As always, on Monday we recap a few of our favourite stories or resources from the week that was then tomorrow kick back into our full newsletter from tomorrow on.
Have a great start to your 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.
Lumin offers Business Bundle for Free
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Report: Xero Small Business Insights finds positive signs amid the struggle: It feel like we’ve been hearing this kind of sentiment for a while now - the ‘green shoots are there, but for now it’s tough going’ sort of thing. Yip, it’s good to have something to be positive about but jeez it would be nice if those green shoots started sprouting a bit faster.
Check out the full report here - highlights include:
For the first time in two-and-a-half years sales rose for the quarter, though at 1.9% year-on-year, this is still a decline in inflation-adjusted (real) terms.
Modest quarterly sales growth in Auckland and Wellington, bucking a trend of recent underperformance by finally recording sales increases at +0.6% y/y and +0.4% y/y respectively.
Canterbury (+4.3% y/y) and Otago (+6.3% y/y) continue to be the two best performing regions for sales.
Jobs in small businesses were 1.2% lower than a year ago in the September quarter, after a similar fall in the June quarter.
Agriculture’s hot streak cooled in the September quarter, with sales growing “only” 3.3% y/y, down from 11.1% y/y in the June quarter.
The star performers for 2025 have been the manufacturing (+2.9% y/y sales and +0.6% y/y jobs) and professional services (+2.4% sales and +1.8% y/y jobs) industries, having recorded at least three consecutive quarters of positive sales and jobs growth.
Industries including construction, hospitality and retail continued to be challenged, recording sales growth results of -0.7%, 1% and 2.9% y/y respectively.
Event recap: Pathways: A virtual interview with Ellie Brade, Co-Founder of Cleanery: It was awesome to spend time with Ellie on Thursday afternoon digging into her journey growing a global sustainable company.
Some of the things Ellie spoke about:
Cleanery’s inception with her co-founder Mark, focusing on “just add water” concentrates for sustainability
The challenges of product development and intentional scaling of their factory
Insights behind their rapid growth into nearly 3,000 stores in the US, leveraging their impact story and BCorp certification.
The importance of counteracting the “founder hustle” narrative; managing work-life balance through mandatory shutdowns, delegation enabled by trust, strategic hiring with ESOP and prioritising self-care.
We’ve got a handful of events coming up before the end of the year - next up is Founders’ Brains on Tap on Wednesday. This is a unique new event format where two of NZ’s leading business builders will offer solutions to challenges faced by founders in the audience - live on stage.
Nvidia becomes the first public company worth $5 trillion: What do you call a company that is a unicorn 5,000 times over? If someone has the answer, or wants to try to come up with a name, please let us know.
Nvidia shares rose more than 5.6% overnight on the back of news that Donald Trump expects to discuss Nvidia chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The company itself has also delivered positive news to the markets multiple times this week, including that it expects to hit $500 billion in AI chip sales, and that it’s also building seven new supercomputers in the U.S., requiring thousands of chips.
Stock is up more than 50% already this year, and it’s showing no sign of slowing down - it became the first company to hit the $4 trillion just three months ago. So, all in all, they’re going pretty good.
Want to get in touch with a news tip, a slice of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co
