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New Zealand Startup and Founder Incubators - The Definitive Guide

Our guide outlines everything you need to know about Startmate, Soda Inc, Creative HQ Wellington, Flux Accelerator, Venture Up, The Factory, Ministry of Awesome, GridAKL, techweek, Startup Grind and NZ Tech Startups Eco-System
Updated 10 May 2023

The New Zealand Venture Capital scene has been snowballing over the last few years. This has allowed many different communities to flourish and develop in the startup ecosystem. This guide breaks down the top startup communities for New Zealanders to join and engage with.

Startmate

Startmate seeks to find the most ambitious founders and company builders in New Zealand and Australia. They run a variety of programmes for startup founders (startup accelerator), people looking to pivot into startups (Startmate fellowship) or for those earlier in their journey looking for insights (first believers).

Startmate Accelerator
  • Colloquially known as the "Startup MBA", the Startmate accelerator is a 2 – 3-month long course for Australia and New Zealand's best founders (whether they're thinking of becoming a founder or are in the process of starting up a company) to learn, network and develop their skills to propel them into the age of technology.
  • Startmate is agnostic on the make-up of the founding team and will bolster a company's growth by surrounding you with equally ambitious peers able to share stories and build connections.
  • Whether you are a technical or a product-led founder, startmate can help to plug the gaps in your team and support you to seek out the key hires and expertise you're missing. Startmate takes companies of all shapes and sizes – from pre-revenue to fast-growing growth companies.
  • Startmate has had companies going through seed rounds, teams that raised a Series A round during the program, and followed up with a Series B round 12 months later. The critical element Startmate are looking for are ambitious people. They have over 150+ alumni from a range of different industries. Software, hardware, beauty, space tech, autonomous drones, food tech, agtech, Medtech and sports-tech are all examples of other initiatives they have accepted applicants from.
  • The program provides you with all the resources you need to supercharge your startup's journey. Startmate surrounds you with a network of similar peers, mentors, investors and operators across New Zealand and Australia. They'll work with you to define where to focus your energy, set your goals and get over roadblocks so you'll be able to move more quickly than you ever thought possible. Additionally, you'll have first access to the top talent coming through the Startmate Fellowship program to assist with critical hires.

The Program
The program starts with an immersion week to boost your ambition levels and set your 12-week and 12-month goals. After that, each week has a mixture of sessions from various cohorts, mentor catchups and structured training on critical topics from the best startup operators in Australia and New Zealand. Most importantly, Startmate helps you prioritise what will help move your business forward, so it's up to each founder in terms of how much you engage with the content.

Other Relevant Information
  • The accelerator has a mentor-driven community underpinned by an intensive 12-week program that currently runs twice per year. Each Startmate company receives $75,000 of investment in exchange for 7.5% equity (or at the latest valuation if you've raised previous rounds).
  • The funds come from the Startmate mentor community, who have skin within the game and are personally invested in seeing you succeed.
  • While the investment and intensive startup education are vital to the accelerator experience, the most valuable ingredient is the top quality community, and what sets Startmate apart.
  • The primary value of Startmate is part of a lifelong community of the simplest founders, investors and operators within Australia and New Zealand.

More details: Startmate

Soda Inc (Hamilton)

Soda opened in 2009 to provide sound advice and sustained support for NZ Startups. Soda backs brilliant people that have genuinely game-changing ideas. Soda is a subsidiary of Wintec (education organisation) and is focused on building a Business Growth Ecosystem that produces results. Whether you're a startup, an emerging or established business, soda supports startups to achieve their growth goals. Soda excels at building roadmaps to business growth and leverage an in-depth network to connect you with the proper people on your startup journey. Soda has built a community of tenacious people with ambitious ideas and a proven ability to bring them to life. Soda has a variety of founders, investors and business advisors in the broader community.

NZ Startup Bootcamp
Soda runs a yearly competition called NZ Startup Bootcamp – which is a weekend-long business Bootcamp that provides a platform for participants to check their entrepreneurial skills, test and validate a thought they have had or get feedback and exposure on a startup they're building from talented mentors and business legends. There are two categories that teams can enter into (Best Startups and Best Ideas).

Both have a cash prize of $10,000 and services for the winning teams. Teams will hear from inspirational speakers about their failures, successes and learnings as an entrepreneur. Up to twenty teams will have two days to participate in workshops, iterating business models, getting feedback from business mentors, and validating ideas and business models. To conclude the Bootcamp, teams will pitch their new ideas or existing startups to a panel of high-profile judges and a broad audience.

More details: Soda Inc (Hamilton) and NZ Startup Bootcamp

Creative HQ Wellington (CHQ)

CHQ is a startup based Wellington and aims to increase the number of high growth businesses in NZ through incubation and accelerator programmes. CHQ also provide various entrepreneur initiatives and innovation spaces for their community to use.

Government assistance
CHQ assists you to build resilience and solve problems using proven tools and methodologies. CHQ is a part of Wellington's council organisations – providing a direct link to policy and changemakers. CHQ works with central, local and international government agencies to provide services for citizens. All of their services are often offered remotely. Their services include co-design, government innovation, fast and efficient policy design, and remote working workshops.

Corporate focus
CHQ helps large businesses to re-imagine their products and services and help implement internal innovation programmes. Their services include resilience workshops, corporate problem-solving, fast and efficient project delivery, solution-finding and remote working workshops. In particular, CHQ helps founders to:
  • Transform the way companies hire and create a positive impact on startups and customers.
  • Create meaningful connections together with customers through values-driven engagement.
  • Raise a teams' capability with immersive learning experiences in innovation methodologies like co-design and style thinking.
  • Work on immersive and experiential learning experiences that will build skills in innovation methodologies that will be applied to many workplaces. CHQ helps to sharpen your skills and add desirable skills to your skillset.

