Hall of Fame inductee Greg Cross. Photo / Supplied.
Hall of Fame inductee Greg Cross. Photo / Supplied.
Pushpay (Company of the Year), PredictHQ (three awards) and Robotics Plus (two awards) were the big winners at the 2019 Hi-Tech Awards, announced in Auckland this evening. See the full list of winners below.
The event also saw entrepreneur Greg Cross inducted into the NZ Hi-Tech Hall of Fame. Theone-time head of Microsoft's NZ operation was a co-founder of wireless charging company PowerbyProxi - sold to Apple for in 2017 - and is currently chief business officer for AI virtual assistant startup Soul Machines, a director of Cross Ventures and a partner in Movac.
In selecting Pushpay as the PwC Hi-Tech Company of the Year the international judges said, "Pushpay shows what happens when a metrics-mad company just keeps pushing. During 2018, Pushpay's platform was used by more than 7500 churches around the world to process more than $5 billion contributions. CEO Chris Heaslip has built a strong and enduring 'people-first- culture that has endured even as the employee base globalised and grew into the hundreds."
Pushpay has had a year of transition, with financial and sharemarket success coupled with the surprise departure of Heaslip and, earlier, co-founder Eliot Crowther.
PredictHQ raised $15m late last year following a big contract win with Uber, among other global customer gains.
And Tauranga-based Robotics Plus, which is developing robot fruit pickers to help combat the shortage of human labourers, bagged a $12 million investment from Yamaha.
The 2019 NZ Hi-Tech Award winners
2019 Flying Kiwi and inductee into the Tait Communications Hi-Tech Hall of Fame Greg Cross
Xero Hi-Tech Young Achiever Award John Roy from Coretex
