Supporting founders.
Strengthening the ecosystem.

For over 22 years, The Factory has supported ambitious founders and helped build startup capability in Manawatū and across Aotearoa.

The Factory was established in 2003 as the Bio Commerce Centre and has, since its inception, been owned and governed by the Manawatū Entrepreneurship and Investment Trust, a charitable trust created to support entrepreneurship and innovation in the region. The Trust continues to own and oversee The Factory today.

For over two decades, The Factory has supported startup founders and helped build regional innovation capability. Our work has included designing and delivering founder support programmes, growing successful pilots into multi region initiatives, and evolving our approach as the needs of founders and the wider ecosystem have changed.

Through this work, we have helped establish initiatives such as Sprout Agritech, which began as an agritech accelerator delivered by The Factory and has since grown into an independent organisation. We have also founded and continue to facilitate the Manawatū Investment Group (MIG), supporting early stage investment and the development of a strong local angel investor community.

Alongside programme delivery, we have brought founders, investors, and ecosystem partners together to showcase regional innovation, strengthen connections, and contribute to national initiatives, including delivery under the Startup Aotearoa framework.

Today, based in Manawatū, The Factory works with founders and investors across Aotearoa. We continue to provide founder first support to help ideas be validated, accelerated, and scaled, while working closely with ecosystem partners to ensure support is practical, coordinated, and effective.

Our Story

Our values

  • We support founders who are attempting things that are new, challenging, or unproven. Being bold means backing ambition with action, making informed decisions, and having the courage to support ideas with the potential to create meaningful impact. We are comfortable working in uncertainty and help founders move forward with confidence.

  • We champion founders, teams, and the wider ecosystem by showing up, advocating strongly, and doing what we say we will do. This means providing honest support, backing people through challenges, and acting as a trusted partner for founders and stakeholders alike. We take pride in helping others succeed.

  • We believe strong outcomes come from strong connections. We work collaboratively as a team and play an active role in connecting founders, investors, mentors, and partners across the ecosystem. By fostering meaningful relationships locally, regionally, and nationally, we help reduce friction and create clearer pathways for founders to grow.

Our Team

  • Nick Gain

    CEO

    Nick leads The Factory to help founders validate, accelerate, and scale across New Zealand. With over a decade in the startup ecosystem, he has worked across national and regional programmes and helped design new initiatives that meet founder needs as the ecosystem evolves. Nick brings a practical, founder focused approach that creates focus and momentum. He has founded several startups and is an angel investor. He is a Director of MIG Angels, a certified Leanstack Coach, and a committee member for Momentum Manawatū and the Earle Creativity and Development Trust.

  • Benji Pritchard

    HEAD OF STARTUPS & PARTNERSHIPS

    Benji works closely with founders from early validation through to growth. Across his work, he has coached over 500 founders and brings deep experience designing and delivering high-impact startup programmes, informed by his own experience as a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple startups.

  • Stephen McPhail

    INVESTMENT ADVISOR

    Stephen is an active angel investor. His 30+ years in investment and start-up businesses includes co-founding 2 start-ups which both listed on the ASX. He has mentored many founders and assisted raising capital for many businesses. His past includes running NZ’s then leading investment bank (Morel &Co) focussed on the tech space. This included managing the exit of successful tech business owners through M&A transactions.

  • Guy Phillips

    STARTUP COACH

    Guy is a VC-backed founder and GTM operator who helps early-stage teams turn strong products into repeatable growth. He’s guided companies from first customer conversations through launch, built strategic stakeholder partnerships, secured grant programmes, and driven adoption and expansion post-launch.

  • Sabrina Nagel

    STARTUP COACH

    Sabrina works closely with founders at the idea and early-stage phase, supporting market validation, customer insight and capability building. She brings over 14 years of experience across startups and education, including founding her own primary school, with a strong focus on the intersection of education, entrepreneurship and sustainability.

  • Gerard Searle

    FINANCE MANAGER

    Gerard is a Chartered Accountant with over 35 years of experience across accounting and finance, having worked with businesses across a wide range of industries and founded his own accounting practice in 1997, where he built a reputation for trusted financial advice, compliance expertise, and long-term client support, with a particular passion for working with startups and those who support them to turn innovative ideas into sustainable ventures.

  • Mauren Searle

    ACCOUNTS & ADMINISTRATION

    Maureen looks after accounts and administration at The Factory, bringing a strong foundation in accounting, payroll, and business administration developed in a chartered accountant’s office and through years of supporting SMEs and organisations across different industries, with a practical, people-focused approach that keeps everything running smoothly behind the scenes.

  • Colin Groves

    CHAIRPERSON

    Coal’s three passions are agritech, technology and sport, and he enjoys mentoring the next generation of NZ startup CEOs and directors. Originally from Cornwall, he brings global connections and perspective, with sharp insight into early-stage startups. Coal spent 25 years as Director of M&A at Tetra Laval across Sweden, the UK and Switzerland, supporting Tetra Pak and DeLaval. He has also worked with Informix Software in Silicon Valley and Johnson & Johnson. A chartered accountant, he is an entrepreneurial strategist and angel investor with multiple directorships and advisory roles.

  • Sarah Laurence

    BOARD MEMBER

    Maintaining strong involvement in corporate and non-profit governance. Also an experienced leader with a demonstrated history in the logistics and supply chain sector. Particularly passionate about areas of personal growth, leadership & development and continuous improvement. My practical skills are varied thanks to the nature of business ownership, I’ve worn many hats including general management, HR, strategy & planning, finance, sustainability, sales, marketing and operations.

  • Dan Khan

    BOARD MEMBER

    Seasoned tech founder and executive with 25 plus years’ experience launching and scaling high growth startups, from early online communities to venture inception, rapid growth, and exit. He specialises in helping startups go from zero to one, building strong foundations and guiding teams through the messy, rewarding work of execution. A community builder and future focused operator, he works across startup ecosystems, AI, and emerging models shaping how people collaborate and create value. Based in New Zealand, he has co founded and led leading startup support programmes and is an Edmund Hillary Fellow.