NZ’s top tech companies – with TIN200’s Greg Shanahan

Paul Spain:
Hey folks, greetings and welcome along to the New Zealand Tech Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Spain. And great to have Greg Shanahan back in the podcast ZNZ Studio. How are you, Greg?

Greg Shanahan:
Good, Paul, thanks for having me.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, look, always good to catch up. Now maybe you can fill listeners in on where you fit into this big wide world of tech in New Zealand.

Greg Shanahan:
So I think why I am here is I started a company called Technology Investment Network 25 years ago, really to curate the growth of New Zealand’s technology export sector. By exports, I mean companies that sell stuff overseas as opposed to shipping Software. And from 2005 onwards, we’ve been producing a report that quantifies the sector. So this year was our 21st report. So we’ve been tracking the growth of that sector over that time and have this rich amount of data on what’s happening. And in addition to that, I’m the co founder of a medical device company that’s developed an analyser that uses lasers to verify intravenous drug identity and concentration as the drugs being delivered or prepared to prevent medication error trying to copy the Fisherman Paykel healthcare business model in a bigger market.

Paul Spain:
Fantastic. Well, always good to catch up and hear from you. So today we’re going to really drill into some of the key aspects from the TIN report as it’s called Technology Industry Analysis 2025. It says on the cover for folks who are interested in looking this up and are maybe wanting to follow along, you can actually jump online and order the digital copy kind of, you know, at the drop of a hat. Right.

Greg Shanahan:
So right now, anytime.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yep. So I’ll mention, I’ll mention that.

Greg Shanahan:
Thank you for the plug.

Paul Spain:
I’m sure there will be, you know, some listeners will be, you know, very keen to do so or just needed a reminder that they need to buy the current report.

Greg Shanahan:
Just one thing, the easiest thing to remember is TIN100. If they go to Google and just put in tin 100. Okay, okay.

Paul Spain:
Ah, that’s good, that’s good. Now before we jump in, a big thank you to our show partners, of course, that keep us streaming and through your podcast apps and so on. So thank you to One NZ, Spark, 2degrees Workday and Gorilla Technology for their support. And also before we jump into the news side, just a reminder for listeners or if you’re new or haven’ and haven’t caught an episode recently, we are running an online survey at the moment for listeners would really appreciate hearing your feedback and we have a few incentives as well. So we’re Giving away some prizes. I would really encourage you to jump on. It only takes 60 seconds to 2 minutes to fill in. The survey gives us a little bit of feedback on how we’re doing, gives us a little bit of data, which is helpful for everybody, our show partners, to know where we fit and who we’re talking to.

Paul Spain:
So if you would like some of those giveaways, we’ve got a Motorola Edge 60 Fusion handset, the Logitech Keys 2 Go, which is very handy, little portable keyboard for your smartphone or what have you, so you can get some work done while you’re traveling. And the Logitech Casa Pop up disc, which is also a very cool little gadget for those that are maybe wanting to work on a laptop while you’re away, but using an external keyboard and mouse and a bit of a stand that pops your screen up, very, very slick. Or for those who just working at times when you’re not plugged into a big sort of docking monitor, this gives you a very nice sort of setup. And also courtesy of One NZ is a One NZ warriors jersey. So, yeah, lots of good stuff in there. If you could jump across to nztechpodcast.com survey and you will find that link in the show notes as well.

Greg Shanahan:
It’s making a note to fill in the survey as you spoke.

Paul Spain:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, let’s jump in initially with our New Zealand news. Now it’s been coming for a long time, the 3G shutdown. Our mobile networks from time to time need to consolidate. And, you know, we know that each of our mobile networks, they’ve got, you know, varying blocks of spectrum that are available to them. But at the moment, that spectrum is spread out. Some of it’s dedicated to 3G, some of it’s used for 4G, some of it’s used For 5G.

Paul Spain:
And in the case of One NZ, some of it’s also used for 2G at the moment. And so that means that there’s less dedicated to the more current standards of 4G and 5G because it spreads. So what we’re seeing is the switch off is very much underway. Yeah, just a reminder that that is, that is happening. And yeah, two Degrees are underway with theirs right now. You know, for a number of months, there’s been an opportunity to text in and to check whether you’ve got a device that’s 3G. Now, for most of our listeners, you’re probably not on a 3G device if you’re listening to this show, but maybe you’ve got a Family member that’s on a device that, you know, maybe can’t do, calling on 4G, so there would be some sort of parallel imported handsets that might be 4G, but actually, you know, can’t do 4G calling, for instance, or just folks with older handsets. So just.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, worth being aware of. So, you know, anyone out there with a iPhone 6 for instance, or earlier, those aren’t gonna, aren’t gonna be working on 4G and 5G. The earlier Samsung Galaxy phones, S7 and earlier, you know, and a bunch of others across, you know, across the, the varying brands. So yeah, with, with double checking so no one’s left kind of high and dry and unable to call 111 and the like. So, yeah, so, yeah, so that’s underway now for 2 degrees and 1 NZ. I think they’ve bumped their dates a little bit. They’ve actually got it up on their website under 1nz3G shutdown, if you’re wanting to look. But you can Google this across each network and all the details are, are there effectively.

