New+Improved Ventures: Building the next generation of martech success stories

Venture studio New+Improved Ventures is all about making great work with great people, says Co-founder Antony Ede.

The studio, launched on November 27, formalises several years of work between TRA and Previously Unavailable. The aim? To build the next generation of martech success stories, backed by both industry experts and venture capital.

New+Improved is hitting the ground running with a $ 6 million investment from its group of six founders and from TRA, Previously Unavailable and Icehouse Ventures.

This will fund the studio to build one to two new startups a year.

Keys to the car

Fellow Co-founder Simon Pound says a venture studio is essentially a company that starts companies.

“We create the concept, work with customers to pre-sell the product to gather interest, then we hire the first team, including the founder and off it goes into the world,” he explains.

“We help those founders, but we progressively do less as their company grows. By creating version one and providing experts in idea validation, asset production, networks and connections throughout the team, we essentially give them [the founders]the keys to a running car.”

Both Pound and Ede acknowledge it is hard to be a founder – it can be isolating and full of challenges – so having a community wrapped around you in the early days that can provide experience and investment greatly increases the chance of success.

“Majority of businesses fail because of product-market fit, so this is us ultimately trying to solve a way to identify product-market fit and generate it for a business,” says Ede.

The second part is finding the right people to become the founders of the startup who will be able to continue its trajectory, he adds.

The venture studio model is an interesting one, currently used overseas and starting to gain traction here in Aotearoa – Australasian studio Paloma is a good example, says Pound.

He hopes that traction continues, with international evidence showing that companies started by a venture studio are more successful in terms of its launch and business trajectory compared to its counterparts.

Working together

New+Improved was launched by its Co-founders, Ede, Simon Pound, James Hurman, Phoebe Devine, Connon Bray, and Chris Paykel, at an event on November 27 in Auckland.

The group have worked together on setting up brand tracking company Tracksuit in 2021 and customer insights platform Ideally last year.

Pound feels very lucky – “It’s rare for a group to work together so closely over many years, experience such growth and then still want to keep working together,” he laughs.

Special elements

It’s the group’s varied experience from across the sector that really lends a special element to what New+Improved has to offer, says Pound.

With experts from across marketing, branding, research and data, we can see the gaps, adds Ede.

“It separates us from other models – like accelerators or incubators – we generate out concepts then work with the team we hire as Co-founders rather than financial support or as a coach.”

He says that the Co-founders have deep ties across Australia and New Zealand, so have a good steer on what the pain points are and what will be most helpful for marketers.

Pound adds that the studio is enhanced by its partnership with Icehouse Ventures.

“It’s exciting, we’re specialists in starting things and we’re partnering with specialists in scale. That’s a cool and unique part of this.”

Making marketing fun

It’s too early to say what the first venture will be, but Ede teases that it will be due for launch in quarter one of 2025.

Rapid changes in AI mean these new tools and developments will also shape the solutions New+Improved produce.

“It’s an exciting time to be doing new things. AI is really well-positioned to make significant changes and we are keen to be at the core of those changes,” says Ede.

All in all, New+Improved’s goal is to make a marketer’s role easier and more fun, he adds.

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