Track Record

Drumbeat is a N+I venture, led by Barney Chunn. Drumbeat is an AI powered PR platform that helps growth companies identify their stories, find their audience, and consistently share across earned and owned media.

The second version of Future Demand was written for marketers in all organisations. The book is a deeper exploration of the Future Demand mental model, and was called ‘The book every marketer should read’ by leading US CMO Fernando Machado.

We joined forces with Connon Bray, Antony Ede and Ashish Ansurkar to form N+I, a venture studio that exists to create multiple marketing technology ventures, with a mission to find a reliable, repeatable process for building billion-dollar companies from NZ.

Following the success of Brand Fund 1, we launched our second venture capital fund in late 2023. This $8-10M fund backs companies that can be the leading brand for their industry, and helps them get there.

Ideally is the insights platform that helps grow great ideas. We co-created this second joint venture from PU & TRA Labs, following on from Tracksuit. Ideally achieved $2.5m ARR in its first year and over $10M by its third. 

We created Caffeine to better share the learnings of our most successful founders and startups with the whole New Zealand startup community.

Based on 15 years of researching, practicing, publishing and teaching advertising effectiveness principles, James Hurman developed the MAE online course which has now been taken by over 1200 professionals from 50 countries.

We created Future Demand as a mental model to help startup founders and VC folks understand the role of brand building in startup success.

A $4m+ fund in partnership with Icehouse Ventures. Investments so far include Tracksuit, Ideally, AF Drinks, Compostic and more.

We conceived a brand health tracking solution that allows companies to assess the health of their brand. The business has been wildly successful, scaling to $50M+ in annual recurring revenue in its first five years, and topping the Deloitte Fast 50.

We partnered with Lisa King on her sophomore venture in 2020. AF fast became New Zealand’s market leader before launching in the US, where it's now stocked in thousands of major retail stores.

Partnered with Jon Reed to launch a bioplastics startup, pivoting to home compostable clingfilm to become a global leader.

Toothcrush, our first in-house venture, pioneered Australasian FMCG subscriptions, becoming the region’s top oral care service before successfully exiting.

Strategised Simplicity’s brand and launch, pioneering an innovative UI. It’s now a leading KiwiSaver provider managing over $12B in assets.

We invested in, strategised, and developed Stolen’s ‘Coffee & Cigarettes’ rum, driving growth and a successful $21M exit.