# GD1 — Full Reference > GD1 is a conviction-led venture capital firm backing New Zealand technology companies from pre-seed through Series B. Website: https://gd1.vc ## About GD1 GD1 manages approximately $250M AUM and has been investing in New Zealand startups since 2012. The firm operates a generalist strategy and backs founders from the earliest stages through to Series B. Every member of the investment team has been a founder or operator — GD1 invests with lived experience, not just capital. GD1 Core Fund 2 is currently open to wholesale investors and is AIP (Approved Issuer Principle) approved. GD1 Select Fund focuses on late-stage growth investments from Core Fund 1's best-performing portfolio companies. ## Investment Criteria - **Stage**: Pre-seed through Series B; we are built for the founder relationship, not the round - **Geography**: New Zealand-founded companies scaling into global markets - **Sectors**: Industrial / deep tech, space, health tech, SaaS / software, financial infrastructure - **Ownership**: We take concentrated ownership and support companies through their full journey - **Investor eligibility**: Wholesale investors and Eligible investors (FMCA 2013, New Zealand) ## Investment Team ### Vignesh Kumar **Role:** Co-Managing Partner Vignesh is a Co-Managing Partner at GD1, a New Zealand based generalist venture capital firm investing across deep tech, connected hardware, health tech, SaaS and Internet 2.0 verticals. GD1's most recent fund was launched in 2021 with c.$150M in committed capital. Through this Vignesh is an investor and board member of portfolio companies such as Basis, Foundry Lab, Alimetry, Dawn Aerospace, Zenno Astronautics, and Type One Energy, among others. Before GD1, and after overcoming cancer, Vignesh co-founded Journey Health, a digital health oncology platform. Prior to this, while based in California he led engineering execution at Apple across the US and Asia, and before that worked as a design engineer at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, where he developed neonatal resuscitation technologies for the NICU. Vignesh is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 28), Fulbright Scholar, and holds an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Biomedical Engineering and a Master of Engineering Studies (Hons) from The University of Auckland. ### John Kells **Role:** Co-Managing Partner John has 20+ years investment experience, including 14 years in the UK. He spent 3 years as a front office equity analyst for London based hedge fund GLG Partners (previously one of the largest hedge funds globally before being acquired by Man Group). He then went on to work for 8 years at Tesco Pension Investment, a £14B UK pension scheme, as Head of Alternatives - creating, allocating and managing £1.5B in alternative investments globally. John has also been an active angel investor for a number of years. Upon returning to New Zealand in 2015, he co-founded an e-commerce start-up before joining GD1 in 2017. He holds a BSc (Mathematics), 3x Diplomas in Finance, Financial Planning and Statistics, and is a CFA Charterholder. John most recently led investments for GD1 Core Fund 1 into: Auror, Formus Labs, Runn.io, VXT, Simfuni, NextWork, Buddy, Flowingly, Orbica, and Vessev. ### Nawaz Ahmed **Role:** General Partner With the ability to discover the genius in others and a passion for journeying with early stage founders, Nawaz is a respected authority in the crypto/web3 space. Since 2019, he has been an avid angel investor - investing in over 15 early stage crypto companies, including US-based. As an entrepreneur, he has been through all of the phases of successfully starting a company - ideating, coming up with a product proposition, executing on that vision, and selling. His current focus at GD1 is on raising and investing for the Web3 Fund, meeting founders who are leveraging crypto/web3 tech to build new and exciting businesses. ### Aaron Small **Role:** General Partner As General Partner, Aaron leads the Investment Team at GD1. He has over 10 years experience in Venture Capital roles in both NZ and the UK. Before joining GD1, Aaron was an Investment Manager at NZTE where he helped NZ technology companies connect with local and international VCs. Prior to this, Aaron managed Spark NZ's Corporate VC program and held investing roles at Aspinall Capital (a $100m industrial technology fund) and WHEB Partners (a cleantech venture capital firm with €250m AUM) in the United Kingdom. Aaron holds a PhD in Chemistry and a BSc Hons (1st Class) from Victoria University of Wellington and the MacDiarmid Institute of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. He is passionate about supporting NZ founders in taking their technologies global to solve the world's biggest challenges. ### Doug Bohaboy **Role:** Go-To-Market Principal Doug has nearly 15 years of experience working in sales, marketing, and customer success. He provides in-the-trenches, functional Go To Market support to GD1's portfolio, empowering our companies to make smart decisions and execute successfully so they can achieve global growth. Doug specialises in helping our founders and their teams succeed post investment which is a core part of what we do here at GD1. "Venture capital attracts brave, daring and determined people - being around startups and helping them is what makes me excited about being in VC..." ### Jonathan Tan (Jono or JT) **Role:** Investment Associate Jono sits within the Investment Team, supporting the Partners across the full investment process, from sourcing through diligence, investment and post-investment. He currently holds several Board Observer roles at select GD1 portfolio companies. Prior to joining GD1, he held corporate finance and advisory roles at Grant Thornton and Westpac, and led infantry platoons as a Platoon Sergeant in the Singapore Armed Forces. JT holds a BCom from the University of Auckland and is a Chartered Accountant. Jonathan is excited to learn about new technologies