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Sunrise is Blackbird’s love letter to founders and the beautiful things they create. It’s a celebration of ambition and creativity, where Kiwis and Aussies come together to dream up the future.

Aotearoa 26

October 29

ASB Waterfront, Auckland, Aotearoa

Featured Sessions

Tim Doyle (Eucalyptus): Beginning Again - Why we