Lightning Lab
  • The lightning lab is CHQ's startup division – focused on running three-month-long business accelerators for startups. They currently run a general incubator, as well as a climate response accelerator.
  • The lightning lab is the main program for accelerating startups. It focuses heavily on defining the focus and scope of a project, building the right team for it and iterating a viable business case / getting to a prototype phase.
  • Both programmes provide discipline to startup life through coaching, mentoring, support, co-working space and connection to a broader alumni community.

More details: Creative HQ Wellington (CHQ) and Lightning Lab

Flux Accelerator (Auckland)

Flux accelerator is part of the Icehouse group. Flux provides founders with access to the Icehouse Ventures' expansive network of mentors, alumni, investors and partners, all aligned to assist companies in winning. Flux startups are given c. half a year of free office space to work alongside other teams within the Icehouse/Flux ecosystem. They also get a slot to present their company at an annual investor event or Showcase. Flux works with startups to identify and achieve critical milestones before seeking subsequent investment rounds from upstream investors.

Flux invests up to $150,000 per company, either by co-investing alongside other investors lead investors. In addition, the team supports a significant amount of time and resources working with all of their companies. Flux has invested in 18 companies since 2017. In addition, those companies have boosted a further $16.3m in follow-on capital from local and international investors.

Since 2001, the Icehouse has worked with over 5,000 ambitious owner-managers and entrepreneurs. The businesses that go through the programme grow revenue by 12% per annum on average, meaning they grow 2.5x faster than the typical NZ business. These startups have collectively created over 900 jobs and have raised over $100m+ in funding.

More details: The Icehouse

Venture Up (Wellington)

Please note, it's unclear if Venture Up's program will return as the latest edition was in 2021. We have included it for relevance and suggest contacting Creative HQ (who runs the program) for more information.

Venture Up is a subsidiary of the Creative HQ programme. Venture Up targets a younger audience to participate in workshops and online learning to support the next wave of entrepreneurship. Venture Up provides a library of lessons from several of New Zealand's best business leaders alongside tools that assist founders in action their ideas. In addition, venture Up gives participants the space to meet other like-minded individuals, form teams, be introduced to potential mentors and listen to some extraordinary entrepreneurs who have done it all before. The programme typically holds workshops in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Venture Up connects people to the broader Creative HQ network of coaches who can answer any of the questions during the programme. Being part of Venture Up gives you access to real-life insights from professionals.

More details: Venture Up (Wellington)

The Factory

The factory is one of the most popular incubators in regional New Zealand. The factory provides advisory and supports for founders to turn their ideas into a business or help scale their startup. The factory is an expert at working with founders and startups and access the newest insights, data and resources. They're a team of curious individuals that thrive on supporting entrepreneurs, founders, startups and enterprises.

The factory has established itself as a world leader in business acceleration and is a specialist in agritech, agrifood and new technologies. The factory was founded over 15 years ago and has been a Callaghan Innovation Founder Incubator since 2006. The factory has supported 4,000+ entrepreneurs and startups since its inception. The factory is a not-for-profit Trust (managed by the Bio Commerce Centre Trust) established to seek out and fund high growth, high-value startups. They partner closely with Callaghan Innovation and other stakeholders.

More details: The Factory (Palmerston North)

Ministry of Awesome (Christchurch)

The Ministry of Awesome is an innovation hub, startup support, coworking space and mentoring community for startup founders. Ministry of Awesome is a core hub for innovators, entrepreneurs and startups. They support early-stage entrepreneurs with ideas for projects, startups and social enterprises to build their ideas into reality.

The Ministry of Awesome is home to a dynamic innovation community focused on high growth startups with large ambitions to impact globally. They run many different education and innovation programmes, including Electrify, Startup Breakfast Club and Coffee and Jam.

More details: Ministry of Awesome (Christchurch)

GridAKL (Auckland)

GridAKL operates at the heart of the innovation precinct in Wynyard Quarter. In addition, GridAKL runs several various buildings in the wider CBD area, including Madden Street and John Lysaght. The coworking spaces provide a wide variety of tenants with quality space, community and networking events. Many of the tenants of GridAKL are startup founders or independent business owners looking to build the future of technology. However, some more established corporates are also operating out of GridAKL, such as GSK, TEDx and Onit.

More details: GridAKL (Auckland)

Techweek

Techweek is a national technology festival that showcases entrepreneurship and innovation in New Zealand, heavily sponsored by many government organisations, venture capital firms and established technology startups. Typically, the Techweek committee will decide on a few themes (e.g. Next Generation, Equality, Foodtech, ESG etc.) to run their workshops on. Techweek brings together all relevant stakeholders in New Zealand for networking, panel events, discussions, and workshops to improve the overall profile of technology as a career path in New Zealand and build the tech profile for NZ startups.

More details: Techweek

Startup Grind (Auckland)

Startup grind is a global community of like-minded entrepreneurs designed to inspire, educate and connect people across the globe. Each organisation is segmented by location – and the Startup Grind Auckland chapter runs several different events throughout the year. They also run a startup programme (which you need to be a member to attend).

More details: Startup Grind (Auckland)

NZ Tech Startups Eco-System

With almost 20,000 members, this Facebook group covers many topics in the New Zealand startup scene. This can be a great place to informally find information, meet investors and co-founders and ask all startup-related questions in a relaxed and easy way. In addition, the group regularly posts news and key hires that companies are looking to make. It is free to join, and the community is relatively friendly when it comes to new members. 

More details: New Zealand Tech Startups
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