Paul Spain:
But starting 20th of January is Dunedin and then, you know, the varying. Basically during January through to March we will see all the 3G shut down and one NZ will be shutting down 2G New Zealand wide for 31st of 31st of March. And I think Sparc’s goal is by end of March that they will have all of their 3G shutdown done. So, yeah, big, big changes going on there behind the scenes. But of course this has already happened to a large degree internationally. So for those that have been traveling, if you were on a 3G phone and you were in Australia recently, you wouldn’t have been doing much with your phone at that point. So, yeah, we’re certainly not the first. So, yeah, I think there’s been, you know, reasonable level of communications on this.

Paul Spain:
But yeah, it’s happening now. Now, also on a New Zealand front, new app popped out last week, the Govd NZ app. And I fired it up and had a little bit of a look and I also ended up went to a function that Digital Identity NZ were putting on and got to chat to a couple of the folks behind the Govd NZ app and got to hear a little bit about, a little bit about that. Looks like at the moment what we’ve got is an app that is something of a placeholder. So there’s not, you know, a whole lot of stuff embedded in the app, but it’s an initial release and I think that very much came about when Minister Judith Collins met with him earlier on in the year, I think it was April, it sounded like some people’s worlds turned upside down a little bit and their focus on, you know, some modernisation and digitisation of government things really, you know, turned up quite a notch. And one of those commitments was getting this government app launched this year and it has been done. So at the moment, most of what I see in there really is kind of varying web content that already exists, but it gives you a bit of a portal. But in the future there will be things like a digital version of your driver, driver’s license, you would be able to get through the app and varying other things.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, it’s a bit of a watch this space to see how they go and what government entities. It makes sense for, I guess the Department of Internal affairs, who are leading and running this project, to partner with. You excited about having a government app on your phone, Greg?

Greg Shanahan:
I’m very excited. So I can pay my tax on time and pay my fines and. And yeah, yeah, I think it sounds exciting. It’s just a natural evolution of the way the world’s moving. So I have no fears about them having an app with my details on it.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, we found out maybe it was last week around India where they’re pushing a government app or enforcing a government sort of app onto smartphones or new phones have to ship with a government app. I think there’s a, you know, the way to make this sort of work well is, you know, an app that focuses on privacy and, you know, I don’t think there’s anything in the app that’s kind of, you know, tracking you in varying ways. It’s more around, you know, providing a service for, you know, for folks, for citizens and. Yeah, letting people choose whether they want it or not. I’m not so sure the idea of a mandated app that’s installed on every phone and can’t be removed would maybe go down so well in New Zealand.

Greg Shanahan:
It sounds like it’s customer facing rather than. So the public can access government services. I’m sure the government’s got plenty of information on people that is not for public disclosure. So in this case it would seem that it’s making the government more accessible for average taxpayers and citizens.

Paul Spain:
That’s it. That’s it. So I guess you’d call it portal. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at the moment, yeah, it’s very much kind of a. Yeah, a bit of a portal. But, you know, there will be these sort of digital identity type things and so on that will come through in the future. And, yeah, I’m sure those.

Paul Spain:
Some of those aspects will be the subject of much debate. And, you know, that’s where we’ve seen some sort of pushback in other countries around government’s approach to digitisation in ways that maybe make people somewhat uncomfortable. And, yeah, part of the discussion at the digital identity event last week was how we move as a country on things like digital identity in a manner that’s going to, you know, to, you know, really serve people and make people feel comfortable. And part of that is being, you know, being transparent, giving people the opportunity to use it or not to use it and always have other options up their sleeve in terms of how they can operate.

Greg Shanahan:
So, I guess respecting people’s right to privacy and confidentiality.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. A couple of other topics to touch on. Australia have begun enforcing their social media ban for those under 16. Certainly some debate out there around what apps are included and what aren’t, and, you know, some pushback on a legal basis as well. So I think Reddit have, you know, have challenged the legality of this ban. And we’ve also got some, you know, some young citizens who are sort of saying, hey, you know, we don’t think, you know, legally you can put this in place. You know, I figure it’s gonna be a bit of an experiment because, you know, we haven’t seen anything quite like this, certainly done on a national basis within a democratic country before. You know, we certainly know in China, with the great firewall of China, there’s been a huge amount of control over, you know, what content people do and don’t have access to over a long period of time.

