en.Wedoany.com Reported - Three University of Auckland graduates have founded Hyades, a company developing an AI-based geospatial data processing system, which has secured NZ$1.5 million in funding and gained support from two prominent New Zealand entrepreneurs.
Co-founders Ashin Alex, Sam Kurian, and Jimin Seo stated that insurance, agriculture, defense, climate science, and mining are Hyades' target sectors. For example, an insurance company simulating future flood, cyclone, or wildfire risks in a region would need to manually stitch together multiple data sources such as drone footage, satellite imagery, and historical records—a process that could take months. Hyades' AI platform reduces processing time to days by converting data from different sources into a single "language" recognizable by machine learning, and can automatically update models as factors like climate change.
The company's product is still in its early "alpha" development stage but has already attracted a prominent U.S. company in geospatial data and AI as a development partner, whose name has not yet been disclosed.
Of the NZ$1.5 million in funding, NZ$1.1 million comes from a pre-seed round led by Icehouse Ventures, with Sir Stephen Tindall's K1W1 following. Icehouse Ventures now holds a 19% stake in Hyades, while K1W1 holds 4%. Additionally, Hyades has received NZ$400,000 from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) through the "New R&D" program previously managed by Callaghan Innovation.
Icehouse Ventures principal Bex Gidall commented that the founding team is "greater than the sum of its parts," with Alex skilled at articulating a vision and attracting followers, Kurian being an outstanding technical founder, and Seo possessing the ability to translate complex technology into accessible language. The pre-seed funding will be used to secure more enterprise co-design partners, hire an AI engineering expert, and prepare for a broader platform launch.
The startup's inception stemmed from a chance encounter. Alex sat behind Kurian in a physics class and noticed his self-built AI note-taking tool could integrate text, images, and charts while syncing across devices, leading to their collaboration. Alex later met Seo at the University of Auckland's annual "Vanguard" program, funded and led by Just Water and Just Life Group founder Tony Falkenstein, which organizes 15 to 20 students to visit Silicon Valley companies. During the trip, after hearing Alex and Seo's startup plans, Falkenstein became an angel investor in Hyades. The itinerary also included a visit to Allbirds' San Francisco office, where they met co-founder and director Tim Brown. Brown later returned to Auckland to meet the three founders and became a Hyades investor as a venture partner through Icehouse.
