“We’re tackling spatial data because it’s one of the hardest and most fragmented industries, with complex, messy data. We saw the mess as a challenge to be solved,” says Alex. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
The agricultural, defence, climate science and mining industries are also targets.
Hyades’ product is still in an “alpha”, or very early stage of development, but has already attracted a major US player in geospatial data and AI (whose name is under wraps) as a development partner.
They’ve also raised $1.5m for their year-old start-up – $1.1m in a pre-seed round led by Icehouse Ventures (which now holds a 19% stake) and supported by Sir Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 (4%).
And they’ve received $400,000 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) under the “New to R&D” scheme formerly administered by Callaghan Innovation.
Icehouse Ventures principal Bex Gidall
Icehouse Ventures principal Bex Gidall said the young team was “More than the sum of its parts. Ash has a remarkable ability to articulate a vision and bring people with him. Sam is an exceptional technical founder whose work already compares incredibly well against the best in the field. And Jimin has a rare gift for translating highly complex technology into something people can understand.”
The pre-seed will go to securing more enterprise co-design partners, recruiting an AI engineering specialist, and getting the platform ready for wider release.
Glimpse over the shoulder
The start-up’s genesis was when Alex sat directly behind Kurian in a physics lecture and noticed Kurian had created his own AI note-taking tool, merging text with images and diagrams, and syncing across his laptop and iPad. The pair struck up a rapport.
Alex then met Hyades’ third founder, Seo, when both travelled to the US last year as part of Auckland University’s annual “Vanguard” programme – which sees 15 to 20 students visit firms around Silicon Valley.
The Vanguard tour is bankrolled and led by Just Water and Just Life Group founder Tony Falkenstein.
The Business Hall of Famer liked what he heard from Alex and Seo about their plans for a start-up during the trip and became an angel investor in Hyades.
Entrepreneur Tony Falkenstein (left), with some of the students who made the trip to San Francisco and neighbouring Silicon Valley.
The trip included a visit to Allbirds’ San Francisco office to meet Allbirds co-founder and director Tim Brown.
The ex-All Whites captain later set up a coffee meeting with the Hyades founders back in Auckland, and also became an investor (via Icehouse, where he is a venture partner).
“It was a life-changing trip for us. Tim’s given us really good advice about how to scale up a business,” Alex says.
While Allbirds ultimately fizzled, and recently executed a controversial pivot to artificial intelligence as the GPU-leasing NewBird AI, Brown had stellar fundraising success during the sustainable footwear maker’s pre-IPO period, pulling in more than US$250m from VCs.
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Hyades’ founders also bring some of their own nous.
Alex is the elder of the group by three years at 26. He returned to Auckland University in 2024 after a stint as a production engineer with local start-up Quantifi Photonics.
He also built an optical receiver that could capture light transmitted from satellites and convert it to high-frequency data as part of a partnership between Auckland University and Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US.
And at 19, Alex launched his first start-up, in mechanical engineering, only for it to flop.
“I spent all my savings – $15,000 – trying to get it off the ground,” he says.
This time, he and his co-founders have a couple of investors who can also be helping hands.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.