Paul Spain:
But, you know, there’s a little bit of a difference between, you know, what an authoritarian government or a totalitarian government, you know, might do in terms of access to information and technologies, you know, compared to, you know, what might be tried in a democratic scenario. And then there’s all the challenges of, you know, blocking content and what works and what doesn’t. What are your thoughts on this?

Greg Shanahan:
I guess it’s a complicated issue. My personal feeling is that social media, and I think it’s well substantiated that social media has had a massive negative effect on the mental health of young people. It’s a complicated issue, but I think it’s good that people are looking to address something that they think might be causal in that and certainly worth the experiment for just the consequences of that. In terms of negative consequences, declining mental health and young people are colossal. So I think it’s brave of Australia to embark on this course and they’ll hopefully find a medium that works.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, look, I think this is probably the, you know, this is the beta test, as it were. This is their way of trying things out. You know, the likes of New Zealand and UK and many others will be watching, you know, pretty closely, and out of this will no doubt be some findings. I think there’s a big push locally that we should. We should follow and just go ahead and do something very similar. But I think there’s a reasonable amount of debate around that. And I’ve seen discourse from sort of right across the political spectrum with folks sort of pushing back and saying this is not a good idea. Bloggers, like, is it? David Farrier sort of just, you know, saying that this is a nightmare and others.

Paul Spain:
So, you know, there are, I think, you know, some really strong opinions on what is the right way to, you know, to tackle technology that can cause harm. In this case, the focus is on social media, but of course, there’s all sorts of aspects of where technology can cause harm. And, you know, speaking of youngsters is, you know, yes, social media is a part of that. You know, some of the gaming platforms are probably just as, if not more wild than any social media platform in terms of what can go on in the chats and the conversations and so on. You know, and we’ve got, yeah, we’ve got that mix say where, you know, where Twitter’s banned, but then, you know, not all of the Twitter clones and, you know, the new replacements for Twitter have been banned. And then you’ve got, like, other harmful content, porn and so on, that there’s no, you know, there hasn’t been any kind of comment on, you know, protecting youngsters from, you know, from tripping up or stumbling into that sort of content. So, you know, there’s a fair bit of complexity to this. I don’t think it’s an easy issue to, you know, to land on.

Paul Spain:
I think there’s an important role for parents when it comes to parenting. Right. And part of parenting these days is the technological aspects.

Greg Shanahan:
For me, there are two important things. One is, should young people or people generally have access to all that information and is it a positive thing? So, whether it be books or movies or whatever, is that appropriate level of information to put in the hands of others? But perhaps the second more important one is the addictive nature of the technology. I mean, I went into. I’ve been going to a local gym, surprisingly, lately. I went into a gym one night and virtually everyone was sitting there, adults and teenagers, looking at their phones, sitting at machines themselves just occupying space was like something from the dawn of the Zombie Dead, you know, that these people could trying to do exercises whilst looking at their phone. It was tragic, you know, I thought, wow, you know, so clearly the format has been curated to a point that it’s highly addictive and people aren’t making choices, they’re developing habits and that’s not a good thing.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, there’s some real problems that we have as a society and I think a number of them are definitely tied up with technology and yeah, addiction to gadgets and social media is a part of that picture. Well, we might leave that one because there’s probably all sorts of directions we could go. We could spend a long time on it. The prod I get from some folks is that, hey, you put a ban in place like this, what you do need to recognise is if you’re going to verify, you know, age, that has to be across the population because, you know, even, even if, you know, folks that are, that are somewhat beyond 16, like yourself and myself, Greg, need to access them, then, you know, there’s an element where we would have to prove our age as well if we were in Australia.

Greg Shanahan:
Paul, I think that you and I are precisely the people that should have less access. It’s not just a young person problem.

Paul Spain:
Sorry, maybe some electric shock treatment on wearable devices or something if, if you get past your allocated allocation of screen time for the day. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So, you know, these are sort of some of the, some of the debates and people’s concerns, as, you know, is this type of thing, you know, almost. I’ve heard it said it. Look, Paul, this is a Trojan horse for digital id, so we can be tracked because the mechanisms that are going to check age and are going to stop people initially are probably all going to fail over time. Now I largely, probably actually agree, you know, with that. But if we want to provide something that’s going to really, you know, be consistent and is hard to get around, then, you know, I’m not quite sure whether the current mechanisms will play out. I’m just not so.

