{"id":824885,"date":"2026-08-25T03:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T03:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/824885\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T03:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T03:26:09","slug":"on-the-beaton-track-auckland-university-navigators-student-raises-venture-capital-for-crime-fighting-startup-at-multimillion-valuation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/824885\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Beaton track: Auckland University \u2018Navigators\u2019 student raises venture capital for crime-fighting startup at multimillion valuation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The raise was supported by Antler, a venture and private equity firm based in Singapore, Beaton, Eliot Crowther (the Pushpay co-founder who also recently backed<\/a> Stirling, a robot accountant startup) and Jovan Pavlicevic, co-founder of fintech Emerge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Azonic has also named two advisory board members with high-powered connections in United States law enforcement: Brad Brekke, a founding director of the FBI\u2019s Office of the Private Sector and Michael Hurley, a former CIA senior manager who became an advisor to Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp.<\/p>\n

Scott told the Herald he left Wait\u0101kere College at 14 amid Covid lockdowns, and never went back to high school. He got by developing games for the Roblox<\/a> platform.<\/p>\n

He studied for a Diploma in Business at Unitec in 2024, which became his entree to starting a BComm at Auckland University in 2025; where he has \u2013 whisper it quietly \u2013 now dropped out to focus on Azonic.<\/p>\n

Along the way, he formed a non-profit called the International Online Crime Coordination Center (IOC3), becoming a TV commentator on social media and gaming platform harm and a youth advisor to b416, the group advocating for an under-16 social media ban.<\/p>\n

\"ThomasThomas Holdom serves as Azonic’s chief technology officer, Caden Scott as the start-up’s chief executive. The pair are now hiring. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

Scott calls Azonic \u201cthe operating system for online-crime investigation\u201d \u2013 an AI-driven system that can take care of basic tasks, information sharing and cross-jurisdictional demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does the slow groundwork, following the obvious leads and building the case out. The analyst picks up an investigation that is already most of the way to a conclusion, stays in charge of every call, and can check anything before acting on it,\u201d the startup\u2019s website says.<\/p>\n

The seed funding will be used for new hires and to prepare Azonic \u2013 only registered in March \u2013 for its commercial launch.<\/p>\n

ABOVE: Scott, second row at left, after last Wednesday\u2019s navigator\u2019s class featuring Sir Peter Beck (front centre).<\/p>\n

Scott says his startup is in talks with law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Tasman.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s to stop law enforcement agencies vibe-coding their own crime-fighting tools? <\/p>\n

Scott says they don\u2019t have the time or in-house skills.<\/p>\n

An agent with the FBI, or an analyst with Internal Affairs or an officer with the NZ police might have a backlog of dozens or even hundreds of online crime cases, Scott told the Herald.<\/p>\n

\""Our“Our thesis launching this class was to spawn a new generation of Kiwi unicorns that can create job growth and help drive the percentage of our national GDP in technology up. Caden is evidence of the potential to believe and bet on young Kiwis to help us build a more prosperous future” – Jamie Beaton Photo \/ Lizzie Morris<\/p>\n

\u201cWe basically automate the entire process of intelligence collection for law enforcement agencies.\u201d <\/p>\n

Azonic was started because the fastest-growing criminal networks in the world have no headquarters to raid and no hierarchy to dismantle, he says.<\/p>\n

\"AtAt last Wednesday’s Business Navigators lecture. Note the lack of smartphones or laptops. The low-tech approach kept students focussed on the anecdotes from the high tech world. Photo \/ Lizzie Morris<\/p>\n

They run on the platforms millions use every day, organising child sexual exploitation, sextortion, fraud and violent extremism across dozens of countries at once, Scott says.<\/p>\n

When one account falls, three more appear, and reports of these crimes reaching agencies have multiplied year after year.<\/p>\n

The \u201cmaths\u201d has changed with AI, Scott says. Investigators need new tools to match the bad guys\u2019 speed and scale.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

\u201cI first met Caden as an inquisitive student in Business Navigators. I was blown away when he described his \u2018side hustle\u2019 fighting cybercrime and quickly realised his profound and burning passion for the space,\u201d Beaton said.<\/p>\n

Blackbird\u2019s Palmer said: \u201cOnline crime is scaling faster than the systems built to investigate it, and Azonic is tackling that gap with technology designed specifically for the realities of investigative work. <\/p>\n

\u201cCaden brings rare firsthand exposure to the problem through his work building IOC3, while Thomas brings deep experience building AI systems for complex organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The raise was supported by Antler, a venture and private equity firm based in Singapore, Beaton, Eliot Crowther…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1479,64514,349581,197893,28,349583,46584,93067,53169,349579,13324,527,158,82007,1598,2101,29965,23498,349585,29570,349584,32271,349580,349578,2105,14797,12921,191335,208370,24355,62800,14729,11363,14488,1596,24871,10126,6671,349582,50008,3477,2394],"class_list":["post-824885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-at","tag-auckland","tag-bcomm","tag-beaton","tag-business","tag-caden","tag-capital","tag-cofounders","tag-cohort","tag-crimefighting","tag-crimson","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-fangzhou","tag-first","tag-for","tag-guest","tag-jamie","tag-jiang","tag-last","tag-lectured","tag-lineup","tag-multimillion","tag-navigators","tag-on","tag-part","tag-plus","tag-programme","tag-raises","tag-scott","tag-speakers","tag-startup","tag-student","tag-students","tag-the","tag-through","tag-track","tag-university","tag-universitys","tag-valuation","tag-venture","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}