The Morgo Podcasts

20 minute interviews with people building tech companies from New Zealand and Australia into the world.

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Desiree de Spong, Medella Health

June 9, 2025

Desiree shares how she developed Flowpresso, a Class II medical device designed to reset the body through lymphatic therapy. Using compression, heat, and pressure, it helps clear cellular waste, improve sleep, reduce stress, and support recovery—especially after illness. Now used in clinics across the US, NZ, Australia, India, Canada, and the UK. A great story of developing a product to fit a market Desiree knows well.

Ben Powles, Building Engineering & Design Co

May 21, 2025

Building Engineering & Design Co (BEDC) takes architectural plans and turns them into structural plans using a human-augmented, patented AI platform. In just 5 years the company has grown to over 450 people: a large design team in the Philippines and people in market in NZ, Australia, the US, Canada and the UK. Ben talks about successful market entry using a channel partner. His advice on how to scale fast: hire great people and retain them.

Ed Harvey, Evnex

April 28, 2025

Evnex makes charging solutions for electric vehicles. Ed talks about spending a year developing their first electric charger, then working out how to turn a technology into a company: better understanding the market, learning how to raise money and how to hire people. Now there are a lot of competitors & a slowdown in the market so he needs to think deeply about how to win. Ed’s advice for success: play to win – narrow your focus to something at which you can be the best.

Emily Blythe, Pyper Vision

April 7, 2025

Worldwide fog disrupts 620M passengers & costs airlines billions in rescheduling fees every year. Emily started Pyper Vision to disperse fog at airports but then realised that the biggest problem is vague forecasting of fog leading to cancelling far more flights than necessary. Pyper Vision switched to fog forecasting using a deep learning model. They can now give a fog forecast for every minute of the next 4 hours. Their first airline customer goes live this month.

Axton Pitt, Litmaps

March 17, 2025

Litmaps is a Literature Discovery Tool that helps researchers to find vital scientific papers they didn't know about and to tell a better research story. A Litmap is a picture that shows the relationship between a collection of scientific papers based on their citations, popularity and currency. Litmaps is now used by researchers, students and professionals across 150 countries. Axton talks about what he’s learned in starting the business and in moving from CTO to CEO.

Ian McCrae, Orion Health

February 24, 2025

This podcast celebrates a hero of the NZ tech sector: Ian founded Orion Health over 30 years ago - the first company in Auckland to have internet! Orion builds products that link healthcare systems together. It has spun off a number of companies along the way, most recently selling 3 products for over $200M. After this they have 3 products and are down from over 700 people to 120. Ian has handed over the CEO role and now calls himself Mr Odd Job at Orion.

Max Arshavsky, Zenno

February 3, 2025

Max & co-founder Sebastian Wieczorek started space tech company Zenno to solve the problem of running out of fuel in space. Their solution is to use superconducting magnets fuelled by solar power to provide fully autonomous positioning of satellites. After 7 years work, they have solved the problems of operating their technology in space. (And have now announced their first commercial partnerships.) When asked what part of this was hard, Max replies “all of it”.

Ron Tenenbaum & Tam Hankinson, The Clinician

January 15, 2025

The Clinician offers a digital platform that redefines healthcare by shifting funding from service delivery to measurable outcomes. Founded by Ron, a former neurosurgeon, and Tam, with experience in pharma and business intelligence, the company blends medical, technical and commercial expertise. They've scaled the business to over 50 employees globally with clients in 7 countries, leading a transformation in healthcare funding and delivery.

David Sweas, Dodson Group

December 9, 2024

The Dodson Group is a precision manufacturer, #1 in the automotive niche of high horsepower transmission upgrades. It has diversified into other markets such as aerospace, agriculture, marine, & green energy by acquiring its largest local suppliers. David took over as CEO of Dodson five years ago and has grown the business from 17 to 75 people. David is a former automotive engineer and investment banker who wanted to build a business, and Dodson was a perfect fit.

Simon Malpas, Kitea Health

November 18, 2024

Kitea Health makes a device to help manage hydrocephalus: a condition where fluid accumulates in the brain, managed by inserting a shunt to drain the fluid. Kitea Health makes a tiny implantable device to measure pressure in the brain at home, letting you know if the shunt has failed and you need medical help. Simon brings an extensive background in developing medical devices to this new venture. His key advice: build the team!

