Maria Jose Alvarez

Maria Jose Alvarez could be said to be in the business of making dreams come true.

MJ, as she is known, is managing partner of WNT Ventures, which helps innovators take years of research or a freshly conceived product and turn it into a commercial success.

The dreams Chilean-born MJ backs are of the “deep-tech” kind, a category that covers advanced materials and manufacturing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, chemistry, physics, robotics, photonics, electronics and quantum computing.

Squarely in that camp is Bspkl – pronounced bespeckle – which makes high-performance catalyst-coated membranes for use in the manufacture of hydrogen fuel cells, a growing source of green energy. Bspkl received WNT backing in 2022.

But perhaps proving that deep tech can have applications of a more everyday kind, another recipient of WNT seed capital was Hairspace. Its SalonX smart hair-cutting device automatically maps, learns and cuts tricky hairstyles, making a customer’s preferred look easily repeatable.

MJ, who joined WNT in 2021 as an investment manager and became a partner in March 2023, has travelled the road from lab to market with her own biotech innovation, which sprang from her studies in biotechnology engineering in Chile.

With two classmates, she founded VidaOX, which extracts antioxidants from wine-making waste for use in food preservation and cosmetics.

Since 2016 MJ has been putting into practice in Aotearoa New Zealand what VidaOX taught her about building a deep-tech company, underpinned by a Masters in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Auckland.

“My time at the university was the base for developing my career here, not only because it gave me domestic credibility among the start-up and innovation community, but also because it provided me with networks that led me to my first two jobs in the field.”

New Zealand has “world-leading science and engineering”, MJ says, and her particular interest is in bringing together STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – innovations with venture capital.

She does so as someone 20 years younger than typical venture capitalists, and as a female from Latin America, making her a rare breed in this country.

In a sphere that is notably homogeneous, she was named a NZ Woman of Influence finalist in 2021 in the diversity category for her work in tech and venture capital.

If she takes inspiration from anyone it’s her mother for instilling in her the value of kindness, honesty, hard work and perseverance, and also for showing her what a vocation looks like.

“I grew up seeing her love her job as a teacher and that influenced me to pursue my passion for science and consequently find my vocation in helping other scientists and entrepreneurs with their ventures. We reflect the people whom we spend our time with and I am fortunate to have grown up around strong women who have influenced how I see the world.”

MJ is intent on carrying that on through her work mentoring early-career women moving from STEM into industry and innovation.

“I’m very proud of that as well as my efforts to increase the number of women going into venture capital and the number of women getting funded. In our third fund at WNT, half of our portfolio companies have a female founder or co-founder, and throughout my career a quarter of all the teams I have worked with have a female founder or co-founder.

“It is extremely important to me to provide representation and use my platform to open doors for other people coming behind me.”

MJ says she never expected her career to move as fast as it has after it kicked off during a three-year stint at UniServices, the University’s commercialisation arm.

“I love everything about what I do but a standout is having the privilege of meeting and working with awesome founders. The beauty of deep tech is that I get to see today the science that will shape our future.”