Axton Pitt, Litmaps
The Morgo Podcast
Litmaps is a Literature Discovery Tool that helps researchers to find vital scientific papers they didn't know about and to tell a better research story. A Litmap is a picture that shows the relationship between a collection of scientific papers based on their citations, popularity and currency. Litmaps is now used by researchers, students and professionals across 150 countries. Axton talks about what he’s learned in starting the business and in moving from CTO to CEO.
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Ian McCrae, Orion Health
The Morgo Podcast
This podcast celebrates a hero of the NZ tech sector: Ian founded Orion Health over 30 years ago - the first company in Auckland to have internet! Orion builds products that link healthcare systems together. It has spun off a number of products along the way. Orion - the 2 major products and most of the staff – is being sold for over $200M, while 3 younger products and 100 people are being spun off into McCrae Tech. Ian now calls himself Mr Odd Job Man.
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Max Arshavsky, Zenno
The Morgo Podcast
Max & co-founder Sebastian Wieczorek started space tech company Zenno to solve the problem of running out of fuel in space. Their solution is to use superconducting magnets fuelled by solar power to provide fully autonomous positioning of satellites. After 7 years work, they have solved the problems of operating their technology in space. (And have now announced their first commercial partnerships.) When asked what part of this was hard, Max replies “all of it”.
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Ron Tenenbaum & Tam Hankinson, The Clinician
The Morgo Podcast
The Clinician offers a digital platform that redefines healthcare by shifting funding from service delivery to measurable outcomes. Founded by Ron, a former neurosurgeon, and Tam, with experience in pharma and business intelligence, the company blends medical, technical and commercial expertise. They've scaled the business to over 50 employees globally with clients in 7 countries, leading a transformation in healthcare funding and delivery.
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David Sweas with Dodson Group
The Morgo Podcast
The Dodson Group is a precision manufacturer, #1 in the automotive niche of high horsepower transmission upgrades. It has diversified into other markets such as aerospace, agriculture, marine, & green energy by acquiring its largest local suppliers. David took over as CEO of Dodson five years ago and has grown the business from 17 to 75 people. David is a former automotive engineer and investment banker who wanted to build a business, and Dodson was a perfect fit.
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Simon Malpas with Kitea Health
The Morgo Podcast
Kitea Health makes a device to help manage hydrocephalus: a condition where fluid accumulates in the brain, managed by inserting a shunt to drain the fluid. Kitea Health makes a tiny implantable device to measure pressure in the brain at home, letting you know if the shunt has failed and you need medical help. Simon brings an extensive background in developing medical devices to this new venture. His key advice: build the team!
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Tijs Robinson, Hot Lime Labs
The Morgo Podcast
Hot Lime Labs is putting the green back in greenhouses – supplying yield-boosting CO2 from biomass for large glasshouses. With $9 million of angel funding they’ve scaled from the lab to a demo delivering CO2 into a 11 hectare glasshouse. It’s now ready to take to the world – which will need lots more funding. Tijs talks about how the needs of the business change as you grow, with specialists replacing generalists, and how ready people are to help if you ask.
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Boyd Multerer with Kry10
The Morgo Podcast
Kry10 is a building a secure operating system to enable critical infrastructure such as electrical grids and medical devices to transition to a future where they are intelligent, cloud connected and adaptive driven. This can replace, or be placed in front of, old software built on operating systems from the 1990s that are vulnerable to viruses. It was founded by Boyd and other ex-Microsoft/Amazon execs to commercialise cybersecurity technology spun-out from an advanced research group.
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Shieak Tzeng & Sergei Obruchkov, Wellumio
The Morgo Podcast
Wellumio is developing a highly portable head MRI scanner for use in emergency departments - providing a scan in the “golden hour” after stroke when treatment is most effective. Shieak & Sergei talk about how great it was to find each other, their journey to dealing with investors rather than grant reviewers, and now getting their product to market. They’d like to encourage more academics to choose entrepreneurship!
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Clinton Cardozo with OneReg
The Morgo Podcast
OneReg is about effortless compliance and smoother operations for aerospace. When Covid struck, Clinton lost his job and decided it was time to start a business. He and his two co-founders had more than 100 years experience in compliance, digital innovation and aviation. Their initial customers are airports, which are very complex environments – they have the biggest need for what OneReg does. They now have most of the airports in NZ as customers and are moving offshore.
info_outlineClaudia Smith & Russell Smith built AML platform APLYiD to allow companies to verify customers online in seconds using biometric measures. APLYiD now has over 1,000 customers in Australia, New Zealand & the UK. Claudia and Russell each had a background in identity work and knew the corporate environment well. In this podcast they talk about how they work together, how they complement each other and what they’ve learned about building a tech company fast.