Learning is the most important infrastructure.
Rimu Capital backs seed-stage founders building AI-native education technology and knowledge platforms across Australasia. We invest from Auckland because the next generation of learning infrastructure will be built by people who know these classrooms, these curricula, and these learners.
See who we backOur convictions
AI gives teachers leverage, not a replacement.
The most durable EdTech products amplify what skilled teachers do rather than attempting to substitute for them. We back tools that give educators real leverage on the moments that matter most — lesson preparation, formative feedback, and differentiated assessment — so the teacher's professional judgment remains the centre of the learning process.
Assessment is the highest-value layer in education infrastructure.
Every adaptive learning system depends on a signal. The assessment layer — when built as shared infrastructure rather than a bolt-on feature — becomes the API that every other tool in the stack plugs into. Formative assessment data is the richest signal in any learning environment, and almost no EdTech product is using it well. We look for founders who understand this architecturally.
Australasia is structurally positioned to lead.
New Zealand and Australia have high-trust education systems, a strong culture of practitioner-led research, and institutional buyers who are genuinely willing to pilot unproven tools — a combination that is rarer than it sounds. Founders building here carry a structural advantage that capital alone cannot manufacture elsewhere. We are not a Pacific branch office of a fund centred somewhere else. This is where we live and where we invest.
Companies we back
The partners
Hannah Wairua
Founding Partner
Spent five years in education policy advisory at the New Zealand Ministry of Education, then led product at a SaaS company that put its LMS into 3,000 schools across Australasia. Founded Rimu in 2022.
Read bio →James Kopu
Partner
Former CTO at an Auckland edtech company, where he built the adaptive learning engine underpinning personalised maths curricula for 200,000 students. Leads technical diligence and portfolio engineering support.
Read bio →Aroha Mitchell
Principal
Taught secondary school maths for four years before moving into impact investing. Brings a practitioner's instinct for what tools actually change outcomes in a classroom. Originates seed deals across AI-enhanced learning tools and knowledge platforms.
Read bio →From the partners
What Teachers Actually Need from AI
The promise of AI in classrooms keeps getting framed around student outcomes. But the bigger leverage point might be the fifteen minutes of prep teachers do for every hour of teaching.
The Knowledge Infrastructure Decade
We're in the early stages of rebuilding how institutions store, transmit, and certify knowledge. The companies that get the plumbing right will be the dominant infrastructure platform for learning.
Tracing the Australasian EdTech Exit Path
Education Perfect. Kami. Learnosity. Three NZ-originated companies that found global product-market fit. What do their trajectories tell us about the structural advantages of building EdTech from the Pacific?
Building in Australasia?
We back pre-seed and seed-stage founders working at the intersection of AI and education — assessment engines, adaptive learning systems, curriculum infrastructure, knowledge platforms, and language acquisition tools. If that describes what you're building, we'd like to hear from you. We don't require warm introductions.