The Validation Lab: Friday office hours
24 October 2025
- Starting Out
Visit the lab to see the birth of a startup in action. Three emerging founders from the 2025 Startup Aotearoa cohort have been selected to spend this Auckland Startup Week validating their venture live on campus.
The selected founders are hosting office hours in the Validation Lab (Pipiri Lane) each day. This is your chance to help an aspiring NZ startup success story grow – share your insight, find out what they're working on, offer your perspective and insight, or make an early connection with a new founder before they break through. Think of this as a week-long hackathon where the output is a really robustly validated problem, solution and/or model.
Busy during the official office hours? No stress – these founders are on-site, working on their ventures all week. Feel free to grab five minutes to chat as you're walking between sessions.
What is Startup Aotearoa?
Startup Aotearoa is a nationwide founder-to-founder mentoring programme, designed to facilliate the transfer of experience, connection between support ecosystems and sharing of hard-earned scare tissue. Ministry of Awesome spearheads this programme across the motu, in partnership with Callaghan and Creative HQ. GridAKL is the delivery partner for Auckland region, with this year's Validation Lab participants selected from the Auckland cohort.
Coming soon
Venue
Pipiri Lane
124 Halsey St, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland 1010
Pipiri Lane isn’t just a place to work or host — it’s a statement. Located in Wynyard Quarter, Auckland’s buzzing innovation hub, it’s New Zealand's first cross-laminated timber work and event space. With a 6 Star Green Star rating, Pipiri Lane is one of Auckland’s most sustainable buildings, representing a rare opportunity to align businesses with innovation, environmental responsibility and forward-thinking design.