Paul Spain:
Probably just not so concerned around, you know, the, the idea of, of, of a big sort of, you know, conspiracy to, to track us all with, with digital identity and our every move and every website we go to. But hey, I’m no, no doubt we’ll dive further into that in the future and maybe there is, there is something to be said for these, these mechanisms. We’ll see. All right, that’s, that’s probably the other, the other article actually, which I guess kind of, you know, ties into this. The story that caught my, my attention was on the former technology executive who unfortunately murdered his mother. And the family is saying that chatgpt made her a target and this was sort of, you know, tied in with mental health. So the quote that I got said, you know, basically this chap, Stein, Eric Solberg, if I’ve pronounced his name correctly, 56 year old former tech executive who had had some mental health struggles, confided in ChatGPT and indicated that he felt that the printer in his mother’s home office might be a surveillance device used to spy on him. Now, when he put this to ChatGPT, it actually agreed with the comment.

Paul Spain:
Eric, your instinct is absolutely on point. This is not just a printer was what ChatGPT sort of, you know, came back with and so on. So anyway, this was kind of, you know, part of a conversation. But we do need to be aware that every, you know, every technology can be used generally to do good things and not so good things. And, you know, we’ve got these cases, you know, coming through, I guess, you know, increasingly, even though more work is being done to make AI good and safe, there are some flip sides to the story. I was looking at something the other day that was showing toys aimed at kids that have got a AI kind of element to them where a youngster can interact. And you know, it’s been, you know, quite a number of decades since there were, you know, there were toys, a teddy bear that you can, you know, push a button or something and you’d have a, somewhat conversation with it, right? Have a few, few preset sort of phrases that it would say. Well now those things are effectively a ChatGPT discussion that, that are somewhat sort of, you know, shaped with some guardrails.

Paul Spain:
But as you, as you can imagine, this stuff’s never perfect. So you end up with kids who are having a chat with their, their teddy bear or their doll and finding that it veers off in some pretty extreme directions. So yes, we need to, we need to, we need to keep navigating this because it’s these, these issues aren’t fully solved yet. All right, so that’s probably enough on the, the general news front Now I’m very keen to drill into the Tin report, which you’ve released reasonably recently. You’ve had your big launch event for it. You’ve told us this 25 years since you started Technology Investment Network, which is absolutely incredible, 21 reports now under your belt. So you have A pretty good view on what’s happening in terms of New Zealand’s, you know, tech exports especially. What are the things that really, you know, stick in your mind as the, as sort of the big, you know, differences and themes for, you know, for this report compared to previous years?

Greg Shanahan:
Well, firstly, I would say that when we published our first report in 2005, I had no clue, you know, that the sector would get that big. I did it because I thought that these were the kind of things that New Zealand should be involved with. So if I go back to tin, when we started tin, people would say, I know you’re doing this thing with the report and thing, but why are you really doing it? And so it’s really to hopefully curate the growth of the tech sector. And so, but what I’m saying is I couldn’t predict it, so I’m not pretending to be smarter than anybody else. This just happened. Probably two of the key things, just the scale of the sector. So I wouldn’t have predicted back in 2005 when the top hundred would have had revenues about 4 billion, that coming fast forward to 2025, that had revenues of 20 billion. I mean, 20 billion is a pretty big number.

Greg Shanahan:
And if you look at the exports or offshore revenue, so this revenue derived outside of New Zealand, whether or not it’s derived digitally or in foreign countries where it’s manufactured by New Zealand companies, $15 billion, it’s roughly equivalent, slightly below what tourism turned over last year. So once you get to 20 billion, the maths become pretty obvious or simple that if you’re growing at 2%, sorry, 10% a year for 20 billion, that’s $2 billion every year. So I’ve said, what does that equate to? Well, that equates to another zero or another Fisher and Paykel Healthcare, who both have revenues around $2 billion. So if you or I came along and said, we’ve arranged for this company from America to come and set up in New Zealand, they got $2 billion, people would be gobsmacked. And so going forward, that’s happening every year. Wow. And then the rate of change is getting faster, so companies are growing more quickly, they’re raising more capital, and perhaps one of the biggest things, they’re starting to play the big game. So Sir Paul Callahan said years ago that Kiwi specialized at doing the weird stuff, perhaps inferring that was stuff that wasn’t really competitive or no one wanted, but we were playing on the fringes.

Greg Shanahan:
But today, when you’ve got companies that are leaders in Health care or the space industry or the movie industry or the payments industry. And walking, not walking in, but coming into the US market against strong competition, cleaning up, you think, wow, how has that happened? And I think there are probably two things. One, I think we have, by good fortune, superpowers that we’ve never really acknowledged. And the other thing is that the landscape has changed. So the resources, technology resources, the difference between the availability of that technology and between, say a large economy like the United States or New Zealand has changed. So no longer is it really a major disadvantage in terms of developing tech to be in New Zealand. And so then you’ve got all of that opportunity without the complexity of a larger society. And then probably finally, is that because it’s a small society, best practice spreads quickly.

