Venture

We build companies. We’re expert at taking new business ideas from opportunity to launch: validating demand, developing product and brand, and getting ventures to market fast. 

Sometimes that's through joint ventures with partners who have an opportunity but need the capability to make it real. Increasingly, it's through venture studios: dedicated entities that explore, prototype, and launch new businesses at a pace. New+Improved Ventures, our martech-focused studio, is the first of these, with more in the pipeline.
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Capabilities

Venture Strategy & Validation

We work with teams to define opportunities, test assumptions, and explore commercial viability.

Venture Studio Development

We partner with larger organisations to design and run venture studios that accelerate innovation, provide the structure, team, and pace to build and launch new businesses.

Joint-Ventures

We collaborate with big companies to build companies together; combining their domain expertise with our strategy, product, and execution capability.

Our Own Venture Studios

We put all of this into practice ourselves, building and operating venture studios that take new businesses from concept to market.

Workshops

Opportunity Identification Workshop

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For when there's something worth pursuing, but it's not yet clear what it is or how to tackle it. A condensed engagement where we work with your team to get sharp on the problem, surface the opportunity inside it, and shape it into a clear, practical articulation: what the opportunity is, why it matters, and how to go after it. You’ll leave aligned, with a concrete basis for deciding what to do next. This is often where working with us starts.
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Testimonials

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Abi Bennett
COO

Starshipit
“We loved working with Simon and the PU team, we came away laser clear on our positioning and offering to customers. The feedback on our new brand has been incredible, with many asking who we worked with, our new brand puts us right at the front of our competitors and positions us for the next phase of growth, I’d highly recommend Simon and the awesome PU team”

Get in touch

We take on select projects, working with companies who are inventing or reinventing. If there’s a project you’d like to talk to us about, please get in touch.

Auckland

Shop Future Demand

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Future Demand Vol. 2

Buy Now ↗

How marketing to tomorrow’s customers will break your brand out of the performance trap

Social Updates

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LinkedIn

29 May

Portrait is a new bespoke process from our venturing and strategy teams, built for marketers who want more ROI from their media spend.

LinkedIn

14 May

Hot off the press: our latest rebrand for Spoke just launched earlier this month ☎️

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LinkedIn

8 May

James Hurman has been on a world wide book tour — Helsinki, New York, Chicago, Toronto... and now finally, back in NZ!

By The Numbers

$500m+

Launched
Companies

40+

Equity
Companies

4

Venture Funds

Weekly Whakatauki

He iti te mokoroa, nāna i kati te kahikatea
Something much larger can be overcome by something much smaller.

Where in the world is James Hurman?

Cannes

43.5539° N, 7.0170° E

Bookshelf

Hegarty on Advertising – John Hegarty

AUX

Just Like Heaven – The Cure

Overheard at Previously

“Walking is actually good for you”

Studio Snaps

Black and white photo of a busy open-plan office
Black and white photo of people in a living space
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Black and white photo of two women standing together smiling
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Clients & Partners

Icehouse Ventures
Westpac
AF Drinks
Ārepa
Fonterra
Emma Lewisham
MedWorld
NZTE
DB Breweries
Education Perfect
Torrens University Australia
OnBoard
Shuttlerock
Pylot
Lion
Mānuka Health
Ideally
Tracksuit
Breast Cancer Foundation NZ
Helius
Brothers Beer
ASB
BNZ
Fonterra
Melodics
Sunfeld
Contact Energy
Simplicity
Futurity
PieFunds
DB Breweries
WOOP!
Ārepa
Hawker & Roll
Stolen Rum
21C Skills Lab
Ascential
Heineken
Clearhead
Westpac
Stuff
AF Drinks
Spark
The Comfort Group
NZ Trade & Enterprise
Serious Food Co.
Toothcrush
Timely
Compostic
Medworld
Growbright
Sanford
Emma Lewisham
Goodman Fielder
TVNZ
PĀMU