How our awesome ecosystem supports founders.
There is no place like Dunedin for innovation and entrepreneurship.
This chilly, bright, eclectic, awesome little city has such a thriving ecosystem around it - one that embraces and supports startups and small businesses anyway it can.
Join us to take a deeper dive into how Dunedin has become such fertile ground for startup founders, with three inspiring cases that demonstrate the city's commitment to entrepreneurial success.
Case one: Nutriblocks
Where better to start in Ōtepoti than a gaming startup? There’s been a lot of buzz in our neck of the woods lately in the gaming sector, with Dunedin firmly in place as the best place to start up in gaming in the south island - Stuff even called it “absolutely, positively, almost, the gaming capital of NZ”. There’s no doubt about it - it’s a sign of great things to come.
Nutriblocks is one of those gaming startups - and they’re aiming to change the way that nutrition education is taught. Founder Claudia Leong’s vision is to “help build healthy futures”; thus, their first product is Nutri-Islands, a nutrition video game targeted towards 7 to 11 year olds, with a school subscription model.
In 2020, Claudia Leong came through Startup Dunedin’s student entrepreneurship programme, Audacious, which helped her in beginning to find a market for Nutriblocks, refine her problem statement, and get her product ready for the next step.
That next step? Securing funding from the Centre of Digital Excellence (C.O.D.E). They’re part of an industry-wide drive towards a $1BN interactive media industry in Aotearoa, aiming for a sustainable game development ecosystem right here in Ōtepoti.
The journey for Claudia then took a left turn - it was time to come back through the Startup Dunedin doors! Gaining acceptance into the Distiller Incubator in 2021, Nutriblocks began to take shape, and Claudia went on to take part in a national HealthTech accelerator, and create a successful prototype.
Want to see what they’ve been up to since then? Take a look at the Nutriblocks website for all the information on their current offerings, contact details, and more.
Case two: Timeclock
Another great example can be found in the story of Loic Joachim and Cameron Hill, founders of Timeclock.Kiwi. These founders have developed a time management solution that makes tracking employee hours way, way easier.
Loic and Cameron were inspired to create Timeclock.Kiwi after noticing that existing time management systems just weren't cutting it. After months of in-depth research and development, Loic and Cameron began working on a clocking-in Kiosk, which they’d found to be the main pain point for customers. They prioritised making sure that their Kiosk was both visually appealing and user-friendly before moving on to design a filter system that allowed for easy tracking of employees, and a simple user portal, taking inspiration from Gmail's early days.
To support their final stage of development, in came O'Brien Group Benchtops, located in Mosgiel, Dunedin. O’Brien Group are not just Otago, but New Zealand's largest benchtop manufacturer, and this partnership really helped to iron out any issues that hadn't become apparent in testing.
With the backing of such an established local business, Timeclock.Kiwi is being rolled out across all eight O'Brien Group factories in New Zealand, and it's already making a huge impact. We’re really looking forward to seeing where this one goes.
Curious? You can learn more about this awesome Ōtepoti startup at Timeclock.kiwi.
Case Three: Jeenks Group
Lastly, we’ll take a look at a startup that provides an IoT sensor based device for grain bin and grain silo management - and this device is set to be a real disruptor in the grain storage industry!
Jeenks Group was founded in 2019 by Paul Amezcua. Paul had previously worked as a digital technology professional across a super-diverse range of organisations, (and even published a book titled ‘Skills to Back Yourself’ - in 2020!), and had previously founded and co-founded multiple digital tech businesses. With this experience and wisdom under his belt, his Grain Crawler idea was a fresh, new, and definitely exciting step along his journey.
Whilst in incubation with Startup Dunedin in 2022, Paul managed to create a working prototype of his grain crawler robot, which might have been the coolest moment of our year that year. Watching his project make it through some challenges, fail, break down, then succeed and come to life was a really awesome experience - for Paul, for us, and for the community watching on.
After making it into national accelerator Sprout Agritech NZ, Paul needed to dive into testing the feasibility of his prototype, in the hopes that it will be able to beat his competitor’s 1-metre depth restriction. To get over this hurdle, he began working alongside a local oat company, who enabled him to conduct those tests on real product, in a real business setting.
Stay up to date with the team at Jeenks Group (and their grain crawler robot!) here.
Want to make a case for yourself?
We can help. You’re not alone - Ōtepoti can provide new startups with a range of support systems, from robust support networks, to access to funding opportunities, and collaborative partnerships. Our favourite city has firmly established itself as a hotspot for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Anyone with any idea at any stage can touch base with us for free, and figure out where to go next. Just click here or email us at hello@startupdunedin.nz!