Greg Shanahan:
So all of a sudden you’ve got a whole range of companies doing very cool stuff. And so to think about it, some years ago people said, wouldn’t it be great if we had 100 companies doing $100 million in revenue? Well, if you’ve got 200 companies doing 20 billion, so that’s 200 companies with an average revenue of $100 million, fantastic. I mean, it’s just a big number. So that is exciting. So I think the things that are making it successful will continue to do so and it will only become bigger.

Paul Spain:
Now there’s some complexity to, you know, to the discussion of looking at how big our tech exports are. When we look at, well, you know, what’s our biggest export earner and our second biggest and so on. And you look at that list and it’s like, well, tech’s nowhere to be, you know, found in the official lists. We know that, you know, agriculture there at the top and you know, beef and lamb and dairy and all the other things in there. And then tourism. But then you’re looking, well, where’s tech? Cause tech should be there. Is this because technology sits in so many buckets and there are so many different sort of sectors where tech fits. Cause you look at say Fisher and Paykel, Healthcare, are they a tech company? Are they a healthcare company? Are they a manufacturer?

Greg Shanahan:
How do we define it?

Paul Spain:
And every company should be a tech company to some degree, right?

Greg Shanahan:
Yeah, yeah. So I guess one of the things when we first started it is that question, so what is a tech company? How do you define that? So we’re saying that these are companies in the area, areas of ict, high value manufacturing or biotechnology, so pharmaceutical companies, etcetera, that are developing novel intellectual property through some sort of engineering process and then selling that overseas. So those are the kind of three areas. You could include other areas, but when you’re starting something from nothing, you’ve got to come up with a definition. That seemed fairly tight. Then the other issue is. Yes, but are they really exporting? I mean, data command, shipping code on CDs and boats to there, or Fisher and Paykel Healthcare are making in Tijuana? How can you include that? So what we’re really saying is these companies have global revenues and people understand the word exports as opposed to not in New Zealand, so it’s a less fancy name. But what we’re saying is that in this space we are creating globally competitive companies.

Greg Shanahan:
And so sometimes the definition of what’s tech or what’s an export, it’s a bit confounded, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Yep. So should we maybe delve into, you know, who, who was, who was kind of at the top of the list this year? Sios Aerospace were one of the companies that, what, what did you call them this year? Were they company of the year?

Greg Shanahan:
So they were a thing we call. They won the Rocket award. So this is the company that’s in the Tin report that increases fastest in the rankings.

Paul Spain:
Yes.

Greg Shanahan:
So last year they weren’t in the tin report because they didn’t qualify. This year out of the 200, they went up 104 places to 96. So they had revenue of over $30 million after winning some major contracts in Europe. So all of a sudden there’s something from nothing in Tauranga. And as a result of that, those contracts, or partly because of those contracts, they also got investment in the company. So they’re employing now in Tauranga, I think around about 130 people. So a windfall for the Bayer. Plenty.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. It’s so exciting to see. So that’s one of the companies that we’ll be drilling a bit more into over the next month or two. And then, yeah, tell us about sort of, I guess the big names and how do you decide? Say, you know, a Kiwi company like Xero is now on the stock exchange in Australia, but of course there’s a huge footprint in New Zealand. Of course still HQ here and so on, but, you know, operations in different parts of the world. Lots of New Zealand shareholders and founders, you know, likes of Rod Drury still here. How do you decide the cut off? Yeah, how do you decide and say Rocket Lab, which, you know, for a while there was known as Rocket Lab usa, you know who, you know, I think numbers wise, you know, roughly half of their you know, staff, give or take, are here in New Zealand and we see, yeah, all the time. We’re hearing about their latest sort of exploits at the moment with different sort of leaks or sharing of, you know, bits and pieces of photos of, you know, what’s coming for them in their new rocket.

Paul Spain:
And of course, you know, they’ve driven incredible, you know, growth in the aerospace sector here. How do you decide around?

Greg Shanahan:
So it really comes back to the foundation of the Tin Report. So these are companies that were founded in New Zealand, so originated in New Zealand, and they still have a significant presence in New Zealand, either headquarters or the majority of their staff. Which is why as Rocket Lab grows, it’s increasingly focused on the United States market, but its footprint here remains large. If you looked at a company like FP Healthcare, again, large company, they’re now manufacturing in Tijuana, they’ve got a factory in China. So we’ve got these companies increasingly becoming global. And so in doing so, they’re creating a level of productivity that wouldn’t have been accessible any other way. So the key thing is they are founded in New Zealand and they retain a significant presence here. And often some of the key staff will move overseas because that’s where the market is.

