About
The name is the brief.
Rapu is a verb in te reo Māori, the indigenous language of New Zealand. It means to seek, hunt, search, enquire or investigate, depending on the context in which it is used.
Stemming from our founder’s New Zealand heritage, the name was chosen because it describes the work precisely: the discipline of looking properly, and of continuing to look after the obvious answer has been found.
Ka haha te tangata rā i ngā pareparenga o te waiariki rā, rapu rawa atu, e takoto whakamaoko ana i raro i ngā tauwharenga kōwhatu.
That man searched along the sides of the hot pool where she was lying crouched under the overhanging ledges.
Steeped in that cultural connection of a people moving together as one towards a common goal, Rapu seeks to go the extra mile for its clients — the best service we can provide, at a value that is defensible, without compromise.
The firm
What we do, and why
Rapu is an independent professional services firm. We help organisations manage change, mitigate risk — financial, legal, cyber, regulatory and reputational — and investigate disputes and incidents.
We exist for the engagements that need a team rather than an individual: matters where the volume is large, the deadline is external, the regulator is watching, or the findings will be tested by someone whose interests run the other way.
Software engineering and applied AI sit underneath that work. They are how we get answers out of difficult data at acceptable cost — not a separate product line, and not a pitch.
Founder
Duncan Gardiner
Duncan has spent more than twenty years translating complex business, legal and operational problems into work that produces answers. He has led multidisciplinary teams in London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong, across banking, insurance, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, mining and manufacturing.
Much of that has been in data-intensive, highly regulated environments — eDiscovery, digital forensics, information governance and GDPR — where the real difficulty is rarely the technology alone. It is balancing cost, confidentiality and regulation to reach an answer that works and can be defended.
Credentials
- Diploma, Governance Risk & Compliance — International Compliance Association
- Diploma of Policing — Royal New Zealand Police College
- Certified Forensic Computer Examiner (CFCE)
- Certified Electronic Evidence Collection Specialist
Company
The formal details
- Registered name
- RAPU LTD
- Company number
- 10771976
- Place of registration
- England and Wales
- Registered office
- 5 Brayford Square, London, England, E1 0SG
- Incorporated
- 16 May 2017
- linkedin.com/company/rapu-limited