NZ biotech shines on world stage + new report offers insight into angel market
Plus: Startup Theatre pod returns, Google opens new AI Futures Fund and Sam Altman roasted in his own kitchen.
Happy Thursday!
We are almost to the weekend team. Let’s not waste too much time with my fluffery at the top here and just get into it. Today we’re kicking off with a piece from our partners over at BNZ, who are rolling out their growth academy nationwide. Check out more details below.
And of course, you’re also getting your usual Daily Shot of news.
Here’s what’s brewing:
New Zealand biotech to be showcased on world stage
The Startup Theatre Pod in collaboration with Caffeine is back
Catalist report offers insight into New Zealand angel investment market
Google launches Futures Fund to support ambitious AI startup
Sam Altman roasted in his own kitchen
As always, thank you to everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription or simply recommended Caffeine to friends and whānau. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Finn and the CAFFEINE team
We’re excited to partner with BNZ. As New Zealand's largest business bank, BNZ shares our mission to support the next wave of founders and operators. Over the coming months, we’ll be working together to share insights, tools, and stories that help you grow smarter and faster. Keep an eye out every Thursday for content powered by BNZ.
Work ‘on’ your business, not just ‘in’ it: BNZ rolls out AI-driven Growth Academy nationwide
This week, ambitious founders should be sure to check out BNZ’s Growth Academy which can give you the tools and insight necessary to take you to the next stage of your startup journey.
The BNZ Growth Academy
Whether you’re planning a significant change or looking for the next growth opportunity, the BNZ Growth Academy can give you the skills and resources to help develop your business’s full potential. BNZ is offering more than a thousand BNZ businesses free access to the BNZ Growth Academy. The online workshops are led by our partners at D/srupt. Dates and availability vary. Apply here.
How it works
The BNZ Growth Academy is facilitated by D/srupt, the strategy expert behind many of New Zealand’s successful businesses.
Online workshops
D/srupt’s high-impact workshops consist of four 1.5 hour weekly online sessions. To get the full value of the workshops, you’ll need to attend all four sessions, as each session builds on the last.
Intuitive online tools
The BNZ Growth Academy gives you access to D/srupt’s growth platform software. This comprehensive online tool allows business owners to identify opportunities, gain insights and resources to help develop growth strategies.
The BNZ Growth Academy is designed for small to medium business owners who want to gain clarity and confidence in making growth decisions. Workshops are free to successful applicants.
Who should apply
Applications are open to BNZ customers who run:
- a young company seeking to scale-up rapidly
- an established business that hasn’t yet achieved its full growth potential, or
- a well-established business looking for the next growth opportunity.
*If you’re not a BNZ customer and would like to know more about the BNZ Growth Academy, you can email: bnzgrowthacademy@bnz.co.nz
New Zealand biotech to be showcased on world stage: As I said last week, if I love two things in this world it’s ambitious tech and an ambitious startup applying that tech to a pressing global problem and here’s another story straight out of that vein. New Zealand agricultural biotech company Lucidome Bio has been selected as one of just fourteen global finalists to pitch at the Animal Health, Nutrition and Technology Innovation USA event this week in Boston.
There it will showcase its world-first methane-reducing vaccine. A solution like this could be transformational for climate action in agriculture - a low-cost, high-impact tool that could dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.
Lucidome Bio’s vaccine aims to trigger an animal’s immune system to produce antibodies in saliva that suppress the activity of methane-producing microbes (methanogens) in the rumen. These microbes are responsible for the majority of methane emitted through livestock burps. Obviously, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of a methane reducing breakthrough and we can’t start celebrating too early but I will surely be watching them closely. Congrats to the team.
The Startup Theatre Pod in collaboration with Caffeine is back: We love shouting out podcasts from the wider ecosystem here at Caffeine but you’ll just have to indulge me tooting my own horn here on this occasion. We’re back with another episode of Startup Theatre and you can check out my new/old news and general ramblings in this clip Host Troy Hammond kindly plucked out and posted. You should go watch it here, he’s pointing right at you.
Catalist report offers insight into New Zealand angel investment market: Interesting new report here from Catalist offering some unique insight into the angel investment economy of Aotearoa, in collaboration with the Angel Association of New Zealand. It’s based on the actual transaction data of seven active Angel Investment Groups and presents a data-driven view into the Angel Investment landscape.
Some of the highlights from the FY25 report include:
Just over $15M was invested in total in FY25 (up 8.2% on FY24) by 341 Angel Investors
More money was invested into follow-on deals, than into new deals*. But the proportion of investment going to new deals has increased significantly in FY25 from previous years
The median investment, per individual Angel investor, per deal was only $5,625 (down 22.4% from FY24)
FY25 saw shift of more investment towards companies in the Energy, Materials & Resources space, attracting 32.4% of investment
Check out full report here
Google launches Futures Fund to support ambitious AI startups: Not going to lie, usually when I discuss this particular tech titan it’s in the context of some grand monopoly case or how much search has degraded so its nice to be able to touch on something less troubling and more potentially beneficial - a new fund aimed at boosting the next generation of AI driven startups.
Successful applicants will receive:
Early access to select AI models from Google DeepMind: Including the most advanced AI models like Gemini, Imagen for image generation and Veo for video generation
Collaboration with Google experts: Hands-on support from researchers, engineers, product managers, designers and go-to-market specialists from Google DeepMind and Google Labs
Google Cloud credits and support: The program provides Cloud credits and dedicated technical support from Cloud experts to help build, train and scale AI-powered products
Equity investment: Select startups get the opportunity to seek direct investment from Google to fuel growth and scale AI development
Of course, a cynic might say this fund could act as a way for Google to bring brilliant young startups into the fold well before they ever become a threat but lets just try and have a positive day, okay?
It’s available to any startup anywhere that Gemini is available - so that means you. Apply here
FT hilariously roasts Sam Altman in his own kitchen: Sam Altman is, whatever you think of him personally, unquestionably one of the most powerful and influential people alive in 2025. He will almost certainly have an Oscar-winning dramatization of his life made at some point (what’s the bet it’s called Alt. Man or something equally pretentious) so it’s nice seeing him brought down to Earth on occasion.
This tongue in cheek write up from the Financial Times as part of its Lunch with FT series, where Altman prepared pasta while being interviewed, does that very well. It’s first subheading is the utterly perfect “He’s bad at olive oil” and concludes with the lines ”…he has an automated coffee machine that claims to save labour while doing the exact opposite because it can’t be trusted. His kitchen is a catalogue of inefficiency, incomprehension, and waste. If that’s any indication of how he runs the company, insolvency cannot be considered too unrealistic a threat.”
*Chef’s kiss*
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