Plans have been unveiled for a Christchurch-based aerospace company to launch its reusable space planes in the United States.

Dawn Aerospace has signed a memorandum of understanding with Colorado Air and Space Port, which outlines future plans for launches. The port, which has two 2.4-kilometre runways, is one of 12 licensed commercial launch sites in the US.

Winely, a Dunedin-based tech startup, has recently closed a capital funding round of $2m to help its mission towards bringing revolutionary technology to the global winemaking industry.

Marama Labs, a deep-tech sensor and data analytics company based in Wellington, New Zealand has received NZ$500,000 in funding from Quidnet Ventures, a New Zealand-based venture capital fund with operations in Auckland, NZ, San Francisco and New York. Marama Labs has developed CloudSpec: the world's first UV-Vis spectrophotometer that can simultaneously measure absorption, extinction, and scattering spectra of clear and turbid liquids. This round brings Marama Labs's total raised to date to NZ$2M.

Litmaps, a Science software company based in Wellington, New Zealand has received NZ$125,000 in funding from Quidnet Ventures, a New Zealand-based venture capital fund with operations in Auckland, NZ, San Francisco and New York. Litmaps has built a research navigation platform that allows scientists, engineers, and other experts to more rapidly and deeply navigate peer reviewed research and patent literatures, accelerating breakthroughs and allowing them to work more effectively in R&D teams.

RosterLab, a newly-formed rostering software company, has closed NZ $150,000 in Pre-Seed funding from Quidnet Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund based in New Zealand. The NZ $500,000 total round was led by Matū Fund, with participation from Quidnet Ventures and the University of Auckland Investors' Fund.

In Auckland, PowerON, a spin-out company developing research originating from the Biomimetics Lab at the Auckland Engineering Institute, is aiming to become the world centre of research into dielectric elastomer technology.

Investors have shown their faith in this local vision of turning soft robotics into reality, with PowerON’s $3.1 million fundraising in September 2021 oversubscribed. Early investors IP Group, Matū Fund, and the University of Auckland Inventors’ Fund were joined by new investors Booster Investment Management, NZ Growth Capital Partners, Quidnet Ventures, K1W1, Greenlight Ventures NZ, Pacific Channel, and Angel Investors Marlborough.