The Morgo Blog

Everyone is talking about AI these days and MORGO was no exception. MORGO is a two-day get together for the leaders of tech companies going global: two days away from the business to share experiences with other CEOs, make new friends, and above all get reinvigorated with new energy for the challenges ahead.

Wow, 20 years of MORGO! How did that happen? From thinking that it would be good to get together people building tech companies from New Zealand into the world – which it was – to fuller and fuller programmes over the years to create this annual re-charge for them!

Where would you see Manta5 bikes on the water and a Zerojet electric jet by the wharf? At MORGO, of course, where New Zealand’s leading tech entrepreneurs come together to share experiences and get re-energised for the journey out into the world.

In my time in venture capital I’ve heard a lot of pitches; the good, the bad and, mostly, the frankly-why-bother. A lot of different approaches can work. Here are my tips for those of you keen to attend Morgo but who can’t afford it at this stage in your business journey.

Listing is the highest value future you can have, said Neil Craig of CraigsIP to a room full of highly engaged CEOs and CFOs of fast growing tech companies at a recent Morgo workshop.

At the MORGO retreat we bring together these high growth business leaders to give them an annual re-charge – send them away with new energy to take on the challenges of building their businesses out into the world. At MORGO 2021 our theme was Resilience, Leadership, Opportunity

MORGO Queenstown is just over two months away. I’m deep in designing another amazing programme for you and I thought I’d bring you behind the scenes to share what goes into building a programme at MORGO.

A lot is being written about how Covid-19 and the lock downs will bring about changes — more tele-meetings, more e-health, less business travel… Inside each of the Morgo companies now thinking about their own futures and how to adapt, there are new ideas forming and new ways of working developing.

At MORGO Byron Bay a fantastic group of tech entrepreneurs came together to re-charge, re-connect and re-imagine. And the conversation was all about AI!

The Future of Everything Festival 2019. The opportunity to hear about new technologies and where they’re going and to mix with other people who are interested in this. The Festival is put together by the uber-connected WSJ, and it’s held in Tribeca, New York.

It was a treat to have Guy Haddleton talk to us about his 10 year journey in building Anaplan to its US$3.5bn listing on the NYSE. A great story. A great speaker!

Tim is relaxed as we sit down to chat on a sofa inside the entry to the extremely crowded shophouse that is 90Seconds Singapore HQ. He’s just finished raising a good Series B round, and a few months ago he appointed a Chief of Staff. The wonderful combination of money and people!

Who knew that in a plain building in South Auckland sits a quiet entrepreneur who owns a very high tech Boston company that is installing a sophisticated huge medical device in Finland?

In the early 2000s, Paul Collins developed world-leading parking sensor technology to detect parking space usage, he then founded Meter Eye to sell and expand his offering. Now Paul has grown two immensely successful global companies: the first to help issue parking tickets, the second to help drivers find parks.

During his battle with cancer, David was the lucky recipient of treatment in a US clinical study for a new immunotherapy regime, CAR-T cell treatment. Following his return from Boston, he was amazed to discover that a group at New Zealand’s own Malaghan Institute is preparing to trial a next generation CAR-T cell therapy.