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.
Some told me that work which should have taken a year was taking up to eight, because the facilities were not there. Companies were leaving the region and the country. Talent and money were leaving with them. Some gave up equity to access the facilities they needed.
That research produced a fifteen-point list of site requirements. PDIHQ has been planned in response to that list.
Sam Kumar Sundarraj, Founder and CEO
What PDIHQ is building
PDIHQ is a proposed purpose-built innovation facility planned for Wellington. It is designed to fill the stage between research or prototype and successful scale-up, giving late-phase STEM start-ups, SMEs, and university spin-outs private offices, specialist laboratories, and engineering workshops, with mentoring, workshops, training, and STEM educational programmes for youth.
PDIHQ is an industry-led proposal intended to be delivered through public and private support. Residents access the facility and its programmes while retaining their intellectual property and equity. They commercialise, scale, and move into independent premises when ready.
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 few product development consultancies in New Zealand that walks clients from concept through mass manufacturing to in-market support: market research, concept creation, design, prototyping, production, and beyond. For more than a decade 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 played an important role in New Zealand's innovation system. It was disestablished in 2025, with key functions redistributed across MBIE and other parts of the science and technology system. These reforms changed the support landscape, but they do not resolve the shortage of dedicated, long-term commercialisation premises for late-phase physical-product companies.
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 is designed to fill that gap: a proposed public-private initiative for late-phase start-ups and SMEs. No equity dilution. Specialist laboratories and engineering workshops. Long-term residency.
Partners and supporters
The Wellington Regional Economic Development Plan identifies a STEM product commercialisation innovation space as a key regional initiative, with Pro-Dev as its lead. PDIHQ is proposed to deliver 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.
Willis Bond has committed $10 million towards construction of the purpose-built facility 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 FTE jobs supported by year five and $29 million cumulative contribution to Hutt Valley GDP over the first five years, and 330 FTE jobs supported by year five and $181 million cumulative contribution to New Zealand GDP over the first five years.
The investor pack contains the prospectus, financial model, risk register, and letters of support.