Published on the 18/09/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson

Designing a better way to move data around has won US$120,000 in expert advice and technology…

Wellington has again asserted its growing reputation as the Silicon Valley of New Zealand with startup Eight Wire winning IBM’s first ever SmartCamp held in Auckland. The company, which founder Jason Gleason described as a specialist in migrating data between disparate databases, will receive three months’ mentoring and access to technology solutions from IBM to the value of US$120,000.

IBM’s SmartCamps are held around the world with the idea to open up opportunities for startups to scale quickly, particularly by taking advantage of cloud-based technologies. The Auckland event saw six minute pitches from five finalists, with Eight Wire emerging as the winner.

In his presentation, Gleason said the idea for the company emerged from a classic ‘Extract, Transform and Load’ problem hampering a business intelligence project on which he was working. “Moving the data was so awful that I didn’t want to work in BI any longer,” he said.

Instead of quitting, he built a software solution – called Conductor – to automate data movement. The result is a solution which he said saves companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in moving data ‘any to any’ between the various database products on the market today. Eight Wire’s pricing model is based on outcomes; customers pay per line of data moved.

Addressing the finalists, country manager Rob Lee said IBM is looking to help disruptive businesses grow. “Every New Zealander has a vested interest in your success and it is remarkable to see the progress of some of these businesses, particularly at the recent High Tech Awards.”

As the local winner, Eight Wire now has an opportunity to be selected to progress to the regional finals, the winner of which will be invited to IBM’s SmartCamp Global Finals in San Francisco in early 2016.

This was the first SmartCamp event to be held in New Zealand as part of IBM’s Global Entrepreneur Program, a series of worldwide events in which expert advisors – including venture capitalists, serial entrepreneurs, and technical specialists – mentor participating teams.

The other 2015 finalists are:

• PowerStats which offers a business intelligence toolset.
• uReview which provides personnel performance review software for small businesses.
• vHealth which provides an online video e-health service.
• Vizbot Solutions, which automates building consent application processes.

More information on SmartCamp.