John Robson on contributing to Kiwi deep tech.

John Robson shares his vision for Bridgewest Ventures and contributing to Deep Tech in New Zealand.

"What we are really looking for are people," John Robson thoughtfully said as he described the goals of Bridgewest Ventures. While yes, the incubator is looking for world-changing concepts, it's the innovators and scientists who bring big ideas to life. 

For Robson, the purpose of Bridgewest Ventures is to wrap a business around these passionate innovators and provide them with all the support and resources they need to grow and establish their idea. 

Lending a hand to others has long been a part of Robson's ethos. In addition to his full-time roles before joining the incubator as our GM, he has been on the board of multiple charities, formerly the Child Cancer Foundation, CanTeen, and currently the One Percent Collective. 

"My role when I work with charities is to provide pragmatic support that can't be found elsewhere or is difficult to access" he described, "I hope that by being part of Callaghan Innovation's Technology Incubator Programme, Bridgewest Ventures can do the same for Kiwi entrepreneurs." 

Robson brings a wealth of personal experience to the incubator. He initially worked for twelve-years in London as an Investment Manager at Merrill Lynch, where he was responsible for a number of publicly traded investment funds as part of a macro economic specialist investment team.

His experience is in understanding and interpreting macroeconomic trends and considering the different ways the world's economic scenarios could play out. Early in his career, this often meant considering technology - assessing which tech companies were sound investments and how their innovations would impact the world. 

Packing up and moving to New Zealand, Robson found himself working for the National Bank of New Zealand Private Bank heading up their Investment Department and eventually moving into business strategy after the ANZ and National Bank merger. He was subsequently appointed as the Head of Emerging Technology and Payments for the combined bank.

It was at this point that Robson met Provoke, an up-and-coming design and software development company based in Wellington. 

"When I joined the Provoke team, it was a fairly young company with big aspirations. It had great potential but didn't know what it was. It was an amazing experience to be able to create scale and depth within that business." 

During his time at Provoke, the business grew from just 30 staff to over 140, now building enterprise software solutions for customers worldwide and with a growing team in Seattle. 

John Robson and Saum Vahdat at Tech Incubator Day

To Robson, it's experience that helps set Bridgewest Ventures apart. While the New Zealand incubator is newly established, its parent company, Bridgewest Group, has over 20 years of experience scaling ideas. This much time in the industry also means an established global network that Robson is excited to bring to New Zealand. 

"We can open the doors of some of the world's largest corporations to New Zealand startups," he said, "a resource that can be truly invaluable, especially when it comes to developing deep tech."

The choice for Bridgewest to bring their incubator to New Zealand was an easy one. New Zealand is a hotbed of innovation like nowhere else. When asked what he thought made New Zealand so different, Robson cited the good old kiwi attitude. There is something about being so far away that has fostered a 'No one is coming to help me with this, so I should just get on and figure it out' kind of mindset. 

It's that attitude Robson says, that allows many Kiwi innovators to achieve so much even with limited amounts of money. He recognises one of the most significant disadvantages to the Kiwi startup ecosystem is not having enough capital to take a business to the next level. 

Bridgewest Ventures and the other incubators participating in the eight-year Callaghan Innovation Technology Incubator Programme aim to do a lot to change that. 

"We want to incubate at least five companies a year. If you extrapolate that across the other programme participants and across eight years, there is the possibility to have a major impact. We can create jobs, incite government policy focussed on tech, and change our economy's current reliance on tourism and agriculture." 

Paul Geraghty, Ashwath Sundaresan, Dr. Franck Natali, John Robson, Saum Vahdat, Hamish Findlay

There is room to grow the New Zealand startup ecosystem not just economically but also in inclusivity and diversity. For Bridgewest Ventures, there is a huge desire to encourage, incubate, and support groups of people who have traditionally been underserved in the tech industry and to drive a step change in the engagement with them. 

For Robson, his personal dream for Bridgewest ventures is establishing pathways that make it easier for anybody, no matter their cultural background or gender, to realise their opportunities in the tech or science space.

"So many young people across New Zealand don't get the exposure or encouragement they need to realise their potential. If, at the end of this eight-year programme, I know we have inspired a young person to pursue a science or technology venture, that will define success for me."