Greg Shanahan:
So where a company no longer has a physical presence or any significance, we remove them from the index.

Paul Spain:
Gotcha. Okay. And your key metric really is around revenue, isn’t it? So when we look at the number one on the TIN 200 rankings, you’ve got got zero there now, you know, over 2 billion in revenue just for the one company, which is just been a phenomenal journey.

Greg Shanahan:
So, yeah, one of the points we made on social media recently is when Xero was formed in 2006, it took 10 to 20 years for a Kiwi company to hit $100 million in revenue. In less than 20 years, they’re over $2 billion in revenues. So a phenomenal trajectory. And so zero have shone a light on the pathway to being successful for a whole cluster of Kiwi tech businesses. They’ve shown that it is possible.

Paul Spain:
And Fisher and Paykel Healthcare are in a very, very similar space. I mean, they’re only just behind in terms of their reported revenue. They’re also a little bit north of 2 billion as well.

Greg Shanahan:
Yeah, so Fisher and Paykel’s been around a little bit. Healthcare been around a little bit longer than zero, but again, a truly global company and both of them turning over $2 billion or thereabouts. And so both sectors now, the health tech sector and the fintech sector, have revenues of about $3 billion each and.

Paul Spain:
Then also sort of north of a billion. Fisher and Paykel Appliances, which is now owned by out of China Datacom Group and then, you know, Rocket Lab, who are, I guess on a, on a pretty quick trajectory, you know, towards hitting a billion dollars. Them themselves. I think the, the numbers in the report were 740, just under 746 million. But you know, of course they’re, they’re, they’re accelerating very, very fast and I guess their current sort of share prices, you know, indicate that. So for folks that have signed up and jumped online or already have a copy of the Tin report, we’re looking at page 23, which is the, I guess the main kind of rankings, but you’ve also got broken down into different sort of market sectors and so on. Lots of graphs and sort of visual information and then, you know, lists of companies that are public and private, those that have got backing from private equity and the like, those that are foreign owned, details on mergers and acquisitions. So there’s a huge stack of information in there.

Paul Spain:
Greg, what else sort of really stands out for you?

Greg Shanahan:
I think so just for the listeners. So where does this list come from? So essentially we curate a list of over 1200 companies and obviously adding to that every year. And we send surveys to them and then follow up all the companies who are printed in the report. We send the information to them before we print it. So it’s as accurate as possible.

Paul Spain:
Right. So they get a chance to be able to push back if they think you’ve got the wrong data and say actually our revenues are X or Y or what have you. Some of them will give you specific data, others are a little bit more coy. I’m picking which is the normal route.

Greg Shanahan:
Sometimes we display a sign saying that’s estimated, but it’s the actual. Because companies don’t want people to know that they’ve actually provided us with the actual information. I’d say that where to from here? I guess in terms of numbers, 500 million, just the new 200 million that it used to be when we started in 2005. Really hard for companies like Gallagher’s and Tate Electronics and other large privately owned New Zealand businesses to push past 200 million. But now we’ve got a whole cluster of companies with revenues over 500 million. So essentially it’s about 20 companies now 19 specifically in this report with revenues over 200 million and over 40 companies with revenues of over 100 million. So there’s increasing capability in the market. Companies are Raising money at higher valuations.

Greg Shanahan:
And Kiwis are starting to put more money into the sector as well. There’s just more diversity, more diversity in the path to market growth. There’s more diversity in the market. So one of the things that we’ve seen this year, although the US continued to grow strongly, more growth in markets like China and India, because as the companies grow to a scale where they can pick and choose their markets, they’re obviously diversifying their risk in terms of the global events, in terms of tariffs in the United States, et cetera, or any political uncertainty. So they’re increasingly able to secure their future because they’ve got the resources to do that. So that’s pretty exciting. The other major factors, increasingly the diversity and the employment in New Zealand, that many of the people working in these companies now are migrants from other companies rather than Kiwis. So we’re totally dependent on the talent that we’re bringing into the country for the continued growth of the sector.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that’s an interesting aspect. So in terms of, you know, growing our own talent internally versus the importance of bringing people in, you know, from the rest of the world, you know, how well are we getting that right, do you think?

Greg Shanahan:
I think one of the things that Sir Paul Callahan said was that New Zealand has got to remain a place where talent wants to live. And so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having anyone from overseas working in our tech sector. I think if we are able to retain the things that made it in terms of the cultural things, in terms of business culture that made it successful in the first place, that’s the key. But that’s not nationality specific.

Paul Spain:
What surprised you most that we haven’t, you know, maybe haven’t touched on yet with the findings this year.

