Kami, an edtech application, has won the Exporter of the Year to the USA under $1million award in the 2017 American Chamber of Commerce DHL Express Success and Innovation Awards. Kami founders and Velocity alumni Hengjie Wang and Alliv Samson are honoured to receive the award “It’s a great moment for a tech startup to be recognized by the American Chamber of Commerce”.

The US market offers an important opportunity for New Zealand tech companies. These awards showcased New Zealand’s innovation talent who are taking on the world with their products and services.

Hengjie, a University of Auckland engineering graduate, and Alliv, a graduate of the Faculty of Arts both participated in the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Velocity programme. They were Velocity $100k finalists in 2012 with Notable.ac which has now become Kami. Both have remained involved with Velocity sharing their knowledge with future entrepreneurs, as speakers, mentors and judges.

“Velocity connected us with our early advisors and investors and has helped us to be more confident in building and growing our company.”

For Kami the US market is an exciting opportunity, it offers them a potential customer base with fast adoption and integration. After focusing for their first two years on product and growth, it was mid last year that Kami started to put their energy into building sales.

“Winning the Exporter of the Year to the USA under $1million is a great acknowledgment that we are on the right track to achieving our goals. However, to sustain our fast growth we are constantly on a look out for driven undergraduates to join our Auckland based team.”

Kami founders and Velocity alumni Hengjie Wang and Alliv Samson.