Nau mai, welcome to your place of innovation
estimated collective value of startup alumni
Founders supported
Participants through programmes and events
Invested in
startup alumni
The future of our economy is being built here.
At Creative HQ, we’re growing an ecosystem where innovation can thrive. Proudly based in Wellington, NZ.
We back bold ideas and the people behind them – founders, intrapreneurs and public sector leaders – who are shaping what’s next.
From start-ups to government, we empower change-makers to succeed, transform organisations, and prepare for the future of work. Together, we’re creating a more prosperous Aotearoa New Zealand.
We are Aotearoa’s leading innovation hub
Adapt
Tailored services for innovators within the public and private sector who are ready to upskill their teams
and future-proof their organisations.
Build
Support for founders and startups ready for what’s next. Whether you’re refining your MVP or entering new markets, this is your launchpad.
Connect
Get involved through events,
mentoring, coaching and more. Tap into our ecosystem and meet the people powering our economy. If you’re curious, you’re invited.
Your startup launchpad
Since 2003, we’ve supported 400+ startup founders
Empowering you to innovate
Across the globe, we’re working with leading organisations to drive impactful change.
Connect with the ecosystem
From our founders
A thriving ecosystem awaits
We’re proud to be the connector for founders, funders, mentors, corporates, government, public research organisations and universities. Our community may be smaller and younger than other global hubs, but our impact speaks volumes. We punch above our weight, and we’re proud of it.
Hutt City Council
Who we worked with Hutt City Council What we did together Co-design In June 2019, Hutt City Council (HCC) declared a climate emergency and set an organisational goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 to match Aotearoa New Zealand’s targets. The…
The (much better) Better Business Case
Guest post by David Stephen, Lead Author, NZ Better Business Cases Templates & Guidance Chances are that if you’ve been involved in a business case in New Zealand over the last 15 years, you will have come across the Better…
GovTech Accelerator success: Provincial Government of Bataan
Who we worked with Provincial Government of Bataan (PGB) What we did together GovTech Accelerator In 2024, with the support of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Creative HQ kicked off a GovTech Accelerator Programme with the…
Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao: taking an innovative approach to fund applications
Who we worked with Education New Zealand What we did together Co-designed a new approach to fund applications The 2018 New Zealand International Education Strategy called for a diversification of international education products linked to areas of New Zealand strengths….
Supporting startups with big ideas
Who we worked with Climate focused startups What we did together 12-week accelerator programme The Climate Response Accelerator is a 12-week programme designed to help impact-focused entrepreneurs solve some of our planet’s most urgent challenges. With the Climate Crisis being…
Health NZ’s AI scribe rollout: What the rest of Government can learn
Health NZ has rolled out Heidi, an Australian-built AI clinical scribe, to 27 hospitals through its HealthX programme (the NZ Herald also has good background). The Hawke’s Bay pilot results are worth noting: documentation time per patient dropped from around…
Wāhine shaping the future of Creative Tech
The Wāhine Fuelled Tech community meets four times during the year, and the latest gathering at Creative HQ drew an energised crowd of people building the creative tech sector. The room was buzzing with wāhine and industry allies championing each…
The GovTech Accelerator, kicks off with eight teams from cross-Government departments
Wellington – 1 September 2021: The 2021 GovTech Accelerator will help eight forward-looking cross-Government teams step out of their daily routine and adopt start-up thinking to address some of Aotearoa’s most pressing issues, says Dr Ganesh Nana, Ambassador of the NZ GovTech Accelerator…
Leading NZ founders join Creative HQ as brand ambassadors
Wellington, New Zealand — January 2026 Creative HQ has appointed six leading founders and startup operators as brand ambassadors, formalising a deeper relationship with people already closely connected to the organisation and the wider innovation ecosystem. Meet the Brand Ambassadors…
New innovation partnership to help improve New Zealanders’ lives
The three-year sponsorship deal between Wellington-based innovation hub Creative HQ and the Westpac NZ Government Innovation Fund will allow Creative HQ to support teams of public sector innovators through the NZ GovTech Accelerator programme. This gives participants the confidence and…
The organisations investing in Wellington tech and startups
Behind every thriving startup ecosystem is a network of organisations that connect capital with opportunity. In Wellington, that network is collaborative, well-structured and increasingly outward-looking. This month, we’re spotlighting key investor organisations committing capital into the region: As New Zealand’s…
COUNT: A Wellington–Seattle story and the future of accounting software
Meet Wellington’s newest accounting startup: COUNT COUNT’s founders see the accounting SaaS industry as ripe for disruption – with large incumbents dominating the market, prices too high, and innovation having slowed. At the same time, accountants and bookkeepers are spending…
