Innovation Nation 2020 – Bay of Plenty

As part of an emerging network, Whanganui-based Thrive helps strengthen communities by supporting entrepreneurs in building, scaling, and sustaining profit-for-purpose businesses. Nicola Patrick believes that entrepreneurs in provincial New Zealand are different from their city counterparts, even varying from region to region. To her, this led to a significant gap in economic development. Without resources […]

Founder: Courtney Cawte HQ: Bay of Plenty What problems do you solve and what products or services do you sell? When a customer or client comes to me, they are unsure how to articulate, specifically with words, what they do, how they do it, and the problems they solve. I sit down alongside them and […]

While many Kiwi businesses are scrambling to stay afloat, Papamoa-based company, Real Rad Food, is doing better than ever, thanks to its swift and smart response to COVID-19 restrictions. 25-year-old founder, Hannah Mellsop, initially created the company in 2017 to help cafés provide healthy, allergen-friendly and beautiful sweet cabinet treats. But when lockdown hit, the […]

Founder/s: Anna Samoylova & Polina Samoylova HQ: Tauranga What problems do you solve and what products or services do you sell? Inspocreate is a one-stop platform where women and girls can find, add and share inspiring and educational content to help with their business, career or personal development. Specifically, we help women and girls who […]

Tauranga-based Like Your Local founders, Mark Murphy and Joshua Terrington, would not be where they are today if it wasn’t for COVID-19. Before the world locked down, Murphy and Terrington were in Melbourne, a couple of weeks away from closing their second funding round for an online ticketing platform they had built. With the platform, […]

Tauranga-based Sweet Dough Co. is bringing American-style cookies and ice-cream sandwiches across New Zealand. It took four years for cookie connoisseur and Sweet Dough Co. founder Jess Lowcher to develop the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Originally from the United States, she found that ‘biscuits’ were often too dry, and flavours relied mostly on the chocolate. […]

Gisborne-based Riposte Analytics is a social app, and analytics platform aiming to enable users to create change by leveraging our natural sharing tendencies. Erin Westover finds out more. Social media platforms are treasure troves of data; the only problem is, the data we create is often repackaged and sold to businesses by third parties. Products […]

Kiwi Utility Electric Vehicle (UEV) company, UBCO, has unveiled the innovative new Electric Trail Bike (FRX1). It has also launched a public capital raise of up to NZ$2m to drive further growth in product, inventory and market development, via online investment platform Snowball Effect. Pairing the power of a motocross bike with the agility of […]