Good News Aotearoa – Edition 31st July 2025
Where Kiwi ingenuity meets global ambition.
There’s something quietly powerful happening in Aotearoa. It’s not always noisy. It doesn’t always make the 6 o’clock news. But across the country, from humble home workshops to slick urban labs, people are building things. Growing things. Testing ideas, rewriting rules and refusing to settle and when that spirit catches the wind, it lifts us all.
This week’s edition of Good News Aotearoa brings together six standout stories, each with its own flavour of Kiwi magic - from a dog’s backyard nibble to a billion-dollar space-tech dream. At the heart of each one - courage, care and the kind of good old-fashioned belief that maybe, just maybe, we can do something remarkable here.
Let’s take a look.
Bonno – A Kiwi Dog Chew with Bark and Bite
It started, as many good Kiwi tales do, with a dog and a stick. Rosie the Border Collie, to be exact and a Mānuka branch on a Northland property. Fast forward and Bonno was born - a 100% natural, splinter-free dog chew finished with New Zealand flaxseed oil, compostable and crafted entirely from local Mānuka.
Founders Stefanie and Tony Egerton saw what no one else had - Mānuka, that treasured native taonga, wasn’t just good for honey. It was perfect for dogs’ dental health, stress relief and chewing joy.
In just days, Bonno captured national attention, earning a feature in NZ Entrepreneur Magazine and a FernMark licence. Global interest is growing, an export story that’s uniquely Kiwi and environmentally kind. From stick to sensation, Bonno is proof that sometimes innovation is just a matter of noticing what’s right under your nose (or paws).
Nexture – AI-Powered Diagnostics, Made in Christchurch
Meanwhile in Christchurch, a bold leap forward in healthtech is unfolding. Nexture, founded by Wei “Victor” Sun, is making early gastrointestinal diagnostics not just better, but radically more accessible.
Their platform, TheraSeus, uses AI to pre-screen capsule endoscopy footage. For patients, it means swallowing a tiny camera pill, then having their images analysed by AI for about $20–$30 per case. Doctors then review the flagged results remotely, saving time, cost and lives, particularly in rural and remote areas.
Backed by heavyweights like Microsoft for Startups, Google, and ChristchurchNZ, Nexture is a Kiwi solution tackling a global need. With regulatory approvals underway in New Zealand, Australia and the U.S., it’s not hard to imagine this small Christchurch firm becoming a world leader in diagnostic accessibility.
Projectworks – Giving Consultants a Superpower
Wellington’s Projectworks knows a thing or two about the chaos of consulting life. Built by ex-consultants who’d had enough of clunky spreadsheets and endless admin, they created a platform that does it all - time tracking, billing, resourcing, forecasting and reporting.
But this isn’t just software. It’s what happens when a team understands the blood, sweat and late nights of consultancy and decides to make it better. With $25 million raised in Series A funding (led by U.S. investor Ten Coves Capital), Projectworks now supports over 600 firms across 50 countries. Their next step? Integrating generative AI to streamline project reporting and proposal writing, making the invisible work of consulting visible, billable and better.
It’s a classic Kiwi tech export story - fix something annoying, build it well, grow it quietly, then conquer the world.
Outset Ventures – Investing in the Audacious
Outset Ventures isn’t a startup. It’s a launchpad for startups - the kind that are trying to bend physics, reform materials science, or revolutionise how we store energy. Based in Auckland’s Parnell, their new 5,000sqm Future House is part lab, part engineering complex, part wild idea factory.
Earlier this year, they closed a new fund with $41.5 million raised (well above their $30m goal), with contributions from NZ Growth Capital Partners and more than 150 private investors.
Outset backs ventures like OpenStar (nuclear fusion), EnergyBank (long-duration storage), and Zincovery (low-carbon zinc recycling). Their ethos? Go big. Go risky. Go global. Or go home.
And with Rocket Lab’s Sir Peter Beck as a north star, they’ve got the courage and capital to turn wild dreams into national pride.
Three New Science Institutes – A Smarter Structure for the Future
In July, the government carried out the biggest science system shake-up in 30 years. Six Crown Research Institutes were consolidated into three new Public Research Organisations (PROs), each with a sharper focus -
NZ Institute for Bioeconomy Science – merging research on land, food, climate and biotech.
Earth Sciences NZ – tackling natural hazards, resilience and energy futures.
NZ Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science – advancing disease detection and diagnostic tools.
What does this mean for business? More focused partnerships, quicker paths from lab to market and a research system tuned for impact, not just inquiry. For SMEs working on clean tech, food systems, diagnostics, or climate tools, the runway just got shorter.
Government AI Strategy – Finally, a Compass
It took a while, but in early July, New Zealand became the last OECD country to release a national AI strategy. Investing with Confidence is, by its own admission, a “light-touch, principles-based” document, but for many SMEs, it’s exactly the kind of clarity they’ve been waiting for.
The government projects that generative AI could boost GDP by $76 billion by 2038. With over $200 million pledged for skills development and subsidies, the strategy focuses on enabling adoption while relying on existing laws to manage safety and ethics.
While critics say it needs stronger protections, SME advocates, including Simon Bridges, have welcomed the framework. Finally, they say, small businesses have something to build from, rather than guessing at the rules.
In Closing – Curiosity Meets Courage
There’s a golden thread running through each of these stories. It's the idea that when we pair Kiwi curiosity with courage and back it with smart capital, better policy, and respect for the land, we build things that matter.
We chew the stick and find a market. We write code and find a diagnosis. We chase billion-dollar ambitions and we make room for dogs, consultants and country kids to all benefit.
And that’s the thing about good news. It’s not just about what’s already happened, it’s about what might happen next, because someone dared to try.
Ka pai, Aotearoa. Let’s keep going.
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