Growing a culture of innovation
31 August 2026
A small college with big ambitions: PreSeed funding is powering a growing pipeline of health innovations from the New Zealand College of Chiropractic – and helping build the culture and capability to bring more ideas to life.
When you think of research commercialisation in Aotearoa, a chiropractic college might not be the first organisation that comes to mind. But at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic (NZCC), a deliberate focus on turning research into useful solutions is putting promising health innovations on a path to real-world use.
"It goes back to 2020 during Covid, when we completely relooked at how we think about our research – not just publishing papers, but asking how our ideas could become solutions that will benefit clinicians and patients," says Imran Khan Niazi, Dean of Research at NZCC.
"We wanted to create an environment where researchers are motivated and empowered, so from the start we gave full ownership of intellectual property to the inventing team and encouraged them to take their ideas further."
Dr Imran Khan Niazi and Dr Nitika Kumari at an innovators' team meeting discussing brain signals.
KiwiNet and PreSeed funding became an important part of the journey, giving NZCC access to early-stage funding and commercialisation expertise. Its first project, Minda, was soon followed by BodySync, Symply and MindEdge, with each project building experience and confidence around the commercialisation process.
The results are starting to speak for themselves. BodySync, a hands-free system that captures patient conversations and generates structured clinical notes, has been exclusively licensed to an industry partner. Symply, a wearable health tech platform measuring stress, recovery and resilience, has been spun out with four employees and is securing venture capital funding to support its path to market. Chronic pain management system Minda is in advanced negotiations with an international company, while MindEdge is progressing towards patent protection.
In 2024, the College established Vitality Innovations as its technology transfer office to build the frameworks and culture around this growing commercialisation activity.
For David White, Head of Innovation & Commercialisation, KiwiNet has been an important part of the journey – not just providing funding, but challenging the team to strengthen its thinking.
"KiwiNet are champions. They've always supported my projects but, just as importantly, they give critical feedback. They'll call you out if you haven't done the work, but also support you to sort it out because they can see the passion and the potential behind an idea."
"If it wasn't for PreSeed funding, many New Zealand deep tech companies simply wouldn't exist. Those ideas would have withered on the vine as quirky lab experiments without the support to unlock their true value," says David.
Dr David White, Head of Innovation & Commercialisation at the College.
NZCC is now building on its commercialisation journey. Gait & Balance – a project which started life at AUT – is now moving forward under NZCC's leadership, while the College is increasingly hearing from people outside the organisation who want to learn from its experience.
For David and Imran, that spirit of sharing is fundamental to New Zealand's commercialisation community.
"I've stood on the shoulders of giants with all the people who have supported me. There's no value in experience unless you share it. If you keep it a trade secret, it will die with you," says David.
For NZCC, the journey is still in its early stages but the direction of travel is clear. "We're a small player, but we've got big ambitions to change the world," says Imran.
PreSeed funding has helped NZCC prove that commercialisation can work for a small research organisation – and helped them build the experience, confidence and infrastructure to do it again.
