New Zealand is known for its landscapes, not its founders. That is why Endeavor is launching there.

Ten years ago, there was a clear path for New Zealand’s best and brightest: Leave. 

When seeking achievements in business, in academia, in culture, Kiwis used to feel they needed a scene larger than what New Zealand has to offer. In a country with incredible resilience and self-sufficiency, the tyranny of distance and a small population have still left an economy trailing other Western nations. With one of the lowest productivity levels in the OECD, New Zealanders work longer hours for lower output. High unemployment is leading to some of the most talented to move overseas, to Australia or further afield, for the opportunities their ambition demands. 

But a vibrant tech ecosystem can change this. We’ve just opened our 46th global office: Endeavor New Zealand is here.

Historically, New Zealand’s economy has run on tourism and agriculture, two sectors where it’s no longer easy to improve productivity to create better-paying jobs. And while New Zealand is only just emerging on the global entrepreneurial landscape, technology and entrepreneurship are offering new paths for high achievement and innovation. Founders are starting to spin the flywheel of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Technology and entrepreneurship offer a path for New Zealand to rapidly grow GDP/capita and return to the leading ranks of the OECD, as startup activity accelerates in Aotearoa. We want to be there to support them.

“With Endeavor, we want to bring global interconnectivity, peer communities, and ties to deep capital markets that can help close that gap.”

A range of startups is proving the strength and breadth of New Zealand’s talent. Dawn Aerospace recently became the first civilian aircraft to break the sound barrier since the Concorde. OpenStar Technologies, based in Wellington, is working on nuclear fusion and has achieved more in two years with $10M than many decades-long, government-led efforts. In the software space, brand visibility and insights platform Tracksuit is one of the fastest growing startups in the global SaaS industry.

Another success story, Halter, is completely reimaging livestock management. It offers virtual farming and pasture management, essentially allowing farming without fences, which results in a massive reduction in manual labor and operational costs as well as a huge boost to sustainable land management. Used on over 300,000 cows, the company recently raised $47M Series C led by US-based Bessemer Venture Partners. Since then, it has expanded to the US, in a telling showcase of international investment leading to global impact.

“It’s a story of atoms more than bits,” said Austin of New Zealand’s entrepreneurial innovation. Lachlan Nixon with Motion Capital, NZ’s leading climate VC, said: 

They aren’t starting from scratch. Hamish McKenzie, co-founder of Substack, is a New Zealander now based in the Bay Area; Rob Drury, founder and CEO until 2018 of Xero, never left New Zealand; Craig Nevill-Manning, a New Zealand computer scientist, founded Google’s first remote engineering center in New York City; Dave Ferguson is a co-founder of SF based Nuro. New Zealand ranks 25th in the Global Innovation Index and is taking an active part in contemporary space exploration, with Rocket Labs emerging as the only true competitor to SpaceX. There’s massive potential and skill in New Zealand’s entrepreneurial landscape, too. But it needs support.

The ambition is there 

Innovation in New Zealand has always punched above what you’d expect from a country of its size and situation. What hasn’t always been there is the ability to commercialize technology; but right now the timing is perfect for New Zealand founders to break that glass ceiling.

Ten or even five years ago, founders in New Zealand were more focused on building local or regional businesses with specifically local interests. But as the venture ecosystem has matured, New Zealand has moved beyond the first generation of entrepreneurs — and founder ambition is growing.

At this critical juncture, New Zealand can benefit from stronger connectivity to global founders and flows of international capital. Our new office will support that, helping Kiwi companies attract global investors, build competitive businesses, and cement New Zealand as a global player in tech and innovation.

That will take time and investment, but it’s the right moment to enter the stage. And for venture capitalists who want to get in early, it’s clear that New Zealand is a massive opportunity about to grow exponentially in size and speed.

“There are probably half a dozen companies that today we could take to an ISP [one of Endeavor’s International Selection Panels, wherein candidates are interviewed and confirmed as new Endeavor Entrepreneurs],” says Austin. “That’s small relative to Endeavor’s other markets. But five years ago, there would have been only one company, and 10 years ago, there wouldn’t have been any.”

This inflection point in the ecosystem growth is a story we track worldwide with the Endeavor Multiplier Effect™, where the work we do with entrepreneurs is paid forward by training, mentoring, and investing in the next generation of founders. New Zealand’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is already evolving. Craig Piggott first worked with Rocket Lab, the Auckland-founded space company, when it went public in 2021. In turn, Rocket Lab’s founder was one of the first investors in Piggott’s company, Halter. 

By launching Endeavor New Zealand, we can formalize and multiply these moments of connection, mentorship, and investment. It’s also the first time we’ll be launching an Endeavor office which already has two Endeavor Entrepreneurs on the board: Sam Blackman and Finn Puklowski. Sam was co-founder and CTO at Nuvocargo, the Mexico-based digital freight forwarder, and became an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2019; Finn is co-founder and CEO at Fluency Academy, the Brazilian online language learning platform, and became an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2022. 

Both Sam and Finn showcase the strength of Kiwi innovation — and the history of Kiwi founders moving overseas; both built their businesses in Latin America. Now, they’ll be bringing their talent and knowledge back to the Kiwi startup scene as they join Endeavor New Zealand’s board. 

Invention is wired into New Zealand’s history. Despite its tiny size, the two-island nation sits in the top 10 of Nobel Prizes for Chemistry per capita. It was a Kiwi, Sir Ernest Rutherford, who split the atom. Sir Ernest realized this major achievement at the University of Cambridge in the UK. But we’re betting that the greatest future moments of Kiwi innovation and invention will be homegrown.