Sam Wiffen

Finalist - EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2023 New Zealand

Reveal

While there is a hustling and bustling world on top of the earth’s surface, have you ever thought about the myriad pipes and other infrastructure networks that exist below it? For Sam Wiffen and his team at Reveal, that’s all they ever think about. In fact, they are building the Google Maps of the underworld and have created the largest, most accurate digital twin of the subsurface in the world, an underground map of Wellington City.

Says Sam: “Until now the lack of accurate underground maps has caused anything from utility strikes, construction delays and cost blow outs that add up to billions of dollars in added cost and wasted expenditure. In some cases, poor information about the underground has even sadly taken lives.”

When Sam first started the business, it was just himself, travelling around the country learning geophysical and survey systems and literally hand painting on the ground so that contractors didn’t dig up critical pipes and cables. That is how the business idea was born, and fast forward to today and he’s found a way to digitise the whole process and ensure he can not only be far more accurate, but he’s also managed to tap into a significant growth market, valued at around US$400 billion a year.

Sam is passionate about his work and wants to instil that same passion in the 50+ people that work with him. He has worked tirelessly to build Reveal into the business it is today and shows no signs of slowing down.

For a company that specialises in looking below the surface where it is dark and cold, the future for Reveal is sunny and bright, with an expansion into Singapore – the global urban benchmark, imminent.