NZ deep tech startup crowned world leaders in IP innovation

Above: Simon Rowell, Intellectual Property Lead for amaea accepting the 2024 Licensing Executives Society International (LESI’s) Innovation Award for Small Enterprises in Madrid.

On 30 April 2024, NZ deep tech start-up, amaea took to the world stage to accept the 2024 Licensing Executives Society International (LESI’s) Innovation Award for Small Enterprises. The prestigious award recognised amaea’s approach to IP management and licensing to support long-term market innovation and differentiation.

“Receiving this award is a great honour. It’s a testament to over a decade of intense research and development by a dedicated team, while recognising the value of adopting a licensing strategy designed to protect our IP, but also drive our go-to-market strategy forward,” says Nidhie Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer for amaea.

Kumar boils their winning strategy down to three factors. “We have a genuinely compelling, disruptive technology platform. We protected our IP by trade secret, which by its nature, is very closed. Then we executed our model in such a way that we could still leverage open innovation. The trifecta we created not only helped develop our product portfolio but it accelerated market adoption.”

amaea is the world’s first organisation to develop a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) that is able to selectively capture target molecules from liquids, at scale.

“As we were developing our MIPs, we identified an opportunity to apply the technology to wine production - specifically, remediating smoke impacted wine with the selective removal of the molecular compounds responsible for smoke flavour and aroma.

This led to an opportunity in 2020 to negotiate a mutually beneficial development and commercialisation agreement with a leading US wine producer. This partnership has helped validate, test and expand our portfolio offering into areas such as, balancing bitterness and astringency in wine, through to developing low impact and more sustainable alternatives to cold and heat stabilisation winemaking practices.”

To garner further market validation and ensure market fit, amaea also fostered a network of beta partners which includes top wineries from within target territories.

“By having LESI, who are world renowned specialists in this field, acknowledge our market-led approach to IP management, recognises the hard work our team have put in to reach the point we are at today. Each step has been intentional and has required open and transparent communication both internally and externally.

We are proud to have put NZ businesses on the world stage and as practical innovators at heart, I am excited to see our country continue to explore and push the boundaries in business and technology.”

Past winners of the LESI Innovation Award for Small Enterprises include Circ, pioneers of textile-to-textile recycling and Lithoz, world market leader for industrial 3D printing of high-performance technical ceramics.