Tijs Robinson, Hot Lime Labs

October 28, 2024

Hot Lime Labs is putting the green back in greenhouses – supplying yield-boosting CO2 from biomass for large glasshouses. With $9 million of angel funding they’ve scaled from the lab to a demo delivering CO2 into a 11 hectare glasshouse. It’s now ready to take to the world – which will need lots more funding. Tijs talks about how the needs of the business change as you grow, with specialists replacing generalists, and how ready people are to help if you ask

Boyd Multerer, Kry10

October 7, 2024

Kry10 is a building a secure operating system to enable critical infrastructure such as electrical grids and medical devices to transition to a future where they are intelligent, cloud connected and adaptive driven. This can replace, or be placed in front of, old software built on operating systems from the 1990s that are vulnerable to viruses. It was founded by Boyd and other ex-Microsoft/Amazon execs to commercialize cybersecurity technology spun-out from an advanced research group.

Shieak Tzeng & Sergei Obruchkov, Wellumio

September 17, 2024

Wellumio is developing a highly portable head MRI scanner for use in emergency departments - providing a scan in the “golden hour” after stroke when treatment is most effective. Shieak & Sergei talk about how great it was to find each other, their journey to dealing with investors rather than grant reviewers, and now getting their product to market. They’d like to encourage more academics to choose entrepreneurship!

Clinton Cardozo, OneReg

September 3, 2024

OneReg is about effortless compliance and smoother operations for aerospace. When Covid struck, Clinton lost his job and decided it was time to start a business. He and his two co-founders had more than 100 years experience in compliance, digital innovation and aviation. Their initial customers are airports, which are very complex environments – they have the biggest need for what OneReg does. They now have most of the airports in NZ as customers and are moving offshore.

Terry Miller, Eight360

August 19, 2024

Eight360 has built an immersive VR motion simulator: a ball that you sit inside that can do full 360 flips and spins. This is fun. It’s also very serious: it delivers a more immersive and visceral experience, leading to better engagement and learning outcomes whether you are manoeuvring heavy equipment in unusual situations, practicing your off-road handling skills to avoid a rollover, or learning to land an aircraft in a windy location.

Danny Purcell, Basis

August 5, 2024

Danny, CEO & co-founder, of Basis explains how they have developed a home electricity smart panel that allows you to manage your power usage in real time and gives data to the electricity companies so they can offer smart-use plans to reduce cost. They are driven by delivering an enduring positive impact for the planet. The first smart panels will be delivered soon – you can pre-order on their website.

Michael Hartley, Comply Pro

July 23, 2024

Three founders who had worked together before started Comply Pro to meet needs for safety in the construction industry and food safety in hospitality, building a SaaS company that can be rapidly scaled around the world. Now ComplyPro manages 18.4 million records and protects 208,000 sites globally, with over 4,000 clients and 45,000 users. Michael talks about encouraging everyone to act like owners, think like founders, and innovate like entrepreneurs.

Hadleigh Ford, SwipedOn

July 8, 2024

Hadleigh’s maritime background gave him the insight that started SwipedOn: on a super yacht everything was electronic except the dog-eared visitors’ book. With no tech or business background, he set out to build a tablet sign in. Today Hadleigh employs over 50 people and SwipedOn is used in over 9,000 workplaces. The company has gone through ownership changes: it sold to an AIM listed company and became 95% of its recurring revenue, and it is now owned by a PE firm.

Anya Anderson, RedSeed

June 25, 2024

RedSeed trains retail staff: it provides courses, coaching & a customisable LMS with a library of easy-to-implement course content and learning pathways that lets its customers customise the training. Its coaching is a key differentiator. Anya talks about growing the company from in-person training to fully online resources. She’s now looking at flipping from sales led to product led growth. It’s a great story of adapting the company to the market over time.

Trent Fulcher, Starboard Maritime Intelligence

June 10, 2024

Starboard takes data from satellites to track every oceangoing vessel on the planet. It combines this with scientific models and other intelligence sources to create a pattern of life for each vessel, allowing analysts to assess if the vessel poses a risk – to sovereign borders or to commercial assets. Trent joined when Starboard had product-market fit in the Pacific. His key role has been to capitalise the business and scale internationally.

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Morgo Partners

Supported by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise