WNT Ventures Deep Tech Panel & Mixer
13 October 2026
- Scale up
- Investors and enablers
- Innovators
- Early/growth stage
Hear how deep tech founders find their first market. Panel "Finding Your Beachhead Market" features the CEOs from Opo Bio, Phasefoam and Goodair Nosebuds, followed by networking drinks.
WNT Ventures, alongside the MacDiarmid Institute and Dodd Walls Institute, invites you to the Deep Tech Panel & Mixer.
This evening event brings together the Deep Tech ecosystem to share learnings from the imperfect process of finding your first commercial market.
Moderated by Niamh Given, WNT Senior Investment Manager, the panel features founders from scaling deep tech companies — Olivia from Opo Bio, Sam from Phasefoam, and Kerri from Goodair Nosebuds — sharing their market validation journeys. These founders will share their honest, unpolished experience of navigating early market entry: the choices they made, the false starts along the way, and what actually worked.
The panel is followed by a mixer, giving attendees the chance to connect with founders, researchers, and the wider deep tech community over drinks and conversation.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Free
Kerry McMaster
CEO at Goodair Nosebuds
My Better Breathing Ltd creates medical breathing technologies designed to reinstate and augment your body’s natural ability to help itself. Seamlessly integrating with your lifestyle, providing sustainable solutions for long term optimal breathing health.
Olivia Ogilvie
CEO & Co-Founder at Opo Bio
Co-founder and CEO at Opo Bio. We make the world's best performing collagen for cosmetic and medical applications. Fully functional, triple helix, no endotoxins.
Sam Farid
CEO & Founder at PhaseFoam
I am an accomplished leader with over 23 years of experience in business transformation and technology change.
I have experience in setting up startups, securing funding, managing IP and patents, establishing and managing boards, and executing strategies to commercialize new and innovative technologies.
Additionally, I have extensive expertise in portfolio and project delivery, managing large and complex transformational programs.
Newmarket Innovation Precinct
298 Khyber Pass Road
Newmarket
Auckland 1023
The Newmarket Innovation Precinct (NIP) is a R&D hub at the University of Auckland’s Newmarket campus. NIP provides coworking and lab spaces for startups and other companies who need to connect with university researchers and student talent.