This is the first of a series of blog posts about some of the outstanding businesses that have received investment from WNT Ventures Fund 1.
For some context, back in early 2014, I teamed up with two other Bay of Plenty-based entrepreneurs, Steve Saunders & Ian Macrae. We partnered with local investors including Quayside Holdings and Enterprise Angels to put in an application to form one of three new Callaghan Innovation-technology incubators. It was to be an important piece in the Bay of Plenty’s emerging innovation ecosystem. The application was successful and we had to think up of a name. At the time, the three of us had our own private interests; Wharf42, Newnham Park & TiDA. WNT was the result.
We invested into Mint Innovation in 2017. Mint utilises a technology platform which uses microorganisms to selectively and rapidly recover precious metals from various low concentration materials under environmentally benign conditions. The process is low cost, recyclable and fully scalable making the ideal solution for recovering value from materials at any scale. A key aspect of the Mint process is the broad spectrum of biosorbents that can be used to selectively recover a variety of metals. This enables recovery of precious metals from a range of resources and remediation of metal contaminated streams.
It’s a very exciting opportunity and a great New Zealand cleantech opportunity. In the recorded session below, Will Barker, Mint co-founder, talks about the company and the progress it is making. It’s a fantastic kiwi story. Enjoy!
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