as at 30 November 2024
Devoli is a telecommunications and software company providing wholesale and corporate
telecommunication services, including virtual internet service provider services, to businesses
in New Zealand and Australia.
In November 2022, Devoli was ranked 3rd in the Deloitte Fast 50 Masters of Growth category, and
29th in the overall Fast 50.
Devoli is based in Auckland with an office in Sydney and a network that extends to the United States.
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Quantifi Photonics, develops and manufactures advanced coherent and non-coherent light (laser) test equipment for the global fibre optic and optical photonics communications market. The company also has a number of new technologies in development which will expand the company’s market from labs, advanced research and development facilities to hi-tech manufacturers. The company was incorporated in August 2012 as a spin out from Southern Photonics in order to grow the latter company’s optical testing equipment business. Coherent Solutions is headquartered in Auckland.
Punakaiki Fund led a $15 million round (including conversion of prior notes) in 2021 with participation from Simplicity, Pacific Channel and Nuance.VC.
Conqa provides software that allows multiple parties in the construction industry to do all of their quality assurance planning and execution online and on mobile. Conqa keeps all quality assurance documentation in one secure location, while letting their customers have all of their hold points, checklists, defect flagging, photos and notes at their fingertips. The software improves on-site productivity and in some cases accelerates the council building inspection sign-off process. Conqa’s clients include Dominion Construction and Hawkins Construction, two of the largest primary contractors in New Zealand, and Conqa’s software is used across thousands of construction sites, and is embedded in $5-10 billion of construction projects. Conqa is based in Auckland.
The last investment event was in late 2021, where Punakaiki Fund led a convertible note round raising over $2.5 million.
Boardingware, trading as Orah from mid 2021, is the leader in the student engagement category. Their student engagement platform helps schools and organisations provide students with the best care, support and opportunities they need. The company was founded and is led by Paul Organ and Kurt Meyer.
Orah’s student engagement platform has a number of modules, including Unify which centralises student engagement data; Supervise, which manages student attendance and movements; Coordinate, a set of tools to organise and manage extracurricular events and activities; Safeguard, emergency response and planning to mitigate risk and enhance campus safety; and Nurture, to measure and monitor student wellbeing, identify risks and take proactive coordinated action.
Founded in 2019, Couchdrop has mastered the art of shuttling hefty data packets between cloud platforms swiftly, securely, and without breaking the bank. The company’s sister product, Movebot, seamlessly migrates data between cloud storage giants—think shifting corporate treasures from Google Drive to Dropbox or Egnyte to Google.
Couchdrop has experienced remarkable early growth and is currently the fastest growing company in our portfolio. Large, household names like Dropbox rely on Couchdrop to migrate customers to their platform and the company is moving data for 12,000 companies worldwide with significant presence in North America and Europe.
Punakaiki Fund first invested in Couchdrop in 2022 and remains the only fund invested in the company with a 21.8% stake. Couchdrop is our second partnership with Michael Lawson, whose first venture, Linewize, was acquired by Family Zone in 2017.
Whip Around is a digital Driver Vehicle Inspections Reports and Maintenance platform. Whip Around has replaced the cumbersome paper-based process with an efficient and information-rich digital alternative.
Most of Whip Around’s customers are from the USA, where the Department of Transportation requires drivers to submit inspection reports at each shift, and digital solutions which ensure compliance are becoming increasingly sought after. Altogether, Whip Around have 65 staff in offices in Auckland, New Zealand and Charlotte, North Carolina from which they service their customers in the US and around the world.
Punakaiki Fund is the only New Zealand institutional investor in Whip Around, with a 3.2% shareholding.
Onceit is an online daily deal site selling mid to high-end designer fashion, beauty and homewares, predominantly in New Zealand. Onceit has grown to be a substantial business and has a profitable business model. Onceit has reliably paid dividends to Punakaiki Fund with aggregate amount of dividends paid exceeding Punakaiki Fund’s total investment in Onceit. Onceit’s board includes Simon West, the former CEO of EziBuy and former Executive Director of Max Fashions, and who currently leads Torpedo 7. Onceit is based in Auckland.
The last investment event was the purchase of shares by Simon West in late 2015.
RedSeed offers an end-to-end solution through proprietary and customised modules in a SaaS Learning Management System, predominantly for large retailers looking to increase sales through their sales team. With over 50,000 active trainees, RedSeed has a significant footprint in the New Zealand retail business market, with clients including Fletcher Building, Foodstuffs, Icebreaker, 2degrees, Max, Kathmandu and Revlon. Australian clients include Drummond Golf, M.J. Bale, Weber, Beaumont Tiles and Red Bottle. RedSeed is based in Christchurch and has an office in Australia. The company acquired Kiwihost in 2021.
The last investment by Punakaiki Fund was the purchase of shares from a RedSeed co-founder in 2020. As a result of buy-outs of passive and active founders Punakaiki Fund’s shareholding is 48.5%.
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Projectworks is a whole company optimisation platform that utilises intelligent business management software to improve a company’s performance and bottom line.
It features tools for dealing with employee time tracking and leave management, company expenses, resourcing, forecasting, invoicing, and reporting.
Projectworks integrates seamlessly with many major platforms including Xero, MYOB, Quickbooks, and Hubspot (to name a few) and also offers broader connection capabilities via API or direct data processes so that it offers a single platform for total business management.
