22 more firms approved for around $32m in Callaghan grants

Crown agency Callaghan Innovation has approved 22 more firms (see list below) to receive taxpayer money under its R&D Growth Grant programme (introduced by the government in the 2013 Budget, which made a total of $566 million or $141.5 million a year over four years available to the programme).

R&D Growth Grants provide 20% public co-funding for qualifying firms’ eligible R&D expenditure, with an expanded cap of $5 million a year - up from the previous scheme’s $2.4 million. After two years, recipients can apply for a two-year extension.

Funding is paid out retrospectively, and depends on what the qualifying firms ultimately spend on R&D. Callaghan expects the latest round to see around $32 million allocated over the next three years.

One recipient, Serko [NZX:SKO], is expecting to receive $4.2 million over the next three years, all going to plan, according to a post by its CEO Darrin Grafton (Callaghan itself does not release any details of individual grants).

GeoOp said it had received a grant of up to $1.1 million over three years and it will use the money to innovate faster and service more customers globally. R&D had been key to the company since its inception in 2009, said CTO Jamie West. 

Vadacom, which has developed a mobile-friendly cloud phone system, also won a $100,000 R&D grant to help develop more languages and sell it further afield than its current 500 customers in New Zealand and Australia. Along with the grant, the nine-year-old company secured $1 million from private equity investor Nightingale Partners, which has put Aaron Ridgway and Lindsay Phillips in as chief executive and board chairman, respectively. Former CEO and co-founder Igor Portugal has shifted to the CTO role. Nightingale's Ridgway and Phillips collaborated on the NZ cloud-communications success, Datasquirt, growing the company to a $17 million sale to Silicon Valley’s LiveOps.

The latest round means that a total of 110 companies have received growth grants worth $292 million since they were introduced last year. Callaghan Innovation also provides r&d project grants for smaller companies and those who haven't done r&d in the past, along with graduate grants. All up, 832 high tech companies have gained funding since February last year.

The National Party's manifesto indicated it would allocate another $20 million per annum to the existing $141.5 million annually available for R&D grants.  

Callaghan had a close call at the election (or maybe not that close, given the result); Labour had promised to take an axe to the agency and what it saw as a pick-a-winner approach. The party wanted to re-introduced a 12.5% across-the-board R&D tax break and accelerated depreciation.

The latest companies to be approved for R&D Growth Grants are involved in a wide range of industries, from aviation and audio to horticulture and online travel software.

They are:

• Atlantis Healthcare Group Ltd
• Buckley Systems Limited
• Core Technology
• CRV Limited
• Cubic Defence New Zealand Limited
• Escea Ltd
• GeoOp Limited
• Kahne Ltd
• NEC New Zealand Limited
• Pacific Aerospace Limited
• Phitek Systems Limited
• Plant Research (NZ) Limited
• PQ Blackwell Licensing Limited
• RJ Hill Laboratories Limited
• Serato Inc LP
• Serko Limited
• Silverstripe Limited
• The Tarn Group Limited
• Technopak Limited
• Telogis Limited
• Vadacom Limited
• Vital Foods Processors Limited

BusinessDesk receives assistance from Callaghan Innovation to foster reporting of the commercialisation of innovation.