This month marks Te Waka’s one year anniversary. Looking back over this last year, it’s important for us to reflect on how far we have come, where we plan to go, and what our influence has been with regards to the Waikato region’s economic development.
Though Te Waka has only been around for 12 months, our Business Growth Team has been operating for a number of years and has assisted many regional businesses with their goals of expansion. Such businesses include local start-up company Torutek, who work on a variety of projects including facial recognition systems that help identify problem gamblers.
Like many businesses we work with, Torutek had excellent potential and growth aspirations – they just needed the right guidance to turn their business into a reality.
Our business growth team manager, Craig Purcell, worked closely with Torutek in securing office space at Waikato Innovation Park, and start-up grants through Callaghan Innovation. Torutek is now thriving, have sustainable cash flow, positive profitability, and in its own words, “couldn’t have hoped for better.” (See Torutek’s story here.)
Our assistance and influence with businesses in the region continues to progress, and recently Te Waka, along with the Waikato District Council, has been working with Australia’s biggest bed-maker, Comfort Group, in developing a $1 billion manufacturing and housing community.
Comfort Group, who owns Sleepyhead, SleepMaker and Dunlop Foams, has bought 176ha of rural land where it is intended to build a mixed-use community with more than 1000 new homes, while enhancing its manufacturing space.
We expect to see more projects like this on the horizon given Waikato is in a unique central location, and home to a high concentration of innovation and business potential. This being said, it has become more evident that new businesses need support to achieve their goals and strategic priorities.
Our team here will continue to work closely with businesses in finding out what their challenges and aspirations are, and how we can best move forward in terms of planning and connecting them to the right people.
A key component for a lot of businesses, particularly those getting off the ground, is funding. What many people may not know is that Te Waka can provide access to this.
Our NZTE Capability Voucher funding assists businesses with partial funding towards capability development and training. We also provide access to Callaghan Innovation grants that provide R&D funding for new businesses. As we are a strong supporter of Māori business, we can also link people with Māori trusts throughout the region.
In the last 12 months, Te Waka has supported $90m in applications to the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) and approximately $26m in central government funding has been secured. Despite the challenge of getting new businesses underway, we have contributed to the region’s wider economic development and I sense this will become even more prevalent in the near future.
Our move to increase capability in the team also continues to be a key focus going forward. Recently we appointed Michelle Hollands to the role of strategic partnerships and projects manager – a role that will involve working alongside businesses developing and implementing sector strategies. Michelle comes to us from Sport Waikato, where she managed and led the implementation of the Regional Sports Facilities Plan.
Before that, she was a self-employed strategy consultant and worked with some of New Zealand’s leading companies to guide and facilitate the development of market-led research plans.
Her expertise adds to our effort in increasing capacity in the team, and we look forward to welcoming her as we continue to expand and enhance our impact in Waikato.
