 Ventures, Punakaiki’s fund manager, said the investment was directly enabled by the Active Investor Plus Visa programme. Interestingly, with the recent golden visa news, he noted investor migrants had brought in well over $10m across its managed funds, unlocking investment into high-growth NZ companies like Sea-Flux.
Congrats to the team, excited to see what comes next.
Kiwi company GravityLab ranks top in the world for tech impact as founder gives 95% to charity: A lot of businesses set out to do good but more as a happy by-product of being successful. It’s great to see a founder who makes doing good the primary success metric and then get recognised for it. New Zealand-based automation consultancy GravityLab has been ranked first in the world in its B Corp category, a rare distinction that places the Kiwi company ahead of global tech giants in social and environmental performance. To date, the business has funded the rescue of 500+ children from human trafficking and is challenging Kiwi businesses to think differently about ‘impact’.
The B Corp framework evaluates governance, environmental responsibility, employee wellbeing and supply chain ethics. Following its 2025 B Corp recertification, GravityLab was awarded: 1st in New Zealand, 2nd in Australia and significantly - 1st globally in ‘Technology-Based Support Services and Computer Programming Services’.
“Too many companies are still asking how they can ‘justify’ or afford doing good. We have flipped the question. What happens when you build a company where doing good is the reason it exists?” says CEO and founder Daniel Howell
GravityLab develops workflow automation systems for logistics companies, law firms, government agencies and listed businesses, but unlike typical tech consultancies, the company is 95% owned by a charitable trust and its profits go directly toward funding frontline anti-trafficking work in South-East Asia. To date, that work has contributed to the rescue of over 500 children.
Anthropic raises $13B Series F at $183B valuation: It was Thursday (at time of writing) and we talk about the world at large on Thursdays and hoooo boy was there some stuff happening in the AI and money space.
I remember writing about Nuro’s Series E round and remembering how seldom I get to write this deep into the funding alphabet and then along comes Anthropic with a truly wild $13b Series F round at a $138b valuation.
I know numbers stop meaning things after a certain point but this one is still startling for a company which isn’t the leader in the space. That being said, Anthropic has seen rapid growth since the launch of Claude in March 2023. At the beginning of 2025, less than two years after launch, Anthropic’s run-rate revenue had grown to approximately $1 billion. By last month the run-rate revenue reached over $5 billion—making Anthropic one of the fastest-growing technology companies in history.
Pod Pick: This AI startup knows everything about you - While the title of the pod might make to terrified, the content of the ep is exceptional. The Startup Theatre podcast is back in action and putting out some banging episodes
(Stay tuned for episode 100 coming down the pike!)
In this episode, they sit down with Aaron Ward, co-founder and CEO of Huckleberry, the global startup turning workplace feedback on its head.
He previously co-founded AskNicely, a customer feedback SaaS that grew to Series B and raised over USD $50m, helping companies around the world rethink how they measure and act on customer experience.
With Huckleberry, he’s now bringing that same obsession with feedback and growth to the way we understand ourselves at work.
Huckleberry is the world’s first voice-based 360 feedback platform, designed to strip out the clunky surveys, save 90% of the time, and put your professional reputation in your pocket.
Think of it as the LinkedIn of feedback, a shareable profile that captures your strengths, work style, and how your team actually sees you.
In the conversation, Aaron shares how his team is reinventing one of the most broken parts of work: feedback. We explore the psychology of reputation, why most companies get it wrong, and how AI can transform the way we understand ourselves and grow our careers.
Listen to it here.
Death at Burning Man being investigated as a homicide: If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Netflix producers scrambling to greenlight this true crime series. The mysterious death of a man at this year’s Burning Man festival, long a mecca for the more spiritual end of Silicon Valley, is now being investigated a homicide. The alleged victim was found in a pool of blood just as the festivals iconic effigy began to burn. The intro essentially writes itself. Check out more actual reporting on the case from BBC.
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