Hello Everyone:

Still some excellent events going on as we roll towards the long holidays (in your dreams start-ups operating globally!!).

WellyForge6 (The Christmas Edition) on Weds Dec 10th - last 5 tickets - the final snapshot speakers are KiwiNet Commercialization Icon Award Winner, Suse Reynolds and Young Enterprise Scheme Regional Award Winner, Lachlan Mead (good luck in the nationals on 4th Dec at Takina!).

Also note the Avatar premiere on Saturday Dec 13th at the Embassy, bound to be a big day on Courtenay Place.

And, watch for an interesting case study on scaling up to be posted onto What Founders Want on Thursday, imagine building a SaaS company from Wellington to take 40% of the US market and help millions of people in the process! And, since SaaS is so important for Wellington, WellyForge will be sponsoring SaaSmas on Dec 17th.

Welcome to Rintr to the ecosystem map (#91 in the start-up section), and notice the sneaky introduction of Urban Adventure spots - biking, wind, sailing, surfing. Rod Drury recently suggested Wellington is / could be the global Urban Adventure Capital, where Adventure is extreme weather, sports, games, music, films, arts, start-ups and so on all available out-the-door - resonates with me, what else would you add to the map?

And it was the 2degrees Wellington Regional Business Excellence Awards last week, and the more start-up / innovation-based awards went to:

Local investor David Miller, points out that AROTEC and OpenStar both had origins from research undertaken at the Gracefield Innovation Quarter in Lower Hutt, and it is the Gracefield site where there is huge uncertainty as part of the fall-out of closing down Callaghan Innovation - not good for investment or the companies currently around that area.

And other recent media coverage of local interest:

Highlighted entries are new from last week.

NEXT 10 DAYS:

Wed Nov 26th, 4.30pm - AngelHQ Members Meeting - you saw the showcase they did at Capital Capital, why not become an angel investor in 2026?

Thu Nov 27th, 4.30-6.30pm, BioTech ‘n’ Beers Speaker Series, with WellyForge’s own Ipshita Mandal-Johnson. This seems to be in conjunction with Women in HealthTech.

Thu Nov 27th, 5-7.30pm, TechWomen and CyberCX End of Year, panel discussions, and previews of the year ahead

Tue Dec 2nd, 1-3pm, Entrepreneurs Organization Lunch & Learn at QT Hotel

Tue Dec 2nd, 6.30-9.30pm, Game Developers of Wellington - Pitchmas! Turn up and pitch your game, 2 minutes, no slides, I like it.

Tue-Wed Dec 2-3rd, One Health Aotearoa Symposium, being run at U Otago in Wellington covering a wide range of themes (antimicrobial, infectious diseases+)

Thu Dec 4th, 11-12, What is Quality in Healthcare Improvement? Lecture by Prof Vikki Entwistle from Aberdeen talking at Otago in Wellington.

Thu Dec 4th, 4-6pm, Cafe Complexite, runs once a month in the Atom, presents insights into complexity science that aim to be understandable by the public.

Thu Dec 4th, 5-7.30pm, Climate Tech Meetup at CreativeHQ

Fri Dec 5th, 8.30-12, Supercharge your Business Productivity with AI, final event of the year from Serge van Dam & Dascha Cooper, held at Rutherford House, Vic Uni.

KNOWN, MAJOR, FUTURE EVENTS

Wed Dec 10th, 7-9pm, WellyForge6 Christmas Edition (click for full details)

Sat Dec 13th, Avatar: Fire and Ash premiere at the Embassy!

Wed Dec 17th 5pm+, Wellington SaaSmas Party Tickets, hosted at Dockside

RECURRING EVENTS

The Atom at Victoria is open for any unfunded Founders (Students, Early Stage, Idea Stage) and is run by Entrepreneur in Residence, Adiraj Gupta - Email [email protected] , or join the Facebook community.