and work with founders to succeed and scale their startups globally. ### Catherine Young **Role:** Operations Manager Catherine has a passion for building systems; a talent for juggling multiple responsibilities and thrives on the challenge of solving difficult problems by imagining what they might look like fixed. As an owner/operator for 20 years, her business management experience was gained at the coal face where she did 'whatever it took' to ensure the success of the company, including liaising with clients in over 60 different countries; project management on high budget productions; negotiating international sponsorships, dealing with a variety of stakeholders and at all times handling the day to day of running a business. Catherine's 'specialist generalist' background is an invaluable asset to GD1 where she applies what she knows about systems, processes, policies and procedures to set the company and its portfolio companies up for success. "Operations management aims at understanding the bigger picture so that you can review, decipher and problem-solve around each roadblock with an eye on how everything you do fits into and will help achieve the company's overarching objectives while remaining compliant and on track." ### Tracy Han **Role:** Operations Coordinator Tracy is an all-rounded professional with extensive experience in project management, people & culture, and business operations. She has successfully led and supported a variety of projects across different contexts and worked across corporate, non-profit and ed-tech. Tracy is deeply passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion and sustainability, and she currently serves on the board of Tāhono Inclusive Collective Aotearoa and the APEC Voices Trust New Zealand. Before joining GD1, Tracy completed her Master of Business in Diversity Management. Her expertise lies at the intersection of people, projects, and processes, where she excels in collaborating with diverse teams to tackle complex challenges and develop innovative solutions. ### Jin Budelmann **Role:** Head of Data + AI Jin is a software engineer, technology leader and founder who has spent his career building technology products and teams. He was an early employee at Vend, which was acquired by Lightspeed, and has since worked across a range of startups and technology businesses, including Serato, ANZ and Basis. He is the co-founder and CTO of Journey Health, a digital health startup, and organises the Prompt Poets Society, an Auckland community focused on AI engineering and emerging technology. ## Active Portfolio (39 companies) ### Alimetry **Sector:** health **Stage:** series-a **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.alimetry.com Non-invasive gastric mapping device for diagnosing gastrointestinal conditions — the first clinically validated diagnostic of its kind. FDA-cleared and NICE-approved, transforming how gastroenterologists diagnose and manage millions of patients who previously had no objective test available to them. Alimetry develops a non-invasive gastric mapping platform that analyses stomach electrical activity using AI to provide diagnostic insights and personalised treatment options for functional gastrointestinal disorders. The platform replaces invasive procedures with a wearable device and clinician-facing software. **Investment thesis:** 1 in 5 people live with chronic gut disorders, yet diagnosis has barely changed in decades: invasive, slow, and often inconclusive. Alimetry has built the world's first non-invasive gastric mapping device, backed by 10+ years of University of Auckland research, three FDA approvals, and a reimbursement pathway already in motion. Greg and Armen combine world-class science with genuine commercial urgency — the kind of founders who win over the FDA and Stanford's GI motility centre in the same breath. This is a $6B+ global market, and Alimetry is building the new standard of care. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/alimetry --- ### Atomic Tessellator **Sector:** industrial **Stage:** seed **Website:** https://atomictessellator.com/ The materials bottleneck is the hidden constraint on human progress. Every unsolved challenge, in any category, from aerospace to energy, has a materials problem inside it. We built the infrastructure to remove it. Atomic Tessellator is the computational infrastructure for advanced materials. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/atomic-tessellator --- ### Auror **Sector:** software **Stage:** series-b **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.auror.co The world's leading retail crime intelligence platform. Auror connects retailers, law enforcement, and communities to reduce crime and protect people — operating across the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand with tier-1 retail chains as customers. Auror is a retail crime intelligence platform that empowers retailers and law enforcement to collaborate in real time to prevent theft and reduce losses. By analysing aggregated incident data, Auror provides actionable insights that help teams identify repeat offenders and foster safer shopping environments. **Investment thesis:** Retail crime costs the world $150B+ a year, yet most incidents go unreported and unresolved because data lives in silos. Auror built the intelligence layer the industry was missing — a platform that connects retailers, law enforcement, and crime data in real time. The moat is the network: every new customer makes the platform more valuable for everyone else, and after seven years, Auror has never lost an enterprise customer. The retail vertical is the beachhead. Police, financial services, and beyond are the prize. > "GD1 Build provides global first-hand growth experience. You get access to executive expertise and builders that support scale." — Phil Thomson, Founder & CEO, Auror Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/auror --- ### Basis **Sector:** industrial **Stage:** seed **Website:** https://www.wearebasis.com A smart electrical panel replacing the traditional switchboard, giving homeowners real-time energy monitoring, circuit-level control, and advanced safety protection via a companion app. Built in NZ, shipping globally. Basis provides a game-changing smart panel and home energy management app. With its beautiful design, powerful insights and the world's most advanced electrical safety technologies, the Basis smart panel is redefining the home energy experience. **Investment thesis:** The residential switchboard hasn't meaningfully changed in a century — 55+ components, up to 10 hours to install, zero visibility into the home it powers. Basis has rebuilt it from the ground up: a prefabricated, software-defined panel that installs in under 90 minutes and turns every subcircuit into a data point. The immediate win is for electricians, but the bigger opportunity sits behind the meter — metering, load management, energy retailing, solar integration. The panel is the beachhead. The energy stack is the prize. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/basis --- ### Buddy **Sector:** software **Stage:** series-a **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.tradebuddy.io A relationship-led marketplace for the scrap metal industry, connecting suppliers and buyers through verified profiles, in-app communication, and AI-driven trading insights. Built by operators who know the industry from the inside. Buddy is a relationship-driven marketplace built by scrapies, for scrapies - drawing on over 30 years of hands-on experience in the metal recycling industry. By connecting traders with verified counterparties, providing in-app negotiation and freight services, and automating post-trade administration, Buddy simplifies every step of the metal recycling trading process. **Investment thesis:** The global scrap metal recycling industry moves hundreds of billions of dollars a year on WhatsApp and spreadsheets. Buddy is digitising that workflow without trying to replace it, meeting buyers and sellers where they already are. What sets it apart is the founder: Stu Kagan has 25 years in the industry, built NZ's fastest-growing scrap company, and has personal relationships with the biggest buyers on the planet. This is a market-defining platform being built by someone the industry already trusts. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/buddy --- ### Caruso **Sector:** software **Stage:** series-a **Website:** https://www.getcaruso.com/en-nz AI-native fund administration software for private market fund managers, trusted by 900+ funds across real estate, private credit, and private equity. Caruso liberates fund managers from expensive, clunky legacy systems by providing modern, user-friendly tools that drive growth and efficiency. The platform helps investment professionals delight investors, raise capital, streamline operations, and mitigate risk. **Investment thesis:** Private fund managers running real assets, from real estate to agriculture, have long been stuck with fragmented tech stacks: disconnected CRMs, manual registries, paper-based compliance, and no single source of truth. Caruso was built from the inside out, originally developed by founders Mark Hurley and Oliver Shaw to run their own fund at Jasper, which is why it fits the problem so precisely. In a $20T alternative assets market that is digitising fast, Caruso is positioned to become the operating system private fund managers can't run without. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/caruso --- ### Dawn Aerospace **Sector:** space **Stage:** series-a **Location:** Christchurch, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.dawnaerospace.com Building the world's fastest reusable aerospace plane. Dawn's Mk-II Aurora broke the sound barrier and reached the stratosphere — the first privately-developed aircraft to achieve this in the Southern Hemisphere. Making space access routine, flying multiple times per day from conventional airports. Dawn Aerospace is redefining space transportation with sustainable rocket-powered vehicles that can launch from conventional runways, enabling multiple flights per day without the need for specialised infrastructure. Beyond atmospheric flight, its advanced green propulsion systems for satellites reduce both cost and environmental impact. **Investment thesis:** Most satellites still rely on toxic, expensive propellants that are difficult to handle and increasingly banned by regulators. Dawn Aerospace built the alternative: a non-toxic, green propulsion system that is already flying on satellites deployed via SpaceX, Soyuz, and Vega, with customers who say they simply couldn't close their business case with anyone else's technology. The longer play is the Aurora spaceplane, a reusable, horizontal take-off launch vehicle that could dramatically lower the cost and complexity of getting small satellites to orbit. Two bets in one company, with the propulsion business already generating real revenue and the spaceplane pointing toward something much bigger. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/dawn-aerospace --- ### Deconflict **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://deconflict.com An intelligence network that helps law enforcement and banks coordinate to fight financial crime Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/deconflict --- ### EarnOS **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://earnos.com Rewards people with real value from brands for their attention, replacing traditional advertising Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/earnos --- ### Easy **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://itseasy.co Faster, cheaper digital payments built on stablecoin technology Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/easy --- ### Flowingly **Sector:** software **Stage:** series-a **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://flowingly.io No-code workflow automation platform enabling enterprises to