Greg Shanahan:
I think so much of what we found was counterintuitive that it just kind of didn’t make sense. And so the company that we highlighted this year was in terms of the mavericks, in terms of a company or an individual, in this case, Windcave payment solution company founded by a guy called Andy Cullen in terms of their contribution to this sector. So they’ve been a major growth driver of the fintech sector. Wind cave grew by 32% last year to 400 million. Wow. So when you’re going by $100 million a year. The company started in 1999 as direct payment Solutions. So it was just software that facilitated payments.

Greg Shanahan:
Then they went into hardware. So making payments terminals. Decades after the first EFTPOS terminals appeared in New Zealand, you Wouldn’t think that would be a smart move. Then they’ve moved into the United States where they’re growing strongly across the eastern seaboard of the US who would think going to the financial capital of the world and competing against these giants in the payments solutions business would be a path to success? And it’s all self funded. There is one shareholder, they’re not raising money. So in terms of the efficient use of capital and a business model that enables growth, they’re outstanding. And you can see it when you meet the people. I mean, if Joel Martin, the sales director was trying to sell me something, I would buy it.

Paul Spain:
Well, this is one of the interesting things is there are aspects of each of these companies that have done well, that if you took, you know, you took one of those aspects out, the result would be very, very different. Right. And sometimes it’s their ability to sell maybe in a different way to what everybody else is selling. I mean usually it’s a combination. Right. It’s never going to be just one thing. But that sort of combination of often creativity and innovation, you know, all gets wrapped up and then there are other pieces. But if you kind of were to pull one out, then it wouldn’t achieve the same.

Greg Shanahan:
Yeah. I think coming back to the people discussion, you and I were talking before this, that people think about tech as a market, but tech is not the unique part of tech. It’s the risk that’s involved in creating the tech and the sophisticated execution. And so you’re reliant on people that are smart enough to execute and resilient enough to continue and are happy with failure or encouraged by failure in the marketplace. Two common things are New Zealand companies that iterate their technology rapidly getting close to the customer. So really tech focused but beside the customer. And then the other thing is the ability, the Kiwi character themselves. I’ve had two conversations with us people in the past couple of weeks to say, wow, Kiwis are so honest and so transparent and companies like Wind Cave and others are able to quickly and in the longer term build trusting relationships because the do to talk ratio is really high that Kiwis do what they say they’re going to do.

Greg Shanahan:
So I think one of the key parts of our culture is New Zealand needs to remain a high trust environment where people are transparent and show respect for each other. And that sounds all touchy feely, stay off stuff that’s qualitative. But it’s a very strong part of our commercial arsenal that people comment on commonly, particularly in the United States.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, really important that we. Yeah. We don’t lose those sort of unique aspects of being kiwis. Yeah, I think there’s a. Yeah. That ability to. Yeah. As you say, sort of, you know, be transparent and interact well with people whilst backing that up with the ability to execute and to execute it at pace becomes a pretty incredible combo.

Greg Shanahan:
Yeah, I think almost people are jaundiced. I think, I think if you look around the world, people see that almost the fabric of society fraying and so if you can choose to deal with someone you trust, why wouldn’t you do that?

Paul Spain:
Yeah.

Greg Shanahan:
The other thing that they commonly mention is humility, that no one’s chest thumping. You know, certainly they’re getting better at being salespeople, but they’re not extravagant in their claims.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. And what do you, what do you notice from a funding perspective? Are there, you know, changes that you’re sort of noticing from year to year in terms of access to capital or the approaches that our, you know, in terms of our best companies are doing?

Greg Shanahan:
Yeah, I think it’s been really tough for the past 24 months and 18 months, 24 months in particular, particularly in high risk areas, pre revenue, early stage companies. Investment in early stage companies has continued to grow. Increasingly what we’re seeing is fewer larger deals. And so this is big opportunity in New Zealand. If you look just across the ditch at Australia, the size of the deals in Australia is significantly higher than in New Zealand and it’s just a small patch of water. So I think there’s a real opportunity for the size of our deals to grow and the ability to attract capital. There’d be more diverse sources of funding. So not angel venture capital, private equity, crowdfunding, debt financing, strategic investment, or just growth drawn from their own cash flow, as per companies like Wind Cave.

Greg Shanahan:
So there’s more sophistication around how to attract funding. There’s certainly one of the things in terms of where money is going is particularly, and we were talking about this before, into the clean tech and renewables sector, which I think is probably one of the biggest commercial opportunities in history as the world moves from fossil fuels to renewables and stuff that are sustainable in terms of environmental impact. And so it’s really in many ways that all markets are open to that change and creating opportunities across the board wherever you are, for the incumbents to be displaced by new players.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that’s a good point. For those that are kind of interested down that track, we have a podcast that does focus on, on such matters, which is called this Climate Business So that’s one that folks might, might find interesting. The kind of, you know, the, the crossover but between being, being business savvy and looking at the business opportunities with, you know, how, how we do things that are positive from a planet and renewables perspective as well.

