A change of pace

Tuscany, Bordeaux, Napa Valley – wine-growing regions are generally synonymous with beauty. So being based in one doesn’t hurt when you’re trying to attract talent to your startup, says Andrew Kersley, CEO and co-founder of Smart Machine, located in the heart of Marlborough wine country. 

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“Somewhere like Marlborough is incredibly beautiful. So if you're into the outdoors or a change of pace, it's quite an attractive proposition.”

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Blenheim-based Smart Machine produces the Oxin – the world’s first fully autonomous, multitasking viticultural robotic tractors. Co-founded by engineer Walter Langlois and his two product designer mates, Kersley and Nick Gledhill, the company has been backed from the beginning by Pernod Ricard Winemakers. The wine company continued its support by investing in Smart Machine’s recent $1.93 million funding round, which also attracted new investors, FABAL Investments, New Zealand Growth Capital Partners, Angel Investors Marlborough and Angel HQ. 

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The Oxin, which is equipped with implement systems so it can carry out multiple tasks like mowing, mulching, trimming and spraying in a single pass, is designed to meet one of the viticulture industry’s biggest challenges – labour shortages – and boost overall operational efficiencies. Early this year the company also received a $622,000 grant from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibres Futures Fund for a three-year project to explore electrification of the Oxin. 

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Here Kersley talks about the journey to develop the Oxin from its home in Blenheim, to now seeking opportunities for it in Australia and the US. 

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Why did you start Smart Machine in Blenheim?

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Predominantly, it’s because it's where 70 percent of New Zealand's grapes are grown, but for more context, SmartMachine was a project before it was a business. Nick Gledhill and I had another company – we were product designers – and our fellow co-founder Walter Langlois was in Blenheim and conceived the idea for the product. He had his own vineyard, but also a workshop where he designed and built machinery, and together we'd worked together for about a dozen years on various projects. 

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Over the years, Walter started talking about this possibility of building autonomous vehicles to resolve some of the labor issues in the viticulture industry. We had some good ideas and we thought we could make it work, meanwhile Pernod Ricard, who are our cornerstone partner, were actively looking in this space globally and couldn't find a good fit with any product in the market. 

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We had 18 months of development and validation and I travelled between Hawke's Bay and Blenheim over that period. There were three of us who built the first prototype, validated some of the assumptions around autonomy and demonstrated to Pernod Ricard that we were able to deliver a machine that could fundamentally help solve some of these problems. 

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Once we got through that phase and everybody was comfortable to take the next step, which was the first order of what we call our generation-one machines, myself and the family moved from Hawke's Bay to Blenheim to start developing the business and scale up the team. 

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But I’m now back in Hawke’s Bay. This is where I'm from, my family wanted to come back, and we needed to develop the company’s infrastructure here anyway. My role now has also changed, I'm travelling quite a lot, so it just made sense for me to come back to Hawke's Bay.

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How have you found the talent you need as you’ve scaled up the team?

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We initially scaled up to maybe seven or eight people and the majority of those came from out of the region. People told us it was going to be a challenge but for the scale that we're at, our location is actually not as much of a limitation as you would have thought.

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When we started, there was a real shortage of software engineers and people were able to pick and choose roles. People were starting to pay more attention to what the job entailed, the types of products they'd be working on, the place where it was. We found there were a few people in this space who had young families, were sick of the hustle and bustle of the cities and the cost of living. Those things really worked in our favour. 

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We've also got a very multidisciplinary team; we need everybody, effectively, but the reality is we don't need hundreds of everybodies. We just need a few good people to make this work at the scale we're at at the moment, which is up to 25 people now. 

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It changes if you start talking about, ‘hey, we need to hire 200 people next month’. That's a really significant challenge if you’re a regional SaaS company on a fast journey to scale. I've known companies in that space who have set up satellite offices in cities or really focused on working remotely. However, we're hardware-enabled software, so it's really important that our business is based where the machines are, out in the fields delivering what they need to.

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How have you connected with investors? 

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Angel Investors Marlborough [AIM] has been great. Having someone like that who understands the value proposition, the product, the benefits to not only a region like Marlborough but to viticulture globally, and sees the opportunity to scale outside of viticulture – all of that helps tell the story. A lot of those investors had been exposed to our journey from day-dot, so even the due diligence piece became really easy. Tracy [Atkin, AIM board member] is the chair of our board and having a lead investor around the table makes it easier to start talking to others, like NZGCP and Angel HQ. 

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Pernod Ricard has also been a great partner. They've opened a lot of doors globally, providing really good opportunities for introductions into other businesses and people of a similar level who we need to be having the conversations with.

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What other agencies or organisations have been helpful as you've grown? 

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Callaghan Innovation supported lots of the early project work, with project grants and bringing in graduates. We still get a lot of support from Callaghan through its Career and Experience grants schemes. 

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Now that we're at a scale where we’re looking globally, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise has helped with international connections, landing pads in different countries, and people in-market to give us specific feedback. Then obviously MPI and the SFFF grant, which has been a good pathway to develop funding. 

We’ve also had a lot of introductions come through the Marlborough Chamber of Commerce and the Hawke's Bay Business Hub. One of the limitations of being regional is you can feel isolated sometimes. So it’s really positive to have groups and businesses that are taking the time to share experiences with each other – the technology wins and losses, the challenges and the things they've found that work – because, that's ultimately what it's all about, right, that ongoing learning. 

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How much travel are you doing and how do you stay connected to the team?

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Australia’s been a focus for us recently. We've got a machine over there and we have a full-time team member based there, which has been a great help because I haven't had to spend so much time on the ground there, but I do go over for events – like we’ve got a big demo day coming up there in a week's time. 

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At the moment I'll probably do an international trip quarterly, and then the rest of the time I'm either in Hawke's Bay or Blenheim. The two other founders are based in Blenheim with the wider team, so they're very connected to them. In Hawke's Bay I'm more connected with the infrastructure and the growers that we have here, but then in my role in business development and as CEO it’s about where are the next opportunities? How do we scale this globally? So the focus isn't necessarily on the day-to-day operations. I think we’re really lucky that we have that dynamic as a founder group.  

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As told to Caitlin Sykes