Success in Deep Tech – It Takes a Village

When NASDAQ listed Teradyne announced it was buying Quantifi Photonics last month, it was the end of a 20-plus-year journey for entrepreneur Professor John Harvey, and the second time his colleague, Professor Cather Simpson had had a hand in such international commercial success.  Does Professor Simpson simply have the “Midas touch”?

With a market capitalisation reported to be more than US$14Bn and revenues of some US$2.7Bn in 2023, Teradyne designs, develops, and manufactures automated test equipment and advanced robotics systems. It announced the purchase of privately held Quantifi Photonics on 10 March and is expected to close the transaction in Q2 2025. Quantifi supplies photonics test and measurement solutions, predominantly in the telecommunications market.  

Until 2020, Quantifi was known as Coherent Solutions, itself spun out of Southern Photonics, a company built upon cutting edge photonics research developed at the University of Auckland. Southern Photonics was founded by Professor John Harvey, one of the instigators of Te Whai Ao — Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies. While this is the origin story, credit where credit is due, the Quantifi Photonics team worked long and hard to build the business to the point of last month’s sale.  

A history of success

That transaction follows the first big acquisition of a University of Auckland originated photonics company, Engender, in 2018. The sperm sorting company was bought by CRV International, the Netherlands-based animal genetics cooperative with a reported turnover today of some Euro$170m. Engender was founded by Professor Simpson.

Professor Simpson is associated with both transactions. She combines multi-disciplinary research excellence with commercial savvy and is a highly valued partner at venture capital business, Pacific Channel. Since an original $2m investment in 2021, Pacific Channel provided further funding, supporting Quantifi Photonics’ growth, technological development, and strategic expansion.

Pacific Channel Managing Director, Brent Ogilvie says his company worked closely with Quantifi to help shape its strategy, and Professor Simpson played a big part in that.  

“Our initial investment was informed by a deep understanding of the company’s underlying technology advantage and its potential to lead the photonic IC testing space, with significant contributions from Professor Cather Simpson, who’s globally leading expertise in photonics helped inform our conviction to invest,” he says.  

The Professor has two other start-ups to her name, Luminoma and Orbis Diagnostics, both of which originated from the University of Auckland’s Photon Factory and the Dodd-Walls Centre. Luminoma delivers non-invasive laser diagnosis of skin cancer and Orbis is developing a new method of point-of-care clinically accurate blood testing.  

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Behind the achievement

So what has been the secret to Professor Simpson’s success? Does she have a laser up her sleeve that she waves like a magic wand, is it her high-achiever personality, or is there something more?

Although the laser is appealing, the most probable answer lies somewhere between the last two. Just like the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child”, innovators are clear that it takes a healthy ecosystem to create, grow and sell a company. Professor Simpson is not only a key player in the New Zealand technology ecosystem as researcher, founder and VC partner, but she has helped shape the system, as well as the infrastructure and skills needed for it to deliver.

Cather Simpson founded the Photon Factory at the University of Auckland in 2010 after arriving in New Zealand from the United States some three years earlier. She also shared the Deputy-Director Industry role at Dodd-Walls and now sits on that Board. The Photon Factory was built to face outwards and engage with business and startups. But spinning out companies from the organisation was completely unanticipated.

“I was originally doing applied work to cover my ‘fundamental habit’, and I used to apologise for that. Understanding how light transmits energy and information excited me. I’d done that for ten years, but I didn’t know what it would be good for. But I began to realise the intrinsic value of applied research, how it could help people tomorrow and solve underlying problems. It really fired my rocket,” says Professor Simpson.

By the end of 2018 when she stood down, the Photon Factory was an unqualified success, well funded, with the infrastructure it needed, more than 50 researchers involved and multiple ideas developed. Colleagues told her she was lucky with the spin-outs she oversaw, but she’s clear there was much more than a magic wand at play.

“Reflecting, it was my background of 10,000 hours of fundamental research at Case Western Reserve University that enabled me to apply it to business challenges. People have to learn how to ask the right questions and how to answer them,” she says.  

It takes a village

Cather Simpson, John Harvey, Pacific Channel, the Dodd-Walls Centre, the University of Auckland and its Photon Factory have all been vital players in the wider Kiwi village that has raised the child called Southern Photonics, the parent of 24-year-old, global player, Quantifi. The exit is proof that New Zealand can transfer fundamental research to applied research, but there are multiple drivers at play and all must be in place to succeed.

Last year, Te Whai Ao — Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies contributed to a report on the Australasian market for this deep tech. It found that although the industry has grown to AU$6bn and now employs more than 34,000 people across both countries, it is behind competitors.

Director of the Centre, Frédérique Vanholsbeeck, says commercialisation success stories such as Quantifi Photonics’ are enabled thanks to long-term investment in a strong photonics and quantum technology ecosystem.

“The global value of photonics enabled products is projected to have exceeded US$2.39 trillion in 2023, so the opportunity is massive. We need New Zealand business, government and academia to collaborate in developing a strategy to leverage our photonics and quantum research excellence,” she says.

And there’s a final lesson in technology transfer from Professor Simpson, who was able to take leave from the University of Auckland to work as Engender’s Chief Science Officer.  

“Be adaptable, on two levels. One is to adapt yourself to your environment, the other is to adapt the environment to you. New Zealand is fertile ground for growing deep-tech solutions to important problems.  I’m sure as we continue to lean into our ambitions and strengthen the connections between our deep-tech investment and deep-tech innovation and research communities, there will be many more Engenders and Quantifis arising.”

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