map, automate, and continuously improve operational processes without engineering support. Flowingly is a workflow automation platform that streamlines critical processes and boosts team collaboration. By eliminating manual tasks and providing real-time visibility, Flowingly empowers businesses to reduce errors, speed up approvals, and enhance both employee and customer experiences. **Investment thesis:** Most mid-market businesses run their internal processes on a combination of email chains, spreadsheets, and hope. Flowingly changes that, giving non-technical employees the tools to build, automate, and manage complex workflows without writing a single line of code. The moat is stickiness: once Flowingly is woven into a customer's operations, replacing it means rebuilding everything from scratch, which is why churn is virtually zero. Jon Kalaugher built and sold a SaaS company before founding this one, and he did it by solving a real operational problem he had himself. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/flowingly --- ### Flywheel **Sector:** software **Stage:** seed **Website:** https://www.useflywheel.co Marketing platform that converts e-commerce customers into brand advocates by enabling them to share content on Instagram Stories — driving organic word-of-mouth growth without referral codes or paid ads. **Investment thesis:** Paid ads are broken for e-commerce brands, and influencer marketing turned out to be mostly theatre. eVouch sits in the gap: a platform that turns real customers into micro-influencers, automating word-of-mouth at scale without the artificiality of traditional referral programs. The founders have pivoted deliberately and repeatedly to get here, which tells you more about their instincts than a straight line would. Backed by the Bessemer scout fund with early traction on Shopify, this is a small bet on a big behavioural shift in how brands acquire customers. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/flywheel --- ### Formus Labs **Sector:** health **Stage:** series-a **Website:** https://formuslabs.com AI-driven surgical planning software that creates patient-specific 3D models and implant plans for orthopaedic surgery. **Investment thesis:** One in five knee replacements fails to deliver the outcome it should, not because the hardware is wrong, but because surgeons have been making do with 2D imaging and manual planning that takes weeks and still leaves them guessing. Formus Labs changes that: the world's first AI-automated 3D pre-operative planner, built on 10+ years of University of Auckland research and over 800,000 CT scans, delivering a precise surgical plan in under an hour. The Zimmer Biomet partnership is the proof point that matters here, a $30B orthopaedic giant that chose Formus because nothing else could do what it does at scale. This is a category-creating platform in a $28B market where the acquirers are already circling. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/formus-labs --- ### FoundryLab **Sector:** industrial **Stage:** series-a **Location:** Wellington, New Zealand **Website:** https://foundrylab.com Revolutionising metal casting with a proprietary electric furnace platform that reduces time-to-part from weeks to hours. Serving global automotive and industrial customers. FoundryLab revolutionises traditional metal casting with its rapid digital metal casting system, allowing companies to produce fully functional cast metal parts in mere hours rather than weeks or months. The company modernises manufacturing through innovative casting technology that enables faster production timelines. **Investment thesis:** Metal casting has barely changed in a century: slow, expensive, outsourced, and completely impractical for the small-batch R&D work that modern hardware companies actually need. FoundryLab changes that with Digital Metal Casting, a hardware-enabled software system that takes a CAD file and produces a fully dense cast metal part in the same day, at $13 per part versus $240 for CNC. The IP sits in a proprietary microwave melting chamber and mold system that no one else has, with early traction in demanding industries including aerospace and defense where speed and precision are non-negotiable. David Moodie spent 15 years designing the metal parts that existing methods failed to deliver cheaply, which means he built the solution he personally needed, and that is always a good place to start. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/foundry-lab --- ### Gluon **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://gluon.money A money app for saving, sending, and spending, with built-in yield and a Visa card, no bank account required Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/gluon --- ### Immersve **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://immersve.com Lets people spend their digital assets in the real world, anywhere card payments are accepted Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/immersve --- ### inshAllah **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://inshallah.fi Financial infrastructure built specifically for the Middle East and Southeast Asia Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/inshallah --- ### Interstate **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://www.interstate.so A trading platform built for speed, executing trades across prediction markets, tokenised stocks, and more almost instantly Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/interstate --- ### Ivo **Sector:** software **Stage:** seed **Location:** San Francisco, CA **Website:** https://www.ivo.ai AI-powered contract intelligence platform helping legal teams review, negotiate, and manage contracts at scale — reducing review time, improving consistency, and giving teams capacity to focus on work that actually moves the business. Ivo leverages generative AI to streamline contract negotiations, automatically reviewing and redlining agreements for consistency against established playbooks and historically negotiated deals. The platform reduces contract management time and costs while ensuring compliance and enabling teams to focus on strategic initiatives. **Investment thesis:** Contract review is the most expensive, time-consuming work in any in-house legal team, yet for years the only solutions built for it were either clunky enterprise platforms or generic AI tools with no understanding of how lawyers actually work. Ivo is an AI-native contract review assistant that plugs directly into Word, checks documents against a team's own playbook, and flags issues the way a smart junior lawyer would, without replacing the judgment of the people using it. Min-Kyu Jung left Bell Gully, taught himself to code, relocated to San Francisco, and attracted Eric Yuan and Craft Ventures before the product had revenue, which tells you something about the quality of the founder. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/ivo --- ### JunoFem **Sector:** health **Stage:** seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.junofem.com Clinically proven pelvic floor training device that reduces urinary incontinence symptoms by up to 80%. Combines a medical device, app-based biofeedback, and physiotherapist support. Junofem transforms women's pelvic floor health through discreet, data-driven monitoring and strengthening. By combining advanced sensor technology with personalised coaching, the platform provides accurate, actionable insights in real time to improve outcomes for women at every life stage. **Investment thesis:** One in three women worldwide experience pelvic floor dysfunction, yet the available solutions are either invasive procedures or rigid consumer devices that cannot distinguish between abdominal contractions and true pelvic floor engagement, which means many women do the exercises and see no improvement. The Femfit is the world's first slimline, flexible pelvic floor trainer with eight pressure sensors along its full length, giving users and clinicians real-time, accurate feedback on technique for the first time. The science behind it comes out of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, with over NZ$3M in research funding, clinical validation across NZ and Australia, and key opinion leaders ready to champion it globally. Dr. Jennifer Kruger and Dr. David Budgett are exactly the founders this category needs: world-class researchers who understand the commercial reality and are building toward a product that acquirers in medtech and consumer health have already shown they will pay for. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/junofem --- ### Kura Dynamics **Sector:** industrial **Stage:** pre-seed **Location:** Christchurch, New Zealand **Founded:** 2026 **Website:** https://www.kuradynamics.com/ Turning natural reactions into an engineered system. Kura Dynamics is building the control system to unlock geologic hydrogen - the naturally occurring hydrogen produced when water reacts with iron-rich ultramafic rock - as a low-cost source of clean energy. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/kura-dynamics --- ### Layer3 **Sector:** financial **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://layer3.xyz Helps companies reach and reward online users, distributing value directly to the people who engage with them Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/layer3 --- ### Nextwork **Sector:** software **Stage:** seed **Website:** https://www.nextwork.org Learning platform connecting aspiring tech workers with real-world projects and hiring companies. Building the career infrastructure for the next generation of technology professionals. Nextwork is an online learning platform built for graduates and career changers looking to break into cloud and tech roles. Through hands-on projects and a supportive community, Nextwork gives learners the practical skills and portfolio they need to land their first tech job. **Investment thesis:** Online education has a completion problem: courses are one-size-fits-all, communities are an afterthought, and the gap between getting certified and getting hired remains entirely the student's problem to solve. NextWork is building a personalised learning platform that adapts to how each student learns and how much time they have, pairs them with a matched cohort of five, and stays with them through to employment. Amber Joseph built $435K in revenue before raising a dollar, turned down graduate offers from Salesforce, Xero, and Deloitte to do it, and logged over 1,600 hours directly engaging with students to understand the problem she was solving. Her students pass their AWS certifications at 100% against a 70% industry average, and the testimonials read less like reviews and more like life-change stories. This is a pre-seed bet on a founder who has already proven she can build something people genuinely love, in a market growing toward US$300B by 2030. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/nextwork --- ### Opacity **Sector:** software **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://opacity.network Lets you prove something is true without revealing the underlying private data Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/opacity --- ### Outlier Space **Sector:** space **Stage:** pre-seed **Website:** https://www.outlier.space/ Outlier Space is unlocking microgravity with a scalable, reusable, uncrewed satellite platform. From semiconductors to biotechnology, our customers can access what once seemed impossible. Build what can’t be built on Earth – and return it safely home. We’re on a mission to accelerate the global space economy. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/outlier-space --- ### Phase One Ventures **Sector:** other **Stage:** seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.phaseoneventures.com Early-stage venture capital firm backing deep tech founders across New Zealand and Australia. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/phase-one-ventures --- ### Poof **Sector:** software **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://www.poof.new Lets anyone build and launch an app in minutes using plain language Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/poof --- ### Polymath **Sector:** software **Stage:** series-a **Website:** https://polymath.how A personalised maths learning app for children that makes the subject engaging through adaptive content and guided exercises. Built by Celadon AI, available on iOS and Android. Polymath is a mobile learning platform that makes mathematics education engaging and accessible for children. The app provides interactive, curriculum-aligned tools for students, parents, and teachers across iOS and Android, with resources tailored for regions including New Zealand. **Investment thesis:** Global math performance has been declining for 20 years, but Polymath's insight is that children aren't bad at math, they're scared of it, and fear shuts down the exact part of the brain needed to solve problems. Polymath is a sandbox game children actually want to play, with an adaptive algorithm underneath that uses spaced repetition to double the rate of learning by asking the right question at the right time. Teachers in over a third of New Zealand's primary schools are already using it, and the product has spread to the US, UK, Australia, and Canada without meaningful marketing spend. Sophie Silver brings educational psychology and Christian Silver brings game engineering experience from cloud gaming unicorn Improbable, and together they hacked their way to real classroom insights on almost no capital. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/polymath --- ### Ribbon **Sector:** software **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://ribbon.ai A professional network and AI-powered recruiting platform Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/ribbon --- ### Rilla **Sector:** software **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://rilla.network Video streaming infrastructure that cuts the cost of serving content by up to 90% Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/rilla --- ### Runn **Sector:** software **Stage:** seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.runn.io Real-time resource and project management platform for professional services teams. Strong NRR with growing US market presence. Runn is a resource planning and forecasting platform that helps teams schedule, track, and manage projects more effectively. Combining intuitive design with real-time analytics, Runn provides clarity on team capacity, workload, and project timelines. **Investment thesis:** Project-centric companies run on people, budgets, and deadlines that shift constantly, yet most still manage that complexity across disconnected spreadsheets and siloed tools. Runn brings it all into one place, giving teams real-time visibility across resourcing, forecasting, and financials in a platform that is genuinely simple to use. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/runn --- ### Simfuni **Sector:** financial **Stage:** seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://simfuni.com Award-winning platform that orchestrates life insurance operations, helping insurers modernise legacy systems, automate workflows, and improve customer experience across policy servicing, payments, and distribution. Simfuni orchestrates smarter insurance operations, combining customer engagement and core system requirements with modern capabilities in a single cloud-based platform. The company unifies data and automates workflows to help insurers boost efficiency, strengthen compliance, enhance customer retention, and deliver a modernised experience. **Investment thesis:** The insurance industry moves $8.7T in premiums globally and reconciles most of it manually, on systems averaging over 20 years old. Simfuni is the end-to-end payments and policy administration platform the industry has been missing, purpose-built for life and general insurance with no credible equivalent in ANZ or the UK. The barriers to entry are real, which is exactly why early traction with Gallagher Bassett and SBS Insurance matters. Shaun Quincey and Damon O'Neill scaled Genoapay to $2.2B in payments before exiting, then spent years learning insurance from the inside, and brought in a CPO who built and sold three companies in the same industry. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/simfuni --- ### Static Technologies **Sector:** financial **Stage:** pre-seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Founded:** 2024 **Website:** https://www.statictechnologies.io/ Offensive fraud and scam disruption. 80% of phishing damage occurs in the first 90 minutes - Static's Avengyr platform operates in that window, detecting attacks at launch, blocking victim access and poisoning criminal data supplies. Static works with banks and financial institutions across New Zealand and Australia. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/static-technologies --- ### Surmount Systems **Sector:** software **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://surmount.systems Securing Bitcoin against the threat quantum computers pose to encryption Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/surmount-systems --- ### Type One Energy **Sector:** industrial **Stage:** series-a **Location:** Madison, WI **Website:** https://typeoneenergy.com Developing stellarator fusion energy — a radically different and more stable approach to clean, unlimited power. Backed by some of the world's most respected deep tech investors, tackling one of the most important engineering challenges of this century. Type One Energy is accelerating the path to safe, reliable, carbon-free power through breakthrough stellarator fusion technology. The company integrates advanced research with practical engineering to develop fusion as a viable commercial energy source, addressing global clean power needs. **Investment thesis:** The world needs roughly 20,000 GW of new baseload clean power to reach net zero, and nothing currently on the horizon can deliver it at scale. Type One Energy is building a commercial stellarator fusion reactor, the most mature and technically credible path to steady-state fusion power, with a founding team that designed and operated two of the world's best-performing stellarators, including the billion-dollar W7-X project at the Max Planck Institute. The physics risk is largely retired. What remains is an engineering challenge, and T1E has the team, the IP, the US government backing, and an exclusive licence to MIT's next-generation HTS cable to execute it. This is a moonshot, and we knew that going in. We backed it because the team is irreplaceable, the opportunity is once-in-a-generation, and we believe New Zealand should have a seat at the table when fusion changes the world. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/type-one-energy --- ### Unofficial **Sector:** software **Stage:** undisclosed **Website:** https://officialunofficial.com A social platform and marketplace owned by the people who use it Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/unofficial --- ### Vessev **Sector:** industrial **Stage:** seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.vessev.com Electric hydrofoil vessels for commercial maritime — replacing fossil-fuelled ferries with zero-emission craft that are faster and quieter. Operating in NZ with international expansion underway. Vessev is a pioneering marine technology company revolutionising commercial passenger ferry operations with hydrofoiling electric vessels. Its cutting-edge ships reduce energy costs by up to 95% compared to conventional ferries, offering operators significant savings while delivering a superior passenger experience and helping decarbonise maritime transport. **Investment thesis:** Commercial ferry operators spend millions annually on fuel and maintenance costs that don't have to exist. Vessev's hydrofoiling electric vessels cut energy costs by up to 95%, with proprietary flap technology that outperforms anything built for the recreational market. The VS-9 is commercially certified, Fullers360 has committed to a $48M contract, and CEO Eric Laakmann leads a team drawing talent from Apple, Rocket Lab, and Team New Zealand. Deep tech from New Zealand solving a real problem for operators globally. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/vessev --- ### VXT **Sector:** software **Stage:** seed **Location:** Auckland, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.vxt.ai VoIP phone system built for law firms and sales teams, integrating calls, SMS, and AI note-taking with leading CRM and practice management software. Used by 10,000+ professionals globally. VXT is a cloud-based communications platform that simplifies internal and external interactions for professionals, having facilitated over 4 million calls in just three years. The platform integrates with popular CRM systems to automate administrative work, streamline team processes, and improve customer engagement. **Investment thesis:** Lawyers and recruiters spend hours every day on the administrative tail of every call: notes, billing, compliance, CRM updates. Vxt automates all of it, turning recorded calls into transcriptions, extracted data, and pre-populated documents so professionals can spend their time on work that actually generates revenue. Luke Campbell and Lucy Turner built this from their dorm rooms at Canterbury, and they have the customer instinct and discipline to take it global. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/vxt --- ### Zenno **Sector:** space **Stage:** seed **Location:** Christchurch, New Zealand **Website:** https://www.zenno.space Next-generation electric propulsion systems for small satellites — reducing the cost and complexity of in-space manoeuvring for the rapidly growing smallsat market. Zenno pioneers advanced electromagnetic propulsion and control solutions for satellites, enabling precise, propellant-free maneuvering in orbit. By harnessing superconducting magnets, Zenno reduces mission costs, extends satellite lifespans, and champions a more sustainable approach to space operations. **Investment thesis:** Satellites have relied on the same attitude control technology for decades: heavy, failure-prone reaction wheels and weak magnetic torquers that scale poorly. Zenno's Supertorquer uses superconducting wire and a space-tested cryocooler to generate 4 to 8 times more torque per kilogram than anything currently on the market, with no moving parts, no saturation, and a fraction of the size. The technology is proven on Earth, third-party validated by SpaceBase, and one in-space test away from commercial readiness, with Airbus, D-Orbit, and Arkisys already in advanced conversations. Max Arshovsky invented something that even esteemed researchers in the field had dismissed as impossible, and that is exactly the kind of founding insight that creates a category. Profile: https://gd1.vc/portfolio/zenno ## Exited Portfolio - **Easy Crypto** — New Zealand's largest retail cryptocurrency exchange. Founded in Auckland, serving retail customers across NZ, AU, and e - **Level** — A digital dollar designed to generate yield for the people who hold it - **Rollfi** — Lets banks and financial institutions offer payroll services to their customers ## Writing & Notes (16 articles) ### Our Pre-Seed Investment in Kura Dynamics - Building the Intelligence Layer for Earth's Subsurface Hydrogen **Date:** 2026-09-08 **Author:** Aaron Small Kura Dynamics is taking a fundamentally different approach to geologic hydrogen. Rather than simply searching for naturally occurring hydrogen deposits, the team is building the technology to understand, stimulate, and optimise the underground processes that generate it — potentially unlocking a cheaper, lower-carbon, dispatchable source of clean hydrogen. GD1 is delighted to co-lead Kura’s NZ$4.65M Pre-Seed round alongside Motion Capital, with Outset Ventures, K1W1 