Agriculture, defense, climate science and mining are also targets.
Hyades’ product is still in “alpha”, or very early stages of development, but it has already attracted a leading US geospatial data and AI company (name kept secret) as a development partner.
They also raised $1.5 million for the one-year-old startup. It raised $1.1 million in a pre-seed round led by Icehouse Ventures (currently holding a 19% stake) and supported by Sir Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 (4%).
And they received $400,000 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) under the ‘New to R&D’ scheme, previously managed by Callaghan Innovation.
Bex Gidal, president of Icehouse Ventures, said the young team is “more than the sum of its parts. Ash has an incredible ability to articulate a vision and involve people. Sam is an exceptional technical founder whose work is already incredibly good compared to the best in his field, and Jimin has a rare talent for translating highly complex technology into something people can understand.”
The pre-seed will be used to secure more enterprise co-design partners, hire AI engineering specialists, and prepare for a broader release of the platform.
glance over your shoulder
The genesis of the startup was when Alex was sitting right behind Kurian in a physics lecture when he noticed that Kurian had created his own AI note-taking tool, combining text with images and diagrams, and syncing it between his laptop and iPad. The two developed a close relationship.
Alex then met Hyades’ third founder, Mr Seo, when he traveled to the US as part of Auckland University’s annual ‘Vanguard’ program last year. The program will take 15 to 20 students to visit companies in the Silicon Valley area.
Vanguard’s tour is funded and led by Tony Falkenstein, founder of Just Water and Just Life Group.
The business Hall of Famer became an angel investor in Hyades after hearing about the startup’s plans from Alex and So during a trip.
The trip included a visit to Allbirds’ San Francisco office and meeting Allbirds co-founder and director Tim Brown.
The former All Whites captain then returned to Auckland to set up a coffee meeting with Hyades’ founders and also became an investor (and venture partner via Icehouse).
“It’s been a life-changing journey for us, and Tim has given us really good advice on how to scale our business,” says Alex.
While Allbirds ultimately failed and recently executed a controversial pivot to artificial intelligence as NewBird AI, which leases GPUs, Brown enjoyed stellar fundraising success during the sustainable footwear maker’s pre-IPO period, raising more than $250 million from VCs.
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The founders of Hyades also bring some of their own nous.
Alex is 26 years old and is three years older than the rest of the group. He returned to the University of Auckland in 2024 after working as a production engineer at local startup Quantify Photonics.
He also built an optical receiver that can capture light transmitted by satellites and convert it into high-frequency data, as part of a partnership between the University of Oakland and Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States.
Then, at the age of 19, Alex launched his first start-up company in the field of mechanical engineering, which failed.
“I used all my savings – $15,000 – to get the business off the ground,” he says.
This time, he and his co-founders also have several investors backing them.
Chris Keall is based in Auckland herald’s business team. he herald In 2018, he served as technology editor and senior business writer.
