Kami co-founders Hengjie Wang (left) and Alliv Samson have created a family office called Hiraya Ventures.
Husband-and-wife Kami co-founders Hengjie Wang and Alliv Samson have created a family office, Hiraya Ventures, which is looking to invest in “globally ambitious start-ups”.
The pair say they’re supporting the next generation of start-ups with not just capital but their own expertise and a founder-first approach.
“At this stage, we will be investing in seed to growth-stage Kiwi businesses,” Wang tells tech insider.
“By investing in New Zealand’s tech and startup ecosystem, myself and Alliv are looking to support the ecosystem which helped foster Kami’s growth.”
Hiraya’s existing investments include Ice House Ventures funds, Tracksuit, Halter and Yu Mei.
The family office, founded in June, is still in its early days, but is currently working with non-government organisations and think tanks like the Helen Clark Foundation to establish how they can help shape education – especially education and tech in New Zealand, Wang and Samson say.
It’s a cause close to their hearts as co-founders of an education tech firm and now even more so that they have two children, aged 3 and 5.
READ MORE: Paying it forward: The Kiwis who made good in tech and are now backing a new generation of start-ups
Edtech firm Kami was sold in a $289 million deal last year, with its founders retaining a 29% stake and Wang remaining chief executive.
It’s just expanded its user base from 50 million to 70 million by snapping up the UK-based Book Creator.
Wellington medtech start-up Wellumio says every second counts when dealing with a stroke – and that its prototype portable scanner can deliver MRI-based stroke biomarkers in just four minutes, without radiation, and without requiring contrast agent injection, specialised infrastructure or radiology staff. A patient’s chances of survival could be dramatically increased.
The battery-powered, portable MRI is pitched as a tool for emergency departments, rural hospitals and mobile medical units – or any environment where it can help avoid a potentially multi-hour wait for a full-sized MRI machine.
Wellumio has just opened a crowdfunded equity campaign on Snowball Effect, seeking to raise $1m to $1.5m - which will form part of a wider “pre-Series A” funding drive, led by Nuance Capital, that is targeting a total $8.5m.
The company says it will use the new funding “to finalise product development for scale-able, cost-effective manufacturing”. It’s also laying the groundwork for “a multi-centre emergency department pivotal trial across Australia and the US at a later date, which will generate the clinical evidence required for FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] submission and ultimately clinical adoption”.
Like early stage firms overall, medical technology firms are high-risk. Last week, the Herald reported that three promising New Zealand med-tech companies are in liquidation after unsuccessful attempts to raise further capital.
All three were involved in developing tools for diagnostic and treatment decision-making and were looking to secure funding to advance production.
But Wellumio, founded in 2019, already has something of a track record. It $4.25m seed round in 2023 attracted capital from investors Outset Ventures (which numbers Sir Peter Beck on its investment committee), Nuance Capital, the Crown-backed New Zealand Growth Capital Partners’ (NZGCP) Aspire Fund, Cure Kids Ventures and Movac.
The company has also received grants from the Australian Stroke Alliance (A$1.1m or $1.22m) and Callaghan Innovation ($1.79m)
Wellumio co-founder and CEO Shieak Tzeng – a former Associate Professor of Physiology and Bioengineering at Otago University – tells Tech Insider that to get to market, his firm will need to wrap up the $8.5m pre-Series A then a later $14m Series A round.
Tzeng doesn’t want to be pinned down to a price tag at this point. But he says his firm’s portable scanner, called Axana, will be “significantly lower” in cost than a full-size MRI scanner (which sets hospitals back more than $1m).
Its mobility will also give emergency departments big practical advantages during the first 60 minutes after someone suffers a stroke.
“Currently, less than 5% of stroke patients receive treatment within that critical ‘golden hour’ when the chance of disability-free survival is highest,” Tzeng said.
In March, Kiwi-American firm Rocket Lab said it planned to raise US$500m ($850m) by issuing new shares. Overnight, it supersized the raise to up to US$750m.
Rocket Lab’s stock has risen 633% over the past year, catapulting its market cap to US$27.07 billion amid the first customer contracts for its much larger, crew-capable Neutron rocket, its rapidly expanding satellite business and SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s falling-out with the White House.
The raise will be dilutive. Its stock was down 12.2% to US$47.46 in late Nasdaq trading.
A United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing says the proceeds will “fund future growth, including potential new acquisitions” plus working capital as it gears toward Neutron’s first launch, due by year’s end.
Some of the funding will go to Rocket Lab’s purchase of laser communications firm Mynaric for US$75m, which was announced in March and finalised in August, the filing says.
Rocket Lab’s net loss widened to US$66.4m from the year-ago US$41.6m.
The company finished the quarter with US$564m in cash.
In May, Rocket Lab completed its US$275m acquisition of Arizona’s Geost, a maker of tech that can be used for missile-tracking – useful as the Kiwi-American firm talks up its possible role in US President Donald Trump’s envisioned “Golden Dome” defence.
Rocket Lab recently reported record second-quarter revenue of US$144.5m for the three months to June 30 – a 36% increase on its second quarter last year and a record for the firm.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.