Australasia’s hospitality tech pioneers—HungryHungry and MOBI—merged in May 2024 to create a new powerhouse in the local market and to take on new markets, especially the USA.
HungryHungry is an award winning, end-to-end ordering and payment hospitality tech platform co-founded in 2019 by Mark Calabro and Shannon Hautot, each with 20+ years’ experience in Point Of Sale (POS) and integrated technology solutions for the hospitality industry. They launched their first business Point of Sale company, OrderMate, in 2003. In the years that followed they grew their customer base to over 2,500 venues across Australia, NZ and the UAE, building a successful business that was acquired in 2021 by MSL Solutions.
Founded in 2010, MOBI is the market leader in the mid-market enterprise category in Australia, New Zealand & Canada, processing over $500m in customer transactions. With a presence in more than 3000 restaurants and hospitality businesses across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S, MOBI’s enterprise-grade solutions focus on helping clients increase revenue, improve customer experience, and regain control of their customer relationships. Originating as an online ordering solution for Order Ahead & Pick-up, MOBI has expanded product offerings to now include Branded Storefronts, Mobile Apps for iOS and Android, AI-driven guest experiences, White-Labelled Delivery, Marketplace Order Aggregation, Order with Google, Order at Table, Personalised Loyalty and over 120 powerful integrations.
Punakaiki Fund invested in Mobi HQ in October 2015 and now has a 15% shareholding in HHM Global Pty Ltd.
Raygun provides a software intelligence platform that enables customers to ensure that their software is being experienced the way they intended. The platform consists of software crash and error reporting, real user monitoring, user and deployment tracking, and Application Performance Monitoring (APM), which launched in September 2018. Raygun is headquartered in Wellington.
The last major investment event was in February 2016, where Punakaiki Fund was one of several investors.
Formus Labs has created the first automated 3D planner for joint replacement surgeries, a tool that provides unprecedented insight into the pre-operative planning process.
Traditionally, 1 in 5 knee replacement operations are unsatisfactory and 1 in 10 hip replacements require revision surgery within 10 years. This costs the orthapedic industry billions of dollars annually.
Using cutting edge biomechanics and machine learning, these tools empower surgeons and produce better results for patients worldwide while offering significant cost savings to the industry as a whole.
Formus Labs is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, and employs 16 staff.
Core Schedule was established in 2016 to continue to develop efficient, easy to use, transparent, and accessible scheduling software to allow hospitals and other medical service providers to develop and administer staffing rosters. Since its creation in 2009, Core Schedule has been adopted by major hospitals and small clinics in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Get Home Safe is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform designed to improve welfare monitoring for remote or lone employees. The original app was conceived in 2012 when founder and CEO Boyd Peacock was living in Queenstown, and considered the ability of smartphones to revolutionise personal safety for workers in wilderness settings. He quickly saw the potential to extend the service to other sectors employing workers in solo or lone roles.
The company now provides support to over 10,000 people across over nearly 250 customers, mainly in New Zealand and increasingly in Australia and UK, as well as USA and Canada. Its clients include local government entities, health and social care operators, security firms, utilities and many more.
Punakaiki Fund invested into Get Home Safe Limited in December 2020.
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QubeDocs is one subsidiary of Mindful Group, which sold Mindfull Limited, an advanced analytics practice to Fusion 5.
QubeDocs is an auto-documentation tool for IBM’s TM1 software and for cloud-based Planning Analytics, which gives Chief Financial Officers comfort in being able to track integrity and changes in their financial models. The company is also developing a version for Oracle’s Hyperion. QubeDocs has offices in Auckland, Wellington and the United States.
Punakaiki Fund invested into Mindfull Group in December 2015, and Mindfull Limited was sold to Fusion 5 in late 2020.
Frello enables clubs to focus on the game by providing time saving club management and administration automation.
Timely was acquired by EverCommerce for more than $100 million in June 2021
Founded in 2011, Timely exists to grow the value of the beauty industry by offering simple, affordable and reliable appointment software for small businesses. Customers get innovative business management software, award-winning customer support, education from the biggest industry names globally and peer support. Today, Timely serves more than 50,000 service professionals in 90 countries that use the cloud-based platform to book over 30 million appointments a year. For more information on Timely, check out https://www.gettimely.com/about/
Investment
Revenue growth from first investment
TVPI
IRR
Vend was sold to Lightspeed for US $350 Million in March 2020.
Vend is cloud-based point-of-sale and retail management software company based in Auckland, New Zealand. The company was founded in 2010 by Vaughan Rowsell.
Investment
Revenue growth from first investment
TVPI
IRR
Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) acquired Moxion in January 2022.
Moxion’s beautiful platform is focused on helping you weave all the threads of filmmaking together, simply, seamlessly and securely.
Moxion was created in 2015 by founders experienced in film and TV. We were built and designed from the ground up for the challenging New Zealand conditions, and today are based in Los Angeles with a team across the world, ensuring our customers benefit from 24/7 support, no matter where they are producing content.
Investment
TVPI
Family Zone acquired Punakaiki Fund’s 20% shareholdings in Linewize in November 2017.
Punakaiki Fund subsequently sold all its Family Zone ordinary shares on the ASX in June 2018, for A$0.54 per share, realising a net amount of NZ$1.109 million. Punakaiki Fund retains its Family Zone performance shares, which are released if certain milestones are met.
