We are thrilled to have advised automated quoting platform Kwotimation on its recent pre-seed capital raise. The venture capital firm Hillfarrance led the $500,000 round, followed by investors including Flying Kiwi Angels, Angel HQ and Humi Group.

Kwotimation’s co-founders Josh Faraimo and Jarome Cavubati initially met at school in the Wairarapa and went on to work together for 10 years running the tiling business Tiling.co.nz. It was there that they found a way to automate the quoting process for their business.  Josh recounts customers going from waiting 5 days to receive a quote to waiting 5 minutes, and receiving $370,000 worth of accepted quotes within 2 months.

Both co-founders are proud of their Māori and Pasifika roots, Josh being of Ngāti Toa and Tokelaun descent, and Jarome being of Fijian descent. This made Kwotimation a natural fit for Kōkiri’s 2020 accelerator program where they met their mentor and lead investor Rob Vickery of Hillfarrance.

“Raising this round gives us the freedom to build a platform that will help transform a sector where only approximately 15 per cent of businesses have a website,” Josh says.

“We could have used it to make the business big and crush other tilers, the little guys, but instead we decided to share the software so we could all enjoy and benefit from it.”

Kwotimation intends to use the money raised to expand and scale its platform.  It was a pleasure to advise on Kwotimation’s transition from tradie tilers to tech startup founders and we watch their progress with much interest.