In this episode, our guest is Max Ferguson, founder and CEO of Lumin; a software leader, providing accessible, safe and intuitive tech products that enable seamless collaboration in the workplace. Max was an engineering student in Christchurch, New Zealand, working on the city’s post-earthquake rebuild. He saw a mismatch between old and new workflows: on construction sites he’d draw on paper blueprints, and in the office he’d email around digital plans. From that, Lumin was born. Within a month, they had one million people using it – today they have ninety million.

In this super insightful chat we covered Lumin’s global-from-day-1 mentality which saw Max relocate to Silicon Valley very early on, followed by his choice to return to Aotearoa New Zealand to set up Lumin’s global headquarters in Christchurch. We talked about the cultural differences between the US and NZ when it comes to building new businesses, NZ’s world-class tertiary education system, and how to support talent to stay here once they graduate.

In this episode, we talked to Simon Malpas, founder and CEO of Kitea Health — a medtech start-up that’s created the world’s most accurate implantable sensor for heart failure and hydrocephalus. The device is roughly the size of a few grains of rice and is capable of remotely monitoring changes to pressure and sending real-time, accurate information straight to the healthcare professional and patient.

This wide-ranging conversation covered Simon’s background in research and start-ups, the size of the global opportunity for Kitea Health’s world-first tech, the long pathway to commercialisation for medical devices, and the key ingredients to building a successful medtech company from New Zealand (hint: he tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata).

Next we’re joined by Mary Vance, founder and Executive Director of Cemplicity — a global SaaS platform for the healthcare industry. Cemplicity provides real-time patient feedback to improve clinical outcomes. It’s about using software for improvement, not just measurement. Mary founded the company alongside Nick MacDonald in 2011, and it’s now serving customers in 8 countries in more than 3000 healthcare facilities.

It was fascinating to hear Mary’s story, and to learn from her twenty-year journey scaling Cemplicity from New Zealand. Her approach to funding, governance, and setting up in-market was so clear-eyed and filled with insight. Enjoy!