Huckleberry raises $2.1 million in pre-seed funding
Plus: Emerge's new banking product and Deloitte top 200 finalists named
Good morning Caffeinators!
Whenever I see Finn sending a full Daily Shot on a Friday instead of the planned look ahead to the next week, I give him a mental pat on the back for going the extra mile. I’m today experiencing exactly why that happens, because there are things to know about in the startup world that, if we don’t share them today, we might not get to at all.
Those things including:
Huckleberry announces $2.1 million pre-seed funding
Emerge launches everyday banking accounts
2025 Deloitte Top 200 Awards finalists named
Event: I Wish I Knew with FileInvite founder James Sampson
If you’ve got a story, press release, interview to pitch or just want to tell me I’m wrong about something - send it over to hello@caffeinedaily.co
If you’re interested in working with Caffeine as a partner, flick Georgia an email on: georgia@caffeinedaily.co
Have a great weekend, look after each other, and we’ll see you next week.
Nick and the CAFFEINE team
Huckleberry raises $2.1 million in pre-seed funding: We’ve featured the world’s first voice-based 360 feedback platform a couple of times recently, tracking their mission towards making workplace feedback faster and better.
The raise includes investment from Oregon Venture Fund, Archangel Ventures, and familiar names to Caffeine readers like Rowan Simpson, Serge Van Dam and Nathan Christensen.
In a nutshell, Huckleberry enables people to talk instead of type when giving feedback to teammates. The AI programme listens, guides and delivers practical suggestions, replacing painful 30-minute surveys with regular, useful feedback. The idea is it feels like talking to a personal AI executive coach who helps every employee improve week by week.
They’ve also announced a new feature, an AI-generated Growth Plan that takes feedback and creates a personalised 90 day plan so someone can take practical steps to implement it. Pretty cool. If you want to find out more, co-founder and CEO Aaron Ward gave a great interview with our mates at the Startup Theatre podcast a couple of months ago that’s well worth a listen.
Here’s a little something to say, ‘we love you all’!
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Introducing Emerge Personal: Another old favourite of ours, Emerge, has announced their latest specialty banking product. Founders Jamie Jermain and Jovan Pavlicevic started with SquareOne for kids, then Emerge Business, and now Emerge Personal for everyday banking accounts.
Emerge Personal offers instant account setup, virtual cards, real time updates and no hidden fees. They’re also planning to roll out interest-bearing accounts, multicurrency wallets and international transfers early next year. There’s more detail on NBR (paywalled), and on their website.
I find the rise and rise of fintech and alternative banking solutions fascinating. I’d be lying if I said I really understood it, but it appears plenty of you do - more than 250,000 people have signed up to at least one Emerge product. If nothing else, the promise of “fast, simple, and fee‑free” banking sounds pretty good.
Disclaimer: there are a few rules around what you can and can’t call a “bank”…I don’t know how far that extends but if I’ve violated any of those rules then I’m sorry. Actually, that could apply to pretty much everything in this newsletter.
Finalists named for Deloitte Top 200 Awards: And the list includes some of New Zealand’s best known, most prominent companies and leaders, as well as a smattering from the startup community:
• Amazon Web Services Company of the Year: Fonterra, Rocket Lab and The a2 Milk Company
• ServiceNow Chief Executive of the Year: Sophie Moloney (Sky TV), Miles Hurrell (Fonterra) and Sukhinder Singh (Xero)
• Tax Traders Chief Financial Officer of the Year: David Muscat (The a2 Milk Company), Richard Thomson (Air New Zealand) and Simon Kebbell (Port of Tauranga)
• Forsyth Barr Chairperson of the Year: James Miller, Peter McBride and Pip Greenwood
• Sustainability Leadership: BNZ, Goodman Property Trust and Precinct Properties
• 2degrees Best Growth Strategy: Contact Energy, F&P Healthcare and Xero
• BusinessNZ Most Improved Performance: Port of Tauranga, Sanford and Tower
• Snowflake Young Executive of the Year: Anna Mitchell (Chorus), Boyd Scirkovich (Ngāti Toa Rangatira) and Kate Boyer (Air New Zealand)
• Diversity and Inclusion Leadership: AIA, Clarus and Microsoft
• Hobson Leavy Visionary Leader: To be announced on the night
The winners will be announced on Thursday, December 4.
Event: I Wish I Knew with James Sampson | Proudly Supported by Proxi & Kea: Like we mentioned yesterday, these I Wish I Knew events are a fantastic way to bring our startup community together and share knowledge and insights so everyone benefits. This is the next one in the events series and it’ll be another goodie.
If you aren’t familiar with James, let’s just say he’s a veteran of the startup rollercoaster. He cut his teeth co-founding Zyber, a Deloitte Fast 50 web agency, before founding and growing FileInvite into a global platform making secure document collection easy for businesses everywhere.
He’s won awards, raised capital, exited companies and weathered the kind of “will this even work?” moments every founder knows too well. This will be perfect for any founder interested in getting real, sometimes ugly perspectives on building and scaling companies in NZ, especially within the global SaaS category.
Details
📅 November 13, 5:15 - 7pm
📍1 Albert Street, Auckland
As always, this is free for Caffeine supporters with the promo code CAFFEINEFRIENDS. Register here.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co. Look after yourselves this weekend and we’ll see you Monday.