Zeropoint Ventures’ First Virtual Incubator, Cohort 1, Launches
We are excited to announce the launch of Cohort 1, the first of the ZeroPoint Ventures cohorts. The successful
participants will be:
1. Invetyx founded by Yaniv Yousef
2. Brandspace founded by Manu Vallyon
3. Nightwriter founded by Ryan McCarvill
4. Workpath founded by Tim Roberts
5. Ultra founded by Michael McFadden
Dan Khan, ZeroPoint Ventures CEO stated
“We were extremely pleased with the number of applications as more than 80 founders from across New Zealand applied for
the first-round cohort. The many and varied locations of these people really validated our assumption that New
Zealanders do want to build ventures where they live and work, to create strong regional economies and remain in their
local support networks. We focused heavily on choosing ventures for revenue and business sustainability rather than just
investability. This made the selection criteria quite different as you are not looking for moonshots.”
At ZeroPoint Ventures, we work with solo founders as well as founding teams as, in the early days, every great idea is
usually led by a single visionary leader, explained Dan. Our approach reinforces this as the goal of the incubation
cohort allows people to find out if their idea is worth building; to validate that a future sustainable business
opportunity exists. This avoids wasting time and energy on ideas that don’t work. We also recognise that people
establish startups in their spare time which shows commitment, and desire to work past the 9-5 status quo. Not everyone
is cut out to start and run their own business so the incubation period culls those who are all talk but no action.
The incubation phase of the ZeroPoint Ventures programme takes four months allowing the founder to work on their venture
part time alongside their day-job. Our research shows that lack of financial security is a key detractor for those in
the regions seeking to join an incubator in the main centres, so we don’t want people having to give up their income
source and to leave their families and communities for 12-16 weeks.
“I've come to realise that the culture of startups is broken. Society isn't built on top of a few large enterprises but
on thousands of small and medium sized businesses - especially in New Zealand. The go big or go home philosophy that is
pervasive in our industry has led to a huge amount of waste and opportunities lost. It's clear now that selling less
equity and bootstrapping a sustainable business is the way forward, especially in a capital constrained market like NZ,
and that's why ZeroPoint is such a breath of fresh air.” - Ryan McCarvill, founder of Nightwriter and Cohort 1 member
We have chosen to work with smaller teams - five founders in each cohort - to enable us to allow scale of ideas and
progress at different paces. We will have multiple small intakes through a 12-month period allowing focus and attention
on the specific needs of founders in each cohort. As they progress through our programme at different stages, future
intakes will benefit from those who have gone before. Building a virtual community able to share key learnings and
experiences is an important part of the ZeroPoint Ventures approach, Dan explained.
Teams that applied from the regions who did not make it into the first cohort will be offered 1:1 coaching on a paid
basis. We are also working with several regional entities to introduce the ZeroPoint Ventures model which works to
support regional businesses adopt #TheNewWay of working - startup thinking inside existing businesses.
It was particularly pleasing to see so many ventures being referred to us via our amazing partners like BizDojo and
Callagan Innovation. Both of these are good starting points for founders looking to connect with the right support
programmes and community leaders. Dan noted.
Callaghan Innovation spokesman Hēmi Rolleston said expanding the founder incubator network to regional areas recognised
that the tech sector’s best ideas didn’t come only from the main centres, which have had access to incubator services
for some time.
“Nationally our programmes help hundreds of companies improve their ability to innovate. ZeroPoint Ventures is one of
six founder incubators we have invested in recently so that regionally-based innovators have the same opportunities to
develop their ideas into export-focussed businesses. It’s clear from the number of applications that we are tapping into
strong demand for programmes with no geographical boundaries, which allow founders to stay connected to their local
support network. We look forward to seeing the companies working with ZeroPoint Ventures move to the next level,
contributing to New Zealand’s increasingly vibrant innovation ecosystem,” Mr Rolleston said.
Find out more about our Cohort 1 ventures here:
For more information about ZPV, visit our website at
ENDS