Wellington’s ‘Creative Tech’ scene has a new starting point
Creative HQ wraps Creative Tech Activate Not all founders are ready to commit to a full accelerator or a longer-term incubator. But every founder needs somewhere to start – a place to test their ideas, find their footing, and connect…
The evolution of Wellington’s place of innovation: Creative HQ enters its 20th year with a brand new look
Wellington, 27 April 2022 Creative HQ was established in 2003 through Wellington’s economic development agency, at the time called Positively Wellington Business, and now known as WellingtonNZ. It was tasked with supporting the development of high-growth new businesses, with a…
Fintech Lab 2025
In 2025, Fourteen trailblazing teams joined the ranks of Fintech Lab alumni like Sharesies, Hnry, Tapi, Cove Insurance, and First AML — compressing a year’s worth of progress into an intensive 3-month accelerator. Fintech startups drive job creation, build wealth and generate valuable intellectual property for…
How to bring private strategy thinking to the public sector
The GovTech Accelerator is not for the faint of heart. Our cohort is taking a new approach to problem-solving in the public sector. This requires the application of new way of working to big, complex public sector issues to create fit-for-purpose…
How to get stakeholders buy-in from the start
Projects worth pursuing never exist in isolation. If there’s someone who wants the solution that you’re creating, it stands to reason that there are people who will care about it along the way. In the context of government, this can…
Logan City Council
Who we worked with Logan City Council What we did together T7 Masterclass programme Key Skills Applied Innovation, Innovation delivery, Thought leadership Logan City Council has big plans to fast-forward the city’s growth as an innovative, dynamic, sustainable city of the…
GovTech Accelerator 2022: calling all startups and NGOs
For the past 4 years Creative HQ has been running the GovTech Accelerator, helping local and central government to use creativity and innovation to solve problems. Our goal is still the same: to leverage innovation to drive better outcomes for…
Prototyping: how to test your idea before going to market
Do you remember wanting a particular toy when you were a kid? Maybe it was a Furby, or a Tamagotchi, or maybe a stick and hoop, depending on what generation you’re from. Everyone else had one and you were convinced…
Could Creative Tech be Wellington’s next goldmine?
It’s a match. The city’s creatives are joining forces with the tech sector to support the next generation of creators, and Creative HQ believes that with the right support, Creative Tech has the potential to become Wellington’s next goldmine. Announced…
Venture Up
Who we worked with Ministry of Youth Development and young kiwis What we did together 12-week programme Skills Applied innovation tools Since 2015, almost 250 youth (16–24 years old) have completed Creative HQ’s Venture Up programme, learning essential entrepreneurial leadership…
Fintech Hui Taumata 2026
Wellington was buzzing with energy as hundreds of innovators, entrepreneurs and industry leaders came together for Fintech Hui Taumata 2026 in Wellington. This is New Zealand’s flagship fintech event, bringing together leaders from government, financial services, technology and startups to collaborate…
Stressing over confusing cashflow to a Global Fintech: The story behind Hello Cashflow
The next big startup idea often comes from repeatedly feeling the same pain over and over. Like many business owners, Kate and Jonny found financial reporting confusing, stressful and difficult to translate into everyday decisions. They tried every product on…
Hack the Crisis
Who we worked with Startup organisations, local businesses and founders What we did together A 48-hour hackathon to respond to Covid immediate challenges Skills Problem discovery, market validation Skills Waikato supports Hack The Crisis – Wintec “What an amazing weekend…
Meet the startups building better financial services in New Zealand
A strong Fintech sector matters for New Zealand. Financial services shape how people save, borrow, invest, insure and run businesses. When these systems are more accessible, efficient and trustworthy, the benefits compound across the economy — from household resilience to…
AI recycling solutions and Kiwi carbon capture technology: Startups come together to progress clever world-saving ideas at Creative HQ
Wellington – 23 March 2022 Carbon capture technology, AI recycling and ‘Xero for climate change‘ are just a few of the ten ingenious new startup innovations from around Aotearoa set to be supercharged in the virtual Climate Response Accelerator, a…
FEIJOA: A Wellington Fintech making saving as simple as spending
Meet Feijoa There’s a quiet behavioural problem at the heart of personal finance: saving requires sustained, deliberate effort over decades, while spending requires almost none. Wellington fintech Feijoa is built on the premise that this imbalance can be fixed. Feijoa’s…
The resurgence of NZ Tech Rally
The NZ Tech Rally community and its annual conference isn’t just another event packed with buzzwords and polished presentations. Its core mission is to provide inclusive spaces for the Aotearoa tech community to celebrate, connect and grow together. They achieve…