Greg Shanahan:
So yeah, and particularly in Australia they seem to be ahead of the game and attracting money from the bigger end of town than in New Zealand. So there’s a lot of scope. If you look at a company like Lodestone that do solar farms have primarily started in Northland, they’ve raised about $600 million and that’s probably an old figure which is just for Lodestone, which is about the same amount of money went into the entire early stage tech investment last year in Australia. Some of the most wealthy Australians like Andrew Forrest from Fortescue Minerals or Michael Cannon Brooks or Matt Lassian are huge into this space. The big end of town is really getting on board. It’s no longer the domain of people are trying to signal virtue or you could never classify it as woke, but just a massive opportunity.

Paul Spain:
Oh, fascinating. Well, it’s been great to delve into the tin report before we finish up. A couple of things we will have online@nztechpodcast.com Christmas and there’ll be a bit of a link there. Just some of the gadgets and tech that I’ve been looking at lately that you might find interesting. If you’re looking at Christmas gifts to buy a couple. I’ll give a mention to the new remarkable paper pro move is a little E paper or E Ink tablet that I’ve been playing around with. Now this is interesting because it’s a slightly odd size. It’s I guess bigger than a little.

Paul Spain:
What are we, a little kind of note, you know, notebook you’d probably put in your be able to squeeze into a pocket a little bit taller. But actually I find it will fit into my trousers, my jean pocket and I can carry that around. And so instead of when I need to sort of make a note and I want that to be sort of backed up to the cloud and all that sort of thing, that it’s not on a bit of paper that’s gonna get lost going to my phone, which is my chief distraction device, being able to go to an E Paper or E Ink type device and scribble notes or draw a little picture and so on is actually really good. And I’ve dabbled with some of these types of devices in the past. But you know, I’m probably a couple of weeks in with this and finding it’s actually, you know, pretty handy. So we’ll see if I’m still using it in six months time or 12 months time. But at the moment I’m really, you know, enjoying it.

Greg Shanahan:
It’s an opportunity for you and I to decrease our phone screen time.

Paul Spain:
We probably, most of us probably need to do that. So, yeah, so a plus from that perspective. The other one, we had some light sent over from Signify, who own the Philips Hue and the Wiz lighting brands. And the lights that we got sent, we’ve got the Wiz floor lamp and the Philips Hue Play wall washer. Basically they will flood kind of colour onto a wall. Now, it’s a lot more dramatic if all your lights are out and it’s nighttime, but you know, even in a sort of a lounge environment. In fact, we’ve got them set up in the, We’ve got one of them set up the, the Wiz floor light behind our Christmas tree at the Gorilla Technology office. And it’s got, you know, the sort of Christmassy colours of red and green, just kind of washing the wall, I suppose, or putting a bit of movement and a bit of colour there.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, just interesting to look at what, you know, what’s coming through in terms of the smart lights. Reasonably expensive, some of this kit, but all depends on what you’re looking for. And it’s certainly cheaper than a renovation to kind of light up and colour a room with some lights as well.

Greg Shanahan:
Sounds like a great idea.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, Something else to look at, but we’ll have a few more of these things listed on nztechpodcast.com christmas if you want to have a look at that. And just another reminder, we’re very appreciative of those who already filled out the survey, but if you haven’t done, Now’s your reminder nztechpodcast.com survey and that link will be in our show notes as well. Would love to, love to get some feedback and hear from you about the New Zealand Tech podcast, sort of planning what the show looks like for 2026. And also some great giveaways there, courtesy of Motorola Logitech. And we’ve also got the one NZ warriors jersey that’s been added to the giveaway list. So thank you everyone for listening in. Thank you again to our show partners, Workday, Spark, 2degrees, One NZ and Gorilla Technology. And thank you, Greg Shanahan, for coming and updating us on the latest from the Tin Report.

Greg Shanahan:
Thanks, Paul, great to be here.

Paul Spain:
Catch you next week. And just a reminder, we will have shows coming through the Christmas break as well. There’s some really interesting pre recorded content. And if you’re not listening in to the New Zealand Business podcast, be sure to subscribe because a lot of the top tech company sort of stories we will be delving into on the New Zealand Business podcast, sometimes in a more in depth basis than what we’ll do on the tech podcast, there’s a bit of crossover. Some folks and companies will be represented on both with different content. So you know, well worth making sure you’re listening into both. Thanks everyone. Thank you.

Greg Shanahan:
Merry Christmas. Thank you Paul.

Paul Spain:
Cheers.

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