and NZGCP also participating. https://gd1.vc/notes/our-pre-seed-investment-in-kura-dynamics ### GD1 Inaugural Late Summer Social & 2026 Bowling Competition **Date:** 2026-03-27 **Author:** Doug Bohaboy GD1 hosted its inaugural Late Summer Social and Lawn Bowls Competition at the Auckland Bowling Club in Parnell, bringing together founders, operators, and investors from New Zealand's tech ecosystem. https://gd1.vc/notes/gd1-inaugural-late-summer-social-2026-bowling-competition ### Between Two Worlds — Why "Web 2.5" Businesses Are the Future of the Space **Date:** 2024-11-20 **Author:** Nawaz Ahmed "Web 2.5" companies — hybrids that use blockchain as practical infrastructure rather than as a core identity — are dismissed by both traditional VCs and crypto-native investors, yet represent the most promising ventures in the space. https://gd1.vc/notes/between-two-worlds-why-web-2-5-businesses-are-the-future-of-the-space ### Beyond the Hype: Building GD1's Crypto Fund from the Edge of the World **Date:** 2024-11-20 **Author:** Nawaz Ahmed How New Zealand's "Number 8 Wire Mentality," Islamic finance principles, and a rigorous Skeptic Test shape GD1 Crypto's global pre-seed and seed investment strategy. https://gd1.vc/notes/beyond-the-hype-building-gd1s-crypto-fund-from-the-edge-of-the-world ### Demystifying Venture Capital: Reflections from My First Year **Date:** 2024-11-20 **Author:** Nawaz Ahmed Nawaz Ahmed shares hard-won lessons from launching GD1's Web3 Fund 1, including pitching to over 250 potential LPs, navigating macro headwinds, and deploying capital across 11 global investments. https://gd1.vc/notes/demystifying-venture-capital-reflections-from-my-first-year ### GD1 Investment Notes — EarnOS (Web3 Fund 1) **Date:** 2024-11-20 **Author:** Nawaz Ahmed EarnOS is transforming the $1T digital advertising landscape by realigning incentives toward guaranteed, results-based marketing — abstracting Web3 complexity for brands and users alike. https://gd1.vc/notes/earnos-investment-note ### The Skeptic Test **Date:** 2024-11-20 **Author:** Nawaz Ahmed A four-question framework for distinguishing genuine crypto innovation from speculative hype — asking whether a project creates real value independent of token price appreciation. https://gd1.vc/notes/the-skeptic-test ### Our Series A Expansion Investment in Alimetry — Revolutionising Gastroenterology Diagnostics **Date:** 2024-10-25 **Author:** Vignesh Kumar GD1 led Alimetry's $30 million Series A Expansion Round, backing a wireless "ECG for the gut" device that provides non-invasive gastric diagnostics and has already gained reimbursement coverage across 40+ U.S. facilities. https://gd1.vc/notes/alimetry-investment-notes ### Reflections on the 2024 Aerospace Summit in Christchurch: Sustainability, Innovation, and Government Support **Date:** 2024-10-01 **Author:** Jonathan Tan The 2024 Christchurch Aerospace Summit highlighted New Zealand's growing role in sustainable aerospace, with NASA targeting zero aviation emissions by 2050 and the government committing to a world-class regulatory framework by 2025. https://gd1.vc/notes/aerospace-summit-reflections ### Understanding the Rollercoaster Ride **Date:** 2024-03-18 **Author:** Fiona Rotherham Simfuni co-founders Shaun Quincey and Damon O'Neill and GD1's John Kells share how mutual trust, integrity checks, and sustained weekly engagement define a healthy founder-investor relationship. https://gd1.vc/notes/understanding-the-rollercoaster-ride ### Navigating Capital Planning: The 'Basics' for Startups **Date:** 2023-12-13 **Author:** John Kells GD1 Co-Managing Partner John Kells outlines the core financial planning documents, scenario modelling approaches, and SaaS benchmarks every startup needs to manage cash runway and raise capital at the right time. https://gd1.vc/notes/navigating-capital-planning-the-basics-for-startups ### Let's Get Personal. Buyer Persona Personal! **Date:** 2023-10-05 **Author:** Doug Bohaboy Building effective buyer personas starts with understanding the four roles in every buying committee — Economic Buyer, Technical Buyer, User, and Champion — and doing deep research rather than checkbox exercises. https://gd1.vc/notes/lets-get-personal-buyer-persona-personal ### The Ideal…Ideal Customer Profile **Date:** 2023-04-19 **Author:** Doug Bohaboy A strong Ideal Customer Profile is a narrow "bullseye" carved from your TAM — built by analysing your best customers, validating patterns with frontline teams, and using ICP research to power targeted messaging and account-based strategies. https://gd1.vc/notes/the-ideal-ideal-customer-profile ### You Say ABM/X, I Say Account Based GTM! **Date:** 2023-03-29 **Author:** Doug Bohaboy "Account Based GTM" — a coordinated, nine-step go-to-market approach focused on high-value accounts across multiple channels — is more accurate and actionable than the trendy ABM or ABX labels. https://gd1.vc/notes/you-say-abm-x-i-say-account-based-gtm ### CKOs: The Key to Unlocking Your Company's Potential **Date:** 2023-03-16 **Author:** Heather Gadonniex Company Kick Offs (CKOs) are a high-leverage annual ritual for startups, delivering clarity of direction, cultural cohesion, team bonding, and recognition that keep fast-moving teams aligned and motivated. https://gd1.vc/notes/ckos-the-key-to-unlocking-your-startups-potential ### Sales Development…You Say SDR, I Say BDR **Date:** 2023-02-14 **Author:** Doug Bohaboy SDR/BDR programs deliver predictable revenue and qualified pipeline when properly resourced, but must be embedded within an Account-Based GTM strategy to avoid territory exhaustion and brand damage from spray-and-pray outreach. https://gd1.vc/notes/sales-development-you-say-sdr-i-say-bdr ## Key URLs - Homepage: https://gd1.vc - Portfolio: https://gd1.vc/portfolio - Notes / Writing: https://gd1.vc/notes - About: https://gd1.vc/about - Team: https://gd1.vc/team - Invest with GD1: https://gd1.vc/invest-with-us - Sitemap: https://gd1.vc/sitemap.xml - Summary version: https://gd1.vc/llms.txt