New Zealand’s economic growth is projected to pick up gradually from the second half of 2021, reaching 3.5% in 2021 and 3.8% in 2022. The country has established itself as one of the top places to start a business due to its economic stability and potential for growth. Historically speaking, when faced with a problem, or a need, New Zealanders prefer to find or create a solution themselves. This is combined with the fact that the country is a great place to do business.
New Zealand has a growing number of innovative startups that are globally focused from the start. It has a thriving startup environment and strong support from the government. The New Zealand government has been actively supporting startups in many ways, from startup grants, mentor networks, business training, business planning advisory and cash injections for R&D. It is home to many digital, fin-tech, health and creative technologies. New Zealand has a distinct advantage of being powered by an advanced digital infrastructure, skilled workforce and a business friendly environment.
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List of Top 25 Startups in New Zealand
1. PredictHQ
PredictHQ was founded in 2015 by Campbell Brown, Mike Ballantyne, Robert Kern. This startup is an event intelligence platform that is helping enterprises act accordingly to ensure appropriate responses that are beneficial for their company. Its demand intelligence is used by some of the smartest companies globally including Uber, Booking.com, Amazon Alexa, Accenture, Domino’s, and many more to build more accurate forecasts.
Industry: Business Intelligence, Big Data.
Founders: Campbell Brown, Mike Ballantyne, Robert Kern.
Total Funding: $33.5M
Founded Date: 2015
2. Halter
Halter creates GPS enabled, solar powered collars for cows. The collar hardware allows farmers to use simple tablet app software to remotely set geographic boundaries for cattle, virtual fences. Farmers use Halter’s system to avoid physically herding cows, maximizing farmer time and productivity.
Industry: Agriculture.
Founders: Craig Piggott, Max Olsen.
Total Funding: $28.6M
Founded Date: 2016
3. LearnCoach
LearnCoach aims to give every student education when and where they need. It supports over 100,000 students annually, delivering over 1 million tutorials to students. LearnCoach is New Zealand’s most used tutorial platform for secondary students. It aims to provide as much low-cost, fast, and easy-to-use education as possible.
Industry: Education, E-Learning.
Founders: David Cameron, Mark Cameron.
Total Funding: $1M
Founded Date: 2016
4. Cove
Cove is a New Zealand company bringing a touch of innovation and simplicity to the insurance industry. They know how insurance works inside-out and they are now building a digital platform on which New Zealanders will soon be able to buy, manage, and claim insurance on.
Industry: Fin-Tech.
Founders: Andy Coon, Brett Wilson, Chris Coon, Rob Coon.
Total Funding: $3.4M
Founded Date: 2017
5. Marsello
Marsello is an intelligent marketing solutions company that is helping retailers conduct efficient marketing activities that are data-driven. It is a retailer’s virtual marketing assistant who uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to leverage the data within a business, and across thousands of other businesses to create marketing that generates new, attributable sales.
Industry: Marketing Automation, SaaS.
Founders: Brady Thomas, Brent Spicer, Matt Thomas.
Total Funding: $8.5M
Founded Date: 2014
6. JRNY
JRNY’s Insurance Customer Journey Platform makes the insurance customer journey simpler and easier than ever before. By simplifying the customer journey insurers can improve conversion rates, customer retention, radically increase their understanding into customer behaviour.
Industry: Insur-Tech, Enterprise Software.
Founders: Benjamin Roe, Michael Lovegrove.
Total Funding: $458.8K
Founded Date: 2016
7. Little Yellow Bird
At Little Yellow Bird they make uniforms and branded apparel that is better for people and the planet. As well as producing its garments in the most eco and people friendly way, they also support a number of initiatives both in New Zealand and overseas. They have funded girls from within its cotton farming communities to return to school as well as funding training programs, providing computer equipment for schools and assisting families that needed an extra source of income by providing microloans.
Industry: Fashion.
Founders: Samantha Rae Jones.
Total Funding: $1.5M
Founded Date: 2015
8. AllGoods
AllGoods was founded in 2017 by Bradely Meredith, Nathan Taylor, Levi Fawcett and Mark Song. It is a New Zealand based marketplace for both C2C and B2C e-commerce. They also provide a feature-rich e-commerce solution for New Zealand businesses to host their online store while also providing them access to the marketplace.
Industry: E-Commerce, Marketplace.
Founders: Bradely Meredith, Natahan Taylor, Levi Fawcett, Mark Song.
Total Funding: $70K
Founded Date: 2017
9. LawVu
LawVu’s Legal Workspace is the first truly connected platform for matter, contract and spend management for in-house legal teams. The Legal Workspace is a unified suite of productivity and collaboration tools built specifically for in-house legal teams. Lawyers can create matters and manage them internally or invite outside counsel to scope, plan and manage the work.
Industry: Enterprise Software.
Founders: Sam Kidd, Tim Boyne.
Total Funding: $18.5M
Founded Date: 2015
10. Nyriad
Nyriad was founded in 2020 by Matthew Simmons. Nyriad is developing the industry’s first storage solutions based on a new architecture that redefines how data is stored. With Nyriad, businesses are empowered to grow, adapt, and stay competitive in a data-driven world.
Industry: Enterprise Software, Cloud Computing.
Founders: Matthew Simmons.
Total Funding: $7M
Founded Date: 2020
11. Portainer
Portainer is easy to use, expert software that offers an intuitive interface for both software developers and IT operations. It offers GUI management tools designed to build, manage, and maintain container based environments with Swarm, Kubernetes, ACI and more. It was developed to help customers adopt container technology and accelerate time-to-value.
