Icehouse Ventures showcases Kiwi startups in Auckland

Icehouse Ventures brought together more than 1,400 investors for its 16th annual Showcase in Auckland and at watch parties across New Zealand. The event featured startup and scale-up pitches from Kiwi founders based in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

More than 1,000 investors gathered at Spark Arena, while another 400 watched from 10 regional events in Hamilton, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Hawke's Bay, Wellington, Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown. Around 200 founders, operators and aspiring entrepreneurs from Icehouse Ventures' First Cut community also attended.

The turnout reflected the scale and confidence building in New Zealand's startup sector, with companies from space, medtech, energy, retail, marketing and transport taking the stage.

Speaking to the audience, Robbie Paul outlined his view of New Zealand's place in global company building. "The next truly massive company, the next real global leader, like a Tesla or an Anthropic, can be a Kiwi-founded company," said Robbie Paul, Chief Executive Officer, Icehouse Ventures.

He also addressed the role of founders building companies offshore. "To keep getting closer to that, one thing we need to edit is our view on Kiwis going offshore. I think it should be more celebrated than it is today. The world's going global, and we should go with it," Paul said.

Paul pointed to companies with New Zealand roots that now operate across borders. "That's my final aspiration, that the companies presenting here tonight are encouraged to go offshore, win big, make us proud," he said.

Space and health

Companies pitching included Outlier Space, VXT, One Kidney, Crimson Education, Trepo, SKN Systems, BioOra, Tracksuit, Kelvius, Advemto, Biowave and Kea Aerospace.

Space and medtech featured prominently. Outlier Space, founded by Jamie France, opened with a question aimed at investor ambition: what if microgravity could be used as a manufacturing environment for materials and products that are difficult or impossible to make on Earth?

Health technology also drew attention. One Kidney set out its plan to redesign dialysis, while BioOra outlined a strategy to build a Southern Hemisphere base for CAR T-cell therapy manufacturing.

BioOra has established an end-to-end cell therapy manufacturing operation in New Zealand and, alongside the Malaghan Institute, made CAR T therapy for a 30-patient clinical trial. More than half of those patients, after years of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, achieved a complete response.

John Robson used one case from that trial to illustrate the result. "Same patient, 90 days later. This is called complete remission. It's not that the cancer is in remission, it is that the cancer has gone," Robson said.

The company is now building a manufacturing facility in Christchurch with the aim of supplying CAR T therapies to patients in New Zealand and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

Other founders presented work on recovering industrial waste heat, developing cleaner marine fuels and building aircraft designed to remain high in the stratosphere for extended periods.

Award recognition

The event also included the presentation of the 2026 Ray Thomson Award to Parrot Analytics founder and Chief Executive Officer Wared Seger. The award recognises an individual's lasting contribution to New Zealand's startup community.

Seger first pitched Parrot Analytics at the Showcase in 2014 before expanding it into an entertainment analytics business serving major international media markets. In his remarks, he focused on the demands of entrepreneurship and the broader support system around it.

"Entrepreneurship is hard. Fundamentally, I think it's about building the future, imagining something that doesn't exist yet that we want to create," said Wared Seger, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Parrot Analytics.

He added: "That can't happen without an entire ecosystem supporting it."

Fund returns

Icehouse Ventures also used the night to reintroduce its Showcase Fund, which gives investors exposure to a group of Showcase companies that meet its criteria rather than backing a single pitch.

Mason Bleakley pointed to several portfolio companies to show how difficult it can be to identify future standout performers at an early stage. Halter, Crimson Education and Sharesies were cited as examples of businesses that were not the most popular investment choices when they first appeared at the Showcase.

When Jamie Beaton pitched Crimson in 2014, it attracted 14 investors. Icehouse Ventures said the Showcase Fund's investment in Crimson has since delivered 107 times growth, while Halter has recorded a 310 times uplift and Sharesies is valued at 30 times its initial investment.

Together, those three companies account for half of the total value created across a portfolio of 109 companies, underscoring the venture capital thesis presented throughout the evening: a small number of outliers can determine overall returns.

Over the past two decades, Icehouse Ventures has invested more than AUD $900 million into more than 400 companies, including early backing for Halter, Sharesies, Tracksuit, Crimson Education and Dawn Aerospace.