- AI-powered diabetes platform validated in New Zealand with Health NZ contracts and GP backing.
- GridAKL support unlocking international growth.
- Founder’s personal journey driving a scalable solution to a major health challenge disproportionately affecting Pacific communities.
Auckland entrepreneur Motekiai Tangi is turning a deep personal mission into a fast-growing health-tech business with global opportunities, using AI-powered diabetes prevention and management software to tackle one of New Zealand’s biggest and most expensive health challenges.
Founder of Fitness Sci-Tec, Tangi has built an innovative business that combines clinical science, fitness, and technology to help patients prevent and manage type 2 diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.
Now, with support from GridAKL, he is preparing to take the model to India, a market of more than 90 million people living with diabetes and growing demand for scalable preventative healthcare solutions.
Already tested in market, the Fitness Sci-Tec platform holds contracts with Health New Zealand and Pacific Health Group. It also has the backing of a growing network of GPs and has supported more than 200 clients across Auckland.
Tangi says the business was born from lived experience.
“I was 200 kilos and pre-diabetic as a teenager, and I watched my mum suffer multiple heart attacks. Sitting in hospital with her, I realised there were no real conversations happening around lifestyle change or prevention,” he says.
“That became my mission, to make sure families like mine had a better chance.”
After leaving school at 14, Tangi returned to study through Manukau Institute of Technology, later becoming the first in his family to graduate with a Bachelor of Applied Sports and Exercise Science. He went on to complete further training in Pacific nutrition and invested $35,000 from the sale of his ute, a gift from his parents, to begin building the Fitness Sci-Tec software platform.
Today, the business has expanded across two companies, one focused on clinical delivery and software development in Manukau, and the latest strategic purchase of a gym in Botany that focuses on discharged patients from GP referrals to continue both clinical and non-clinical care in one place.
Fitness Sci-Tec also operates a mobile clinic service, taking care directly to clients and improving accessibility for communities that often miss out on early intervention.
The AI-powered software tracks and analyses HbA1c diabetes markers, lipid blood tests, body composition including fat and muscle mass, and mental wellbeing through K10 assessments, helping GPs and patients make better day-to-day health decisions.
“It’s the first model of its kind here that combines evidence-based exercise science, blood testing, clinical monitoring and culturally responsive care in one system,” Tangi says.
“We started by supporting Pacific families because that’s where I saw the need most clearly, but the demand has grown right across communities.”
The need is significant. More than 312,000 New Zealanders currently live with diabetes, with that figure expected to rise to 500,000 by 2040. Health spending on diabetes treatment is projected to rise from $2.1 billion in 2025 to $4.8 billion by 2040.
Pacific, Indian and Māori communities remain disproportionately affected, with Pacific obesity rates sitting at 68 per cent and type 2 diabetes affecting up to 20 per cent of Pacific peoples.
Mayor Wayne Brown says businesses like this are exactly why he set up the Tech and Innovation Alliance.
“This is an Auckland start up that has created practical innovation which solves a real problem and creates serious economic opportunity,” Brown says.
GridAKL, run by Auckland Council’s Economic Development Office in Wynyard Quarter, provides startup founders with workspaces, mentoring, investor access and international business connections. Since opening in 2015, it has contributed an estimated $424 million annually to Auckland’s GDP.
Through the Startup Aotearoa free mentoring programme, Tangi has connected with the GridAKL team and says that support has been transformational.
“GridAKL has the potential to open doors that simply would not have existed otherwise,” Mayor Brown says.
“They have helped identify the MedTech opportunity in India. The mentoring and introductions will be invaluable and will help us move faster and think bigger. Without that support, this next stage would probably take a lot longer.”
General Manager of Economic Development Pam Ford says Tangi’s success reflects exactly why GridAKL exists.
“Fitness Sci-Tec is a business that can have real impact, with strong commercial potential and international relevance,” Ford says.
“GridAKL helps founders turn that potential into momentum, opening networks, creating opportunities and helping ambitious Auckland businesses scale faster. Stories like this are wins for the founder, for the city and for Auckland’s reputation as a global innovation hub.”
For Tangi, the goal is simple.
“This started with my family, but now it’s about building something that can genuinely change lives at scale,” he says.
“If we can help people live longer, healthier lives in South Auckland and eventually in India too, as well as other parts of the world, then we’re building something that matters.”