Hectre raises millions to tackle global fruit waste

When 50 million apples turn to juice, the problem isn’t subtle.

“We have a customer who said that they put around 50 million apples into a single store room,” says Hectre founder and chief executive Matty Blomfield. “They opened that room up seven months later and the fruit had turned to juice. That’s 50 million apples gone.”

The loss wasn’t caused by a storm or disease. It was information failure.

“The reason that happens is a lack of good data on what the quality of the fruit is, if there are any defects and the maturity of the fruit. It’s important to not get that equation wrong.”

For Blomfield, a University of Auckland alumnus who took part in the Velocity programme run by the University’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), that gap between physical product and reliable data has become the central challenge of his career.

Fresh produce is a global industry measured in trillions of dollars, yet much of it still runs on partial information and delayed reporting. Fruit may be grown in one country, stored for months, and sold into volatile markets. By the time problems show up, the value is already lost.

Founded in Auckland in 2017, Hectre is building tools to change that. Using AI and computer vision, its technology captures real-time data on fruit size, colour and quality before it enters the packhouse, with up to 99% accuracy. What was once slow and manual can now be done in seconds on a mobile device.

The company now collects data representing 17 billion apples and 37 billion cherries each year. Revenue is growing at around 100% annually, with 40 staff and customers in 22 countries.

That growth has attracted capital. Hectre recently closed an oversubscribed NZ$12 million Series A round, led by Punakaiki Fund, with existing shareholders including Cultivate Ventures and Nuance following on. Punakaiki Fund's investment has been enabled by a steady inflow of capital via the Government's Active Investor Plus Visa scheme which the fund has been deploying into New Zealand technology companies, including Hectre.

“We originally set out to raise $10 million but the interest was so strong that we extended the round to over $12 million,” says Blomfield. “The size of the investment and the speed with which it was completed shows how well-positioned Hectre is for growth.”

The wider agritech sector is also expanding. A 2025 report by Boston Consulting Group estimates the global agritech market was worth around US$24 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach US$54 billion by 2029, reflecting sustained double-digit growth. Against that backdrop, better data is becoming core infrastructure rather than a competitive edge.

Hectre’s next move is ambitious.

“We’re going to take this new investment to do something that no one in the world has done before. We’re going to use spectroscopy to look at the reflection play on fruit to determine defects and maturity. It’s crazy hard. There’s a reason no one has done it before. We want to be the first to solve it. Up to 40% of fruit can be lost, so the potential impact is enormous.”

In simple terms, spectroscopy analyses how light reflects off fruit to infer internal properties. If successful at scale, it could help growers better predict storage outcomes, match fruit to the right markets and reduce waste before it occurs.

Blomfield describes the long-term ambition as creating a kind of “Bloomberg terminal” for fruit sales: a data platform to support pricing and decision-making across the supply chain.

“As a New Zealander, I have seen how growers and producers seem to work the hardest and get paid the least. The current supply chain is asymmetric in favour of retailers. That’s largely an information and data problem. I believe we can address this for the benefit of everyone – and especially growers.”

Hectre are preparing to knock through their office walls to create a new R&D facility and are looking to hire more staff this year.

With fresh capital, expanded R&D plans and international momentum, Hectre’s focus is now execution: better tools, more customers, and measurable reductions in waste across a global industry that can no longer afford guesswork.