Investment #13: RosterLab

We are excited to announce the most recent addition to the Matū Fund investment portfolio, RosterLab, based on research conducted at the University of Auckland. 

The newly formed company successfully closed their pre-seed venture capital investment raise, led by Matū Fund alongside Quidnet Ventures and the University of Auckland Inventors’ Fund. The $500K investment will support the company’s development of software applications and initial product launch to customers within the New Zealand healthcare market.

RosterLab is a software company that offers an automatic rostering platform to a variety of high-intensity sectors, including healthcare providers. The core technology seeks to address weaknesses in existing rostering solutions that are unable to account for staffing complexity, and enables the rapid generation of optimised rosters that comply with challenging requirements at scale. RosterLab is initially targeting healthcare clients such as hospitals and aged care facilities where poor staffing compliance incurs direct costs associated with time and labour inefficiencies. 

The underlying IP was borne out of co-founder Isaac Cleland’s PhD thesis in Engineering Science, and was recognised for its success in the International Nurse Rostering Competition. Along with co-founders Daniel Ge and Sunny Feng, the team won the Velocity $100K Challenge in 2020 and has since completed the VentureLab programme at the University of Auckland’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The investors are looking forward to working closely with the team as they look to launch their first product in the domestic market and develop plans for expansion into overseas industries.

About Matū Fund – Matū is a venture capital fund investing in early-stage science and technology commercialisation from education and research institutions and the private sector. As an open and evergreen fund, Matū takes a long-term investment view and is aimed at turning ground-breaking ideas into globally focused, IP-rich companies. Matū provides intelligent capital with active governance, executive management, operational support, and mentorship for founding and executive teams: www.matu.co.nz

About Quidnet Ventures – Quidnet Ventures is an early stage fund investing in New Zealand-based founders building impactful companies. Quidnet Ventures focuses on taking New Zealand innovation to the world and takes an active role in helping its portfolio companies succeed by leveraging its team’s global, multi-sector network as its portfolio companies position themselves to enter international markets. Quidnet Ventures provides unrivaled access to a global network across academia, government affairs, venture capital and industry: www.quidnetventures.com

About University of Auckland Inventors’ Fund – The University of Auckland Inventors’ Fund is an evergreen, open-ended $20 million investment fund owned and managed by UniServices, the commercialisation and research impact company wholly owned by the University of Auckland. The fund provides pre-seed and seed capital for University of Auckland spin-outs: www.uniservices.co.nz