‘A bigger purpose’: Mowbray Zuru legacy has nothing to do with toys

Zuru co-founder and CEO Nick Mowbray.

Zuru’s third business division, Zuru Tech, is manufacturing customised homes in an automated factory, with the aim of bringing the cost of housing closer to the cost of building materials.

“Elon Musk calls it the idiot index,” Nick Mowbray told Markets with Madison.

“He used to look at the cost of a rocket and he’d calculate the cost of the raw materials versus the final cost and say, ‘That idiot index is really high’.

“It’s much the same with a building. The cost of the raw materials out of the ground, versus the final cost, is a really wide delta.

“And so, the thesis was, could we completely re-innovate the way that you build a building?”

Its 3.5-hectare test factory in China was already making up to two homes a week, he said.

Zuru had purchased a new 10.1ha building in China to transform it into the first commercial home manufacturing site.

It had built its own software to design the homes too, called Dreamcatcher, which included artificial intelligence, allowing a customer to describe their desired home design by voice.

Mowbray said the Zuru Tech business was the Zuru group’s “bigger objective”.

“Greg Foran said this to me once, you’ve got to wrap your business in a bigger purpose.

“And I feel like we’ve built such a profitable toy business, such a profitable consumer goods business, and at some point, it’s like, ‘Okay, how do we solve a bigger problem? Actually shape Zuru and make or create a bigger purpose for the business?’

“And the thesis was that construction and property development, it’s the biggest part of global GDP, but it’s been done the same for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

Watch Nick Mowbray discuss housing, his health challenges and fatherhood, in today’s bonus episode of Markets with Madison above.

Watch the full episode inside Zuru’s US empire in this episode below.

Madison Malone travelled to the United States with support from the NZUS Council Media Fellowship programme. The Council is committed to advancing New Zealand’s shared interests with the United States. Find out more about the NZUS council here.

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Disclaimer: The information provided in this programme is of a general nature, and is not intended to be personalised financial advice. We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified professional to suit your individual circumstances.

Madison Malone (nee Reidy) is host and executive producer of the investment show Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.