Industry: Information Technology, Software.
Founders: Neil Cresswell.
Total Funding: $7.2M
Founded Date: 2016
12. TradeWindow
TradeWindow is a DLT powered network that provides businesses with a secure platform to establish trust and trade globally across interconnected networks. Its solution delivers end-to-end trust, speed, and efficiency. DLT powered networks promise to transform supply chains into dynamic demand chains.
Industry: Fin-Tech, Software.
Founders: AJ Smith.
Total Funding: $6.3M
Founded Date: 2018
13. Spoke Phone
Spoke Phone offers phone system management software for small businesses. Key features include updating employee directory, live availability of agents, call scheduling & reminder management. Spoke calls go over the phone network, rather than going through a VOIP network. Customers turn to Spoke when Zoom, Teams and the rest don’t quite work for their business.
Industry: Mobile, Software.
Founders: Jason Kerr, Kieron Lawson.
Total Funding: $12.6M
Founded Date: 2016
14. Sharesies
Sharesies is a micro-investing & savings platform. It allows users to set aside a minimal amount of funds as savings for consumers. It features tools for assessing risks, tracking portfolios, and managing the trends in the market. Sharesies allows users to get started investing from just $5.
Industry: Fin-Tech.
Founders: Ben Crotty, Brooke Roberts, Leighton Roberts.
Total Funding: $25M
Founded Date: 2016
15. Mastaplex
Mastaplex is a start-up technology company founded by Dr Olaf Bork in 2015. It aims to become a leading provider of point-of-care diagnostic testing for mastitis in dairy cows. Through their products and information-based services they support farmers and vets in their antibiotic treatment decisions.
Industry: Agriculture
Founders: Dr. Olaf Bork
Total Funding: $1.3M
Founded Date: 2015
16. CertusBio
Certus Bio was founded in 2015 by Matthew Jones. It is engaged in developing biosensors. The product is being developed in its research lab by biochemists and electrochemists and its commercial development team. The products are utilized in agricultural and industrial process monitoring.
Industry: Agri-Tech.
Founders: Matthew Jones
Total Funding: $150K
Founded Date: 2015
17. Litmaps
Litmaps combines interactive citation maps, modern search tools, and targeted updates, to create the best research discovery experience ever. It can visualize users research topics with everything from academic papers, patents, pre-prints, and e-prints. It focuses deeply on this area so researchers can focus on what they do best, while Litmaps keeps them up to date with the latest scientific literature.
Industry: Data Visualization, Software.
Founders: Axton Pitt, Kyle Webster.
Total Funding: $1M
Founded Date: 2020
18. SubQuery
SubQuery is a decentralized data aggregation, indexing & querying layer between Layer-1 blockchains and decentralized applications (DApps). Currently focused on Polkadot and Substrate projects, this data-as-a-service allows developers to focus on their core use case and front-end, without needing to waste time on building a custom backend for data processing.
Industry: Blockchain, Cloud Data Services.
Founders: Ian He, James Bayly, Sam Zou.
Total Funding: $10.8M
Founded Date: 2021
19. Komodo
Komodo was founded in 2018 by Chris Bacon, Jack Wood, Matt Goodson. It is the complete, wrap-around software and service solution that enables independent schools to build the best wellbeing strategies, measure their effectiveness and create the best possible environment for students.
Industry: EdTech, Data Visualization.
Founders: Chris Bacon, Jack Wood, Matt Goodson.
Total Funding: $1.3M
Founded Date: 2018
21. Imagr
Imagr gives supermarkets superpowers. Unlike other frictionless checkout solutions, Imagr is designed to layer into any supermarket, with no store fit-outs required. Imagr is the first truly scalable retail solution. The first vision-only, white-labeled autonomous checkout solution that retailers can own, operate and scale themselves.
Industry: Artificial Intelligence.
Founders: Peter Szoldan, William Chomley.
Total Funding: $9.5M
Founded Date: 2017
22. Soul Machines
Soul Machines is for transformational companies that want to fully utilize the interaction of human and machine collaboration. Soul Machines is the only company with a patented Digital Brain, resulting in the most incredibly lifelike dynamically interactive experiences.
Industry: Machine Learning.
Founders: Greg Cross, Mark Sagar.
Total Funding: $65M
Founded Date: 2016
23. Chatterize
Chatterize is a supercharged English conversation app that accelerates spoken fluency by applying conversational AI to recreate an immersion learning environment. It creates pressure-free, engaging, accelerated learning experiences that give Chinese students the skills to use English as a communication tool.
Industry: E-Learning, Education.
Founder: Beleza Chan
Total Funding: $656.9K
Founded Date: 2019
24. Vital
Vital was founded in 2017 by Aaron Patzer and Justin Schrager. It is a modern cloud-based emergency department software. It uses artificial intelligence to predict admitted hours in advance, reduce length-of-stay, and save millions with an improved flow. Vital exists to close communication gaps with patients and families and put them at the center of the care experience.
Industry: Healthcare.
Founders: Aaron Patzer, Justin Schrager.
Total Funding: $6.2M
Founded Date: 2017
25. ArchiPro
ArchiPro is an all-in-one platform that assists homeowners on their building journey by connecting them with professionals and product suppliers in the industry. The site connects architects, designers, builders and product suppliers with clients, using technology to help build their brands, while homeowners use ArchiPro to brainstorm ideas, research and hire professionals, find products and manage their projects.
Industry: Advertising Platform, Marketplace.
Founders: Milot Zeqiri.
Total Funding: NZ$2M
Founded Date: 2014