Where PDIHQ came from
In 2022, working in collaboration with WellingtonNZ, I began researching what was holding back New Zealand's STEM sector. I met founders and CEOs of STEM organisations at private events and followed up with one-on-one meetings.
The pattern was clear. Buildings were not fit for purpose. Office space was poor. Lab capabilities were limited. Engineering workshops were either non-existent or limited.
What could be achieved in one year was taking up to eight. Companies were leaving the region and the country. Talent and money were leaving with them. The companies that stayed were giving up equity to access the facilities they needed.
That research produced a fifteen-point list of site requirements. PDIHQ is the answer to that list.
Sam Kumar Sundarraj, Founder and CEO
What PDIHQ is building
PDIHQ is a $10 million purpose-built innovation facility planned for Wellington. The facility will provide late-phase STEM start-ups, SMEs, and university spinoffs with private offices, plug-and-play laboratories, and engineering workshops. Residents will have access to mentoring, workshops, training, and STEM educational programmes for youth.
PDIHQ is structured as a public-private partnership. Residents access the facility and its programmes without giving up equity in their companies.
Founder and CEO
Sam Kumar Sundarraj is Founder and CEO of PDIHQ Limited. Sam is also the founder of Pro-Dev, a product design and manufacturing consultancy he established in 2015. Sam has a background in mechanical engineering and over a decade of experience leading product design and manufacturing programmes for inventors, start-ups, and established companies in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.
Sam has personally funded and led the development of PDIHQ since 2022. He will be located on site, running the facility.
Pro-Dev is a product design and manufacturing consultancy, and one of the very few in New Zealand that walk clients all the way from concept through mass manufacturing to in-market support: market research, concept creation, design, prototyping, production, and beyond. For nearly ten years it has helped inventors, start-ups, and established companies take physical products to market.
Pro-Dev will be co-located inside PDIHQ. That is what makes PDIHQ industry-led rather than government-led: a proven commercialisation playbook, applied to the STEM sector, with the experts in the building.
Advisory Board
CEO at Comprende. Property and compliance management expertise.
Chair at Infometrics and other boards. Governance and market insights.
Former Director of Economic Development, Upper Hutt City Council. Public sector and regional economic development.
A board position is reserved for a STEM industry expert, connecting the board to the sector and the resident pipeline. Appointment underway.
A board position is reserved for iwi representation. Appointment underway.
Why we are building this
For over a decade, Callaghan Innovation was the government's innovation agency, with labs and facilities that STEM companies relied on. The Government disestablished it in 2025. The support those companies and their graduates depended on no longer exists, and the gap it left has widened an already serious shortage.
What remains in New Zealand serves a different need: programmes built for early-stage software start-ups, or facilities that require residents to give up equity in exchange for access. Neither answers what late-phase STEM start-ups, SMEs, and university spinoffs actually need.
PDIHQ fills the gap: a Wellington-based public-private partnership for late-phase start-ups and SMEs. No equity dilution. Plug-and-play labs and engineering workshops. Long-term residency.
Partners and supporters
The Wellington Regional Economic Development Plan names a STEM product commercialisation innovation space as a key regional initiative, with Pro-Dev as its lead. PDIHQ delivers that initiative. The plan is governed by nine mayors, the Greater Wellington Regional Council chair, and six iwi leaders, in partnership with central government.
UHCC has provided PDIHQ with a letter of support dated 28 October 2025, signed by the Chief Executive and the Mayor, and has confirmed PDIHQ as a qualifying tenant under the rates remission agreement running through June 2033.
WellingtonNZ has expressed support for PDIHQ in a letter of support and has co-funded the impact reports behind the business case. PDIHQ's founding research was carried out in collaboration with WellingtonNZ from 2022.
The MacDiarmid Institute has provided PDIHQ with a letter of support, connecting PDIHQ to New Zealand's deep tech and materials science research community across seven universities and a Crown Research Institute.
The WRLC, the union of councils, iwi, and central government for the wider region, has provided PDIHQ with a letter of support fully endorsing the initiative.
Construction partner for the $10 million facility, committed to build at Blue Mountain Campus, Upper Hutt, where KiwiRail and MBIE are anchor tenants of the wider campus.
Independent validation: the Infometrics economic impact study projects 77 full-time jobs and $29 million to Hutt Valley GDP, and 330 full-time jobs and $181 million to NZ GDP at full capacity within five years.
The investor pack contains the prospectus, financial model, risk register, and letters of support.