We’ve completed 100+ innovation projects across 13 countries.

There are a lot of benefits to applying lean startup methodologies such as design sprints in large organisations. In simple terms, design sprints are a fast and efficient tool for problem-solving. Teams engage with key issues, identify opportunities and turn…

Who we worked with Metro North Health, Queensland Australia What we did together  T7 Masterclass in Innovation What happens when a major public health provider joins forces with Creative HQ? You get a powerful alliance that’s reimagining healthcare at its…

If you are planning to start a business or if you are running an early-stage startup, you’ll need all the advice that you can get. This is the perfect time to level up your skill sets and soak in as…

Who we worked with Metro South Health, Queensland Australia What we did together  T7 Masterclass in Innovation What does Brisbane’s public health care system and Creative HQ have in common? How about using the power of innovation to improve people’s…

On 12 September 2024, Creative HQ hosted the New Zealand Final of the Startup World Cup, bringing together eleven of Aotearoa’s most promising early-stage tech ventures to compete for a place at the Grand Finale in Silicon Valley. Founders delivered…

WELLINGTON – 30 JULY 2026: Introducing fifteen emerging startups building scalable Climate Tech solutions across Aotearoa.  The Aurora Climate Tech Summit, held at Wellington’s Shed 6, was Creative HQ’s biggest Climate Tech-focused event to date, bringing together founders, investors, industry…

Wellington – 8 December 2022: Boosting rangatahi engagement and supporting young women into sustainable agriculture careers are among the issues that 14 projects have tackled in New Zealand’s only government innovation programme, the GovTech Accelerator. Delivered by Wellington’s innovation hub,…

Wellington – November 2021: Wellington is bucking the trend with women currently making up the majority of founders participating in Creative HQ’s innovation and startup programmes at Wellington’s innovation hub. Nationwide women make up 17% of business founders. Further, women-founded or…

Op-ed written by Annie Kim, Founder at Airie. At some point the question stopped being should someone solve this? It became if not me,then who? While working at Immigration New Zealand, I kept seeing the same problem from different angles….

Wellington – 07 Mar 2023: The Wellington-based School of Innovation run by Creative HQ has seen a significant increase in people studying innovation in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet the steadily growing market demand, Creative HQ now…

Building a Fintech is not your regular startup journey.  You can’t just build something, put it online and start selling. Before your first customer can hand over a cent, you’re navigating financial regulations, licensing requirements, compliance frameworks, and technical infrastructure…

I recently attended an executive education course at Stanford University, and in a room of 80 business leaders from around the world, only eight were women.  I found that fact odd, a little bit shocking even. In my daily interactions,…

Wellington – 6 June 2024: Creative HQ’s accelerators provide our cohorts with mentors and coaches to assist them through their unique challenges across a 12-week programme. Mentors and coaches play critical roles in startup accelerator teams, but what exactly is…

Who we worked with Manaaki Tairāwhiti and Ministry of SocialDevelopment What we did together GovTech Accelerator Aotearoa spends more than 50 billion dollars annually on social services that are designed to help everyone thrive. However, these services inadvertently create barriers….

Who we worked with Valenzuela City What we did together 16-week accelerator Key skills Innovation methodologies and tools, human-centred design, team collaboration and online collaboration Read more Valenzuela City, New Zealand Government Showcase Innovative Social Welfare Programme Since 2018, Creative…

Who we worked with Transpower What we did together 10-day challenge Key Skills Problem discovery, ideation Transpower is a New Zealand company with a big job: manage all the long-distance electricity transmission across the country. Electricity generated by power plants…

Who we worked with Contact Energy What we did together Design sprint Key Skills Problem Discovery, Ideation, Prototyping Contact Energy is one of New Zealand’s leading energy generators and retailers, providing electricity, natural gas and LPG to about 562,000 customers…

Who we worked with Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee What we did together Built innovation capability in HCMPC staff. In April 2019, twenty delegates from the Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee (HCMPC) in Vietnam came to Creative HQ for two…

Who we worked with Callaghan Innovation What we did together A series of sprints to re-design the customer experience for the RDTI The Research and Development Tax Incentive (RDTI) scheme is New Zealand’s largest government financial support mechanism for R&D….

Who we worked with VERI-Mi What we did together GovTech Accelerator “It’s about empowering people, with information about their rights. I’m not convinced minimum standards exist for migrant workers at the moment.” Dhilum NightingaleVERI-Mi, Founder The problem Every day, people…

Who we worked with MFAT and NZ business representatives What we did together Sprint Key Skills Problem discovery, ideation With an unprecedented series of sporting, cultural and political events happening in Japan from 2019–2025, New Zealand companies and agencies have…

Who we worked with Ministry of Education What we did together 2-day summit Key skills Co-design Read more The Kōrero Mātauranga  The goal? To create transformational change in the education sector, Creative HQ and partner Openfield created Kōrero Mātauranga –…

Raising capital as a startup founder, especially as a female founder, can be a daunting challenge. In a recent webinar, Sarah Park and Dr Kathleen Lucere from Even Capital shared their insights on navigating the venture capital (VC) landscape. They…

Wellington/Kerikeri – 8 June 2023: Hemp solutions to global building challenges around waste, carbon emissions and materials longevity are being unlocked by a new Aotearoa-first hemp binder, GEOBIND, developed by a local Kerikeri- based builder and an environmental enthusiast.  Co-founders…

