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Aurora Climate Lab
Backing bold and impact-driven founders to reach new heights
NZ’s Climate Tech Accelerator
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill accelerator. It’s a rallying call to back the bold ideas that will shape our future and position NZ as a climate tech leader on the global stage. Supported by partners and sponsors investing in our future.
This 12 week programme is specifically designed to wrap the right support, resources and community around these startups so they can achieve a year’s worth of progress in a fraction of the time.
Key dates
20 October 2026: Aurora Climate Lab – Cohort 6 launch party.
8 December: Midway point in Auckland
25-26 February 2027: Aurora Climate Tech Summit in Wellington.
Why are we
backing Climate
Tech?
Outside of the urgent need to build solutions that will combat climate change and protect our clean green way of living, Aotearoa is also facing a cost of living crisis with pressure added by our aging energy infrastructure. For this year’s cohort, there is a special focus on clean energy and scalable energy solutions.
$160+ million
Aurora Climate Lab alumni have raised since 2021
90%
of Aurora Climate Lab startups are still operating today.
$535 million
investment attracted by NZ Climate Tech companies
Meet the Cohort 6 of Aurora Climate Lab
Eleven teams from across Aotearoa are building tech that will lower power bills, help farmers care for their soil, turn hazardous waste into something useful, map climate risk and get our vehicles and planes off fossil fuels.
Axen Group
AXEN’s MineHawk is a rugged, purpose-built electric Light Vehicle designed to decarbonise mining.
Learn more
Replacing diesel LVs, it cuts Total Cost of Ownership by 48%, eliminates up to 30 tonnes of CO₂ annually per vehicle, and reduces underground heat output by 82%. AXEN also provides charging infrastructure, enabling safer, cleaner and more efficient mining operations.
Founders:
Jamie Wilson and
Stefan Ingendae
BioGlint
BioGlint tackles nitrogen leaching from dairy farming and fertiliser use, a major threat to New Zealand’s waterways and ecosystems.
Learn more
Our passive, biodegradable sensors provide farmers with high-density soil data to precisely monitor and reduce nutrient runoff. By replacing traditional electronic sensors, BioGlint also eliminates associated electronic waste and microplastics, enabling more sustainable precision agriculture.
Founders: Nethmie Jayasooriya and Sachith Muthukumarana
Website:
www.bioglint.co.nz
LinkedIn
Canopi (The Lever Room)
Canopi is deep-tech geospatial software for land, property and infrastructure.
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We bring together climate, hazard, environmental and land data to show how places and assets could change over time — from a single site to an entire portfolio.Canopi helps investors, asset owners and land managers make clearer, more defensible decisions about where to invest, build, adapt and grow. It turns complex science and spatial data into practical evidence people can actually use. Our mission is to bring foresight to land and asset decisions.
Founder: Rebecca Mills
Website: theleverroom.com/canopi
LinkedIn
Cogo
Cogo makes it easy to electrify your home with solar, batteries, heat pumps, EVs + more.
Learn more
We help you find the right upgrades for your home, model the costs and savings on your bills, connect you with vetted installers and facilitate finance options. Nearly 100,000 Kiwis have used Cogo to date, and we’re now launching in Australia and the UK. Let’s go electrify the world – let’s Cogo!
Founders:
Josh Dry and
Ben Gleisner
Crux Aerospace
Crux Aerospace is developing commercially viable hydrogen-electric propulsion for aviation, starting with NZ-made NZAero’s 750XL aircraft.
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Its high payload capacity makes it uniquely suited to carry first-generation hydrogen systems.Crux aims to demonstrate liquid hydrogen flight early, building critical real-world experience that can accelerate adoption across larger aircraft and unlock a credible pathway to decarbonising mainstream aviation.
Founders: David Gawith and Dana Goodwin
Greenback
Greenback is a female-led climate tech company building digital tools for sustainability, traceability and regenerative transformation.
Learn more
Its software makes environmental impact measurable, verifiable and actionable, helping producers and platforms navigate climate reporting, certification, compliance and finance. Starting in Aotearoa New Zealand, Greenback is scaling globally to unlock ecosystem finance and prove outcomes.
Founders: Fliss Roberts, Tiffany Tompkins and Rhiannon Jones
Website:
greenback.solutions
LinkedIn
Graymark
Graymark is transforming hazardous waste management in New Zealand with Regen, a containerised chemical recovery platform that separates contaminants from bulk material rather than simply disposing of them.
Learn more
Regen can reduce hazardous waste mass by up to 1,000:1, returning independently verified clean material to reuse. Already operating commercially, Graymark serves councils, consultants and industrial operators nationwide.
Founders: Rees Vinsen and
Mark Vinsen
Website: graymark.tech/regen
LinkedIn
Honac
Honac converts surplus renewable electricity into high-temperature industrial process heat, replacing fossil fuels without requiring customers to rebuild existing infrastructure.
Learn more
Its technology uses electrolysis to produce hydrogen and oxygen, then combusts them together to generate clean heat at temperatures from 300°C to over 1,000°C—with no CO₂ or NOx. Honac aims to decarbonise industrial heat globally.
Founder: Adam Teare
Website:
honac.co.nz
LinkedIn
ilumento
ilumento is a Dunedin-based company making lighting control in commercial buildings smarter and more efficient.
Learn more
Its software-led platform simplifies hardware and streamlines building analytics, built for international markets. Founded by Bill Schafer, a lighting and automation technologist with decades of global experience, and Glen Todd, former CEO of MTF Finance.
Founders: William Schafer and
Glen Todd
Website: ilumento.com
LinkedIn
Power Trip
Empowering people to make electrification easy. The data fleets create has the potential to revolutionise how organisations operate and to rapidly shrink their carbon footprints.
Learn more
Power Trip unlocks that potential, giving fleet and sustainability managers the tools and insights they need to save money on fuel, reach their emissions goals faster and optimise their operations around the nuances of electric vehicles without sacrificing productivity. Each fleet’s challenges are unique and our solutions adapt to meet them. We combine advanced, EV-focused simulation and optimisation technology with engaging and rewarding user experiences and customisable solutions, giving fleets the power to create and execute effective fleet transition strategies and manage electric vehicle fleets, while supporting their drivers every step of the way.
Founder: Richard Heaps
Website:
powertrip.earth
LinkedIn
TwoPhold
TwoPhold is developing materials that increase solar cell efficiency by converting high-energy light into two usable charges instead of losing excess energy as heat.
Learn more
Its solution-processable perovskite “inks” enable low-cost, scalable manufacturing, including roll-to-roll printing. By partnering with perovskite developers, TwoPhold aims to push solar efficiency from ~32% toward ~44%, reducing the cost per watt.
Founders: Nate Davis and Nikita Shumilov
Website: twophold.com
LinkedIn
Looking back
Aurora Climate Lab is welcoming its sixth cohort. Here’s a look at what our founders have built over the last two years.
2025: Clean energy in focus
15 teams worked on Climate Tech solutions, including geothermal, EV charging, low-carbon cement, ocean carbon removal and sugar made from CO₂. Learn more about the cohort here or check out the Summit takeaways on BusinessDesk.
2026: Our biggest year yet
Rising power costs, ageing energy infrastructure and extreme weather. In 2026, 15 startups took these challenges on, with a focus on Energy and Bioeconomy, reflecting the urgent need to decarbonise and the opportunity for Aotearoa to build new industries. They pitched at our biggest Climate Tech Summit to date and continuing to grow or scale. Learn more here.
Now, Cohort 6 is ready to build on that work.
Ngā mihi to our Aurora Climate Lab partners
Alumni from our past accelerators
Holly Beals
Senior Innovation Specialist
Supporting climate tech founders to build and scale is one of the most powerful ways to drive meaningful climate impact. With the right backing, their solutions can create lasting change across industries, communities and our economy.
Curious to learn more?