Creative thinking set to be celebrated in the Capital at Mindset of Design Festival
Wellington – 12 April 2022 Creative thinkers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs will be able to come together at the Capital’s annual design festival – Mindset of Design – from the 16th to the 20th of May as Omicron retreats from Wellington, and…
Building the ecosystem before the startup
Who we worked with Reserve Bank of Fiji What we’re working on together Fiji Innovation Hub The opportunity Fiji has ambition and a vision for how to grow the economy through local innovation. There is growing recognition that innovation is…
Spotlight: Nurturing Innovation in Agriculture
Interview with Stuart Kay from Ballance Agri-Nutrients What we did together Ballance Agri-Nutrients is a partner with us for the Climate Response Accelerator 2024 Stuart Kay, Innovation Lead at Ballance In the heart of New Zealand’s agricultural sector, innovation isn’t…
Founder Stories – Jessie Stanley
After successfully exiting her first venture, I Love Pies, Jessie Stanley wanted her next chapter to really matter. A food technologist with deep experience in product development, she’d spent years inside the food industry and had seen firsthand the scale…
Genesia Girls Create-a-thon
Genesia Girls have been hosting workshops and events like Hackathons, Create-a-thons over the last year, bringing together high school female and gender-diverse students to explore creative technologies such as game design, animation, 3D modelling and web design. Over these weekends,…
Founder Stories – Emily Blythe
Emily Blythe started her founder’s journey at an early age and we started working with her when she joined our first Venture Up young founders programme back in 2015. Emily has gone on to have a very impressive founder’s journey…
Founder Stories – Carlos Chambers
From Lab Tech in an accelerator to CEO of an accelerator company in 6 months, Carlos Chambers’ founder journey started off with a bang. Over the years, he learned a lot about leadership and went on to create and lead…
Spotlight: Motion Capital. Empowering Climate Innovation with Purpose
Interview with Lachlan Nixon, Founding Partner at Motion Capital What we did together Motion Capital is a partner with us for the Climate Response Accelerator 2024 Chris Harris & Lachlan Nixon of Motion Capital Motion Capital is a new venture…
Founder Stories – Tal Meser
Tal Meser always wanted to start a business. But he dropped out of University and found himself in debt and “living off noodles” when he came to Creative HQ and started working with us. After a couple of startup attempts,…
Founder Stories – Sasha Lockley
For Sasha Lockley, the founder of Money Sweet Spot, starting a fintech wasn’t about disrupting markets, it was about making fixing debt more human. Her mission is deeply personal: to create “the best place in the world to get out…
5 challenges of online facilitation and how to overcome them
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen an increase in workplace reliance on digital tools and embracing of the remote work model. Some companies have been operating 100% remotely for the past two years, working with teams that are…
Philippine Anti-Red Tape Authority
Who we worked with ARTA (Philippine Anti-Red Tape Authority) What we did together T7 Masterclass in Innovation Since 2016 New Zealand and the Philippines have been working together on initiatives to improve the ease of doing business in the Philippines. In…
Ideation: how can you come up with great ideas quickly
Ideation is an activity that every person engages in almost every day without even realising it. When you’re weighing the options of what to have for dinner or considering which route will get you home quicker, you’re ideating. Cool, right?…
Tech Groups in Wellington: How to Find Your Community
Wellington has a thriving community for innovation, startups and all things tech. Behind the scenes, there is a dynamic network of developers, designers, founders and curious learners who are coming together to share ideas, build projects and support one another’s…
Creative HQ hero video
Creative HQ is your place of innovation. We help people around the world transform their ideas into real-world solutions. How? By giving them the energy and skills to innovate. Whether you have a problem to solve in government, hunger for…
Five application tips you should know before applying for a startup programme
What do CVs, online recipes and programme applications have in common? Many of them can be terribly hard to read and make it hard to find what you’re looking for. As a selection team, we see hundreds of applications, and…
Startup Stories – Last Myle
Powering a Smarter Future for Energy Rethinking the Last Mile For most of us, energy begins and ends at the switch but behind the scenes, the last mile of delivery is the most expensive, inefficient, and carbon-intensive part of the…
In the age of the Unicorn, what support are we giving to the foals?
At Creative HQ, we have been supporting founders for yonks. Nearly 20 years to be exact. Over this time we’ve run a wide range of startup support programmes: from incubators to accelerators and things in between. We’ve supported all kinds…
Startup Stories – Indus
Connecting global economies and making investing more accessible for Kiwis A bold vision When Jai Goradia and his co-founders started Indus, a New Zealand-based Fintech company, his vision was bold: to open India’s financial markets to the world. For the…
We’ve innovated with
