When Adam and I set out to build Gondola, we knew we had complementary strengths. I brought deep revenue and growth experience, whilst Adam contributed as a domain expert and licensed customs broker. But we also recognised our key vulnerabilities: building enterprise-grade software for critical systems and securing the capital needed to execute our vision.

We experimented with new app development tools like Lovable and Bolt - whilst incredible for building prototypes, you simply can't put those in front of enterprise customers handling millions of lines of data each month with mission-critical systems. We needed something robust, scalable, and built for the enterprise environment our customers operate in - along with the capital to make it happen.

I first learned about Paloma through my brother Nick MacAvoy, who has been part of the Paloma ecosystem (formerly Dovetail) for many years and is now CTO at ChemCloud. His experience gave me invaluable insight into how they operate and the value they bring to founders.

That's when we reached out to Paloma, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions we've made.

From our very first pitch, Paloma's warmth, kindness, and intelligence shone through. These weren't just nice-to-haves for us - kindness is a core value at Gondola, and finding an investor who genuinely embodied that was crucial. The speed of their decision-making was remarkable. We went from sending through our information memorandum to receiving a verbal commitment in just over a month - right before Christmas. For founders who care deeply about time to market, having Paloma's backing meant we had the horsepower to deliver a world-class solution without the typical fundraising delays.

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De-Risking Technical Leadership

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Neither Adam nor I had managed engineers directly, and we recognised that hiring a CTO early could present concentration risk. What impressed us about Paloma was their approach to building software: they have a large technical team that crowd-sources solutions, constantly checking for blind spots and sharing learnings about what tools and approaches work (and which don't).

This gives us a strong technical foundation as new founders, setting us up for success before we fully insource our technical development around the two-year mark. It's like having a technical co-founder with the collective wisdom of an entire engineering organisation.

My brother Nick's journey at ChemCloud perfectly illustrates this model in action. After Paloma built them up over the first two years, ChemCloud successfully transitioned to fully insourcing their R&D with Nick as CTO. One of the unexpected benefits for us is that we now get to work together in the same office - but more importantly, he's a living example of how Paloma's approach creates sustainable, long-term technical leadership.

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Beyond Technical: Complete Partnership

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Paloma is a full-service venture studio in the truest sense. We've tapped into their engineers for development, their designers for user experience, and their strategic guidance on capital raising. They've connected us with their extensive network and even provided us with beautiful office spaces to work from in both Auckland and Sydney, which we share with Paloma and their other portfolio companies. This gives us a community of other startups facing similar challenges, creating invaluable opportunities for shared learnings and peer support.

Their experience with AI has been particularly valuable. As we've learned over the past six months how and where AI can solve the trade problems we're addressing, Paloma's experience introducing AI across their portfolio companies provides crucial perspective on our specific use case.

When Paloma tells you they've built apps like Afterpay, serving millions of daily users, that's not just impressive, it's invaluable social proof. Finding your first customer is always challenging, but being able to lean on their exceptional track record provides genuine comfort to prospects that they're in capable hands. That credibility opens doors and accelerates conversations.

Beyond their technical and strategic value, Paloma's direct capital investment removes a major stress and time sink. But perhaps more importantly, they're connected to a strong network of VCs, providing easy access to the right investors based on your stage, industry focus, and location. When the time comes for our next raise, we won't be starting from scratch.

Most importantly, Paloma believes in what we're doing. There's something massively comforting about not doing this alone. Their investment means we can spend our time on what matters most: speaking with future customers to shape what we're building, rather than constantly worrying about runway or technical debt.

We trust them completely and genuinely love working with them. The journey to where we are now, nearing launch, has been significantly more enjoyable and far less stressful with their partnership.

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Thank You

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To the entire Paloma team: thank you for believing in Gondola, for your partnership, and for making this journey not just possible, but enjoyable. We're excited for what comes next.

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Building something but need technical help? If you're a non-technical founder with an idea and want to discuss how to navigate the early stages and the venture studio approach, contact the team at Paloma Ventures.

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