Kami co-founders win EY Entrepreneur(s) of the Year
Plus: The funniest takeaways from robot unveiling fails
Kia ora Caffeinators,
Final day of the week, and my final newsletter before Finn’s back on Monday. To be totally honest, I have no idea what he’s got planned next week and I have no intention to bug him while he’s still away. There’s actually lots to cover today anyway, so treat yourself to a full Daily Shot rather than the usual Friday preview. And seriously, watch the Russian robot video - it’s so good.
Here’s what’s drinking in startup news today:
Kami co-founders win EY Entrepreneur(s) of the Year
OnShout launches, promising to redefine online gifting
The trillionaires are coming: What that might mean
The funniest takeaways from robot unveiling fails
Thank you for putting up with me over these last three weeks - it’s been fun. More importantly, thank you for your ongoing support of Caffeine.
Nick and the CAFFEINE team
Kami co-founders announced as EY Entrepreneur of the Year: As I wrote yesterday’s Daily Shot acknowledging how we’ve featured Alliv Sampson and Hengjie Wang a bit recently, I thought to myself, “What’s the bet they bloody win EY Entrepreneur of the Year and I write about them again tomorrow?” Sure enough, here we are.
Even if you’re familiar with Kami, it’s worth going over the top line: Founded in 2013, Kami is a platform that turns static classroom materials into interactive, accessible learning resources. It now has more than 70 million users across 180 countries. Alliv and Hengjie also received the Tech and Emerging Industries Entrepreneur award after demonstrating measurable impact, entrepreneurial spirit and signifiant growth over the last decade.
“In a field of high-calibre finalists, Alliv and Hengjie distinguished themselves through consistent execution and the scale of their impact, taking Kami to the world. The purpose-driven work in transforming their industry is creating change that not only improves access to education, but makes a real difference for young people who will be the future leaders of tomorrow,” said Phil Thomson, EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ New Zealand 2025 Chair of Judges.
Massive congratulations to them, and to the other category winners too:
Kate Gatfield-Jeffries (Moodi), Young Entrepreneur
Chris Benham (The Village Goldsmith), Product Entrepreneur
Taurus Taurima (Topline Contracting), Services Entrepreneur
James Annabell (Egmont Honey), Master Entrepreneur
Kiwi Startup OnShout Redefines Gifting for the Digital Era: Perfectly timed for Christmas, and plainly not by accident, OnShout has launched a gifting service that feels just like a wedding gift registry. Not that that’s a bad thing, especially if it means you get what you actually want.
OnShout is a web application where you can create your own wish list of things you want, share the link with friends and family, and allow them to buy or contribute to gifts confidently. So yeah, basically like how a wedding registry works.
Apparently there were more than 4,600 unwanted Christmas presents listed on TradeMe before lunchtime on Boxing Day last year. OnShout is ideal for those kinds of instances - check it out here.
Image credit: ChatGPT because I didn’t want to risk any image rights issues…
The trillionaires are coming: What that might mean: Bubbling away over the last week has been this news of Elon Musk’s bumped up pay package that would see him accumulate more than US$1 trillion in Tesla stock if the company hits certain targets over the next 10 years. It would see him become the world’s first trillionaire, and there’s a sense that there’s a handful of others following not far behind.
There’s an excellent bit of analysis in Time Magazine on the implications of having so few people have so much wealth, with a focus on Musk, essentially giving him and others a level of political and corporate power we haven’t seen before. It strikes me that there’s also a link to another story that’s doing the rounds at the moment - the whole AI bubble thing…and potentially not in a good way. Interesting times.
“Robotics is hard” case in point: It’s not often you get a Friday funny that doubles as relevant startup / tech news but this is smack bang in the middle of both categories. There have been a couple of robot unveilings in the last few days - one out of China and another from Russia. I don’t think anyone’s expecting perfection at this point, and the fact they both had their moments shouldn’t override the genuine advancements they’re making. At the same time, a stumbling robot falling over just as the Rocky backing track reaches its crescendo will never not be funny.
Accuse me of plagiarism if you like but the internet has summed it up perfectly already so I’ll leave you with my top 3 quotes from the commentary and my highest recommendation to watch the video here.
“I think it learned to walk from alcoholics.”
“They’ve built an impressive robot featuring a “humanoid spine,” flexible “skin” and home-grown AI, but with no real explanation why it looks and walks like a supermodel from the 1980s.”
“I’ve been covering robots for over 20 years and can tell you with near 100% certainty that there is no reason for home humanoid robots to have breasts...”
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co