The time is now OPINION 24 May 2024 – If the annual Budget is something of a state-of-the-nation moment for Aotearoa New Zealand, it is timely to present a state-of-the-industry assessment for the tech startup sector. As I stood on…

Out of approximately 582 million in the world, there are about 252 million women-owned businesses around the world. Though the percentage of women entrepreneurs has increased by 114% in the last twenty years, men still dominate the startup field. We’re…

The 2022 GovTech Accelerator brought together startups, NGOs and public-sector innovators in a 13-week programme designed to address social and environmental challenges through cross-sector collaboration. The cohort worked alongside coaching, mentorship and innovation methods to test and advance solutions that…

Embarking on the startup journey can be thrilling, but it comes with challenges—and accounting is a crucial area where founders need a solid foundation. At a recent event, Jono Rees from BoostNest Accountants shared his thoughts on accounting basics for…

Who we worked with Tourism startups and organisations What we did together 12-months coaching through our Accelerator startup programme Key Skills Lean, Agile, Market validation Read more “Tourism Accelerator launches to help startup founders re-shape thetourism industry.” – Tourism Export…

Who we worked with Reusabowl What we did together 12-month coaching through our Incubator startup programme Key skills Applied Innovation Read more “New Zealand is not as clean or green as we think” – Guardian Empowering takeaway lovers to reduce…

Who we worked with Te Puni Kōkiri What we did together 10-day sprint The Ministry has a broad mandate to support whānau Māori to thrive, through policy design and implementation, monitoring other government departments’ work, and relationship management and advocacy…

Founders that are driving social and environmental change Since 2013, Creative HQ ran 17 accelerator programmes across New Zealand, supporting more than 150 companies and facilitating over $100 million in seed and Series A investment. In 2023, it delivered its…

Everything you need to start, scale and lead in New Zealand’s fastest-growing tech sector. Building a Fintech startup? Start here. Created by Creative HQ with Aotearoa’s Fintech community, this guide gives you the tools, connections, and know-how to take your…

“But what if I want to invest just $50?”  Sharesies all started with a problem and a conversation between friends and colleagues. Now, over half a million Kiwis use their investment platform every day.  We hear from Sharesies co-founder and…

Who we worked with Plunket What we did together T7 Masterclass in Innovation Recognising their need to innovate, Whānau Āwhina Plunket had two objectives: to grow their internal innovation capability by developing innovative skill sets and to explore different funding…

On 9 October 2025, Te Raukura ki Kāpiti hosted the New Zealand Final of the Startup World Cup for the first time, bringing a global stage to the Kāpiti Coast in partnership with Creative HQ. Twelve of Aotearoa’s most promising…

Creative HQ’s Government Innovation Lead Jonnie Haddon sat down with David Downs, former CEO of New Zealand Story and incoming CEO of Education New Zealand, for a candid conversation about public sector innovation, AI and what it actually takes to…

Shalini Divya started her founder’s journey by creating the company TasmanIon as an extension of her PhD research on new battery technologies, which she started back in 2018. We first met Shalini when she brought her company into Creative HQ’s…

How many companies in New Zealand can claim that they played a critical role in our COVID response and helped Barack Obama get elected? Silverstripe can, and they can also rightfully claim to be a key part of the fabric…

The story of Publons is a great illustration of the power of vision and determination, and the impact you can achieve with a startup. Publons was one of the 10 companies in our first startup accelerator programme, Lightning Lab 2013….

Sharesies has become a household name in New Zealand. We were lucky to be able to work with them when they were a team of six founders in Creative HQ’s 2017 FinTech Accelerator programme. Their story provides a great example…

The FinTech Accelerator programme alumni Hnry is a great example of the power of building a scalable solution on a straightforward problem that is experienced by many people. What is Hnry? Hnry, founded by James and Claire Fuller, is an…

GeoBind is one of the more recent success stories to come through Creative HQ’s doors. Founded by partners Alice Hosted and Doug Sturrock, GeoBind is a great illustration of the highly creative, impact-focused companies that are now being built in…

We’re lucky enough to already be set up for remote working: we offer working from home options for our team, and we often work remotely with clients from around the globe. To help you get started, we’ve put together a…

An exponential technology is two things First, it’s exponential. In each period it doubles in capability or performance. Or perhaps on the flip side, it halves in cost in each period. Computers are an example of an exponential technology we’re…

Most funding advice online is built for Silicon Valley or Sydney – not the reality of raising in New Zealand. That’s the gap this new guide sets out to close. “How to Raise a Seed Round in New Zealand: The…

As innovators, problems are our bread and butter and turning them into opportunities is what we do best. In order to do this effectively, we need to know what the problem is. A vague problem is an unsolvable problem because…

Coworking spaces let you share a space with other like-minded people allowing you to collaborate and share the journey with other people. Most spaces are set up for both individuals and small companies and a few will be able to…

Wellington – 27 March 2022: A cohort of sixteen remarkable startup teams brimming with impact-focused solutions to drive positive social and environmental change in New Zealand have been selected to participate in Creative HQ’s Impact Accelerator. And alongside the Impact…

Neumic Therapeutics has won Creative HQ’s national Startup World Cup final, earning the title of New Zealand’s top emerging startup and a place at the global competition in San Francisco. The Dunedin company will now travel to Silicon Valley with…