Many of the winners are immune to Trump's tariffs, which don't apply to software or services. Image / Getty Creative
Windcave was the biggest winner at the 2025 AmCham-DHL Express Success and Innovation Awards, organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in NZ.
The Auckland-based firm, which handles eftpos and credit card payments in store and online in New Zealand, and more around the world, won Exporter of the Year to the US, Technology. It also picked up the Supreme winner gong, chosen from all the category winners (see full list below).
Last year, the privately owned Windcave, founded by Andy Cullen, broke into the Technology Investment Network’s list of New Zealand’s 10 largest tech exporters.
Its revenue has increased from $96 million to $305m (by TIN’s estimate) as it expanded at home (with a new 6000sq m facility in Ellerslie opened in September last year for the manufacture of its payment terminals and development of new products) and overseas.
TIN said Windcave’s revenue bump showed that new office openings, including new digs in Phoenix and New York are paying dividends.
Growth areas have included unattended payment terminals and support for contactless payments directly to an iPhone via Apple’s Tap to Pay.
Its focus on North America saw the company shift its incorporation to the US. An April 2025 Overseas Investment Office decision gave the Arizona-based Windcave LLC (also controlled by Cullen) permission to acquire Windcave Ltd.
Investor of the Year to or from the US was Axon Enterprise (formerly Taser International), which in November led an $82m venture capital investment in Auckland-based Auror, the maker of a software platform for quickly reporting retail crime to police, or sharing information about suspects with other stores.
Nasdaq-listed Axon – which has a US$59 billion ($77b) market cap – invented the Taser in the 1970s. In the 2000s it expanded into bodycams, then computer-aided dispatch software and a cloud-based digital evidence platform. The firm was already an Auror technology partner.
READ MORE: UK Govt says more retailers should use Kiwi crime-fighting software firm Auror
The two companies are now partnering on a new Retail Crime Hub platform for fragmented US law enforcement agencies to pool intelligence about retail crime.
Auror has been immune to the trade war. Software and services have so far been exempt from the Trump Administration’s tariffs.
Nevertheless, the 15% tariff imposed on NZ exports to the US weighed on the night, and was referenced by multiple speakers.
AmCham NZ vice president Eric Mahoney told the awards audience, “One of the interesting comments we heard when we were in Washington DC [in July for an Asia Pacific AmCham event] was that any future US government may not remove the tariffs. So this is something business may have to live with for some time.”
Businesses could be “hit hard” by last month’s removal of the “de minimis” tariff exemption on small packages - a measure introduced by the US Government in 1938, with an adjustment to a US$800 threshold in 2015 to foster small businesses and e-commerce.
Trade Minister Todd McClay, who also spoke at the event, said his Government would continue efforts to get the 15% tariff reversed overall, and to pursue exemptions for individual products.
“We know that New Zealand interests are best served in the world where trade flows freely, and the government will continue to advocate for global trade assistance based on rules,” McCay said.
“But tariffs are now part of the American political and economic toolkit, and we need to be realistic about that.”
The Bilateral Connections winner was Rob Coneybeer, an American venture capitalist who divides his time between Seattle and Mount Maunganui.
Coneybeer is one of the organisers of the “4x4 Farout Road Trip”, which staged its second “Cannonball run” around New Zealand earlier this year.
The road trip saw 80 people, including 35 investors from the US, meet with local start-ups as they toured from town to town in four-wheel drives.
The Shasta Ventures cofounder told the Herald the North American money could help move New Zealand forward.
“I know the appeal and the challenges of New Zealand. To move the economy forward, I think you absolutely, you, we absolutely have to grow the tech ecosystem. There’s no other way out,” Coneybeer said.
“The tourism sector is not going to get more productive. And sending low-value timber and powdered milk to China – you can’t scale that. You can’t scale real estate.”
Coneybeer has put his money where his mouth is, with his firm investing in Kiwi start-ups including Auror, Dawn Aerospace (which recently sold its first “space plane” to the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority for US$17m), Partly, Portainer, Tracksuit, Zenno Astronautics and e-boat maker Vessev.
In April, the American was named the new chairman of Endeavor NZ, the local chapter of the international Endeavor network for entrepreneurs.
Exporter of the Year to the US, Consumer Goods winner Calocurb, the maker of an appetite-suppressant supplement, based on Motueka hops, has been pushing into the multibillion-dollar US weight loss market.
Founder and chief executive Sarah Kennedy says the firm makes around 80% of its sales in the US, where its $60 product goes head to head with rival suppressants that can cost up to US$1400 per month.
“We are the only patented natural GLP-1 activator in the world,” Kennedy told the AmCham awards audience, referring to Glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone produced in the intestine that helps regulate appetite and blood sugar.
She pitches Calocurb (a pill) as both a natural alternative to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy - and as something people can take to maintain weight loss as they come off either of the synthetic hormones, which are administered by injection.
Kennedy said he genesis of her company came six years ago when she was approached by Plant & Food Research, then the largest crown research institute in NZ, after a team of “remarkable” NZ scientists led by Dr Edward Walker discovered a bitter extract in hop flowers. Walker’s research was based on hard science, but inspired by historic folklore that starving Scots chewed hops to suppress hunger.
Kennedy claimed the same benefits from hops could not be accrued by drinking beer.
Exporter of the Year to the US, Services winner Pratt & Whitney Air New Zealand Services (a joint venture between Air NZ and the American jet engine maker that trades as the Christchurch Engine Centre) is in the midst of a SUS$150 million ($252m) expansion that will add 200 jobs to its workforce of 400.
Air New Zealand makes about $30m a year in profit from its 49% stake in the Engine Centre, which has serviced thousands of engines from around the world for multiple airlines.
Contribution to Tourism to the USA winner Travel USA was founded during the pandemic. Managing director Andrew Gay said he had been in the industry since leaving school at 16 but found himself at a loose end during the pandemic. He wound up founding Travel USA, which focuses exclusively on the US, with his son Sean. His daughter took charge of marketing while his wife runs the firm’s website.
The Social Impact with the USA gong went to the NZ Robotics Charitable Trust for its Kiwibots programme that teaches robotics in schools and stages a national competition that feeds winning teams to an annual VEX World Championships in the US.
National operations manager Michelle Hazeleger-Mollard said Kiwibots was now in more than 300 schools with 200 competition teams. It costs $5000 to $10,000 to get a school set up for the Kiwibots programme, which was tied to the curriculum. She was on the hunt for new individual and corporate donors.
Notable Kiwibots alumni include Nicky Mabey, now a mechatronics engineer with Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Jack Barker, a software engineer with Amazon Web Services. Rocket Lab had also hired former Kiwibot team members, Hazeleger-Mollard said.
Winner: Windcave
Finalists: ADInstruments, Lumin
Winner: Pratt & Whitney Air New Zealand Services (trading as the Christchurch Engine Centre)
Finalist: Crimson Education
Winner: Calocurb
Finalists: Moxx, The Better Packaging Co.
Winner: Axon Enterprise for investment in Auror
Finalists: Bridgewest Group, Motion Capital Management
Winner: Rob Coneybeer, The Far Out Foundation
Finalists: Auckland Council, American Universities International Programs
Winner: Travel USA
Finalist: International Working Holidays
Winner: The NZ Robotics Charitable Trust Inc/Kiwibots
Winner: ANZ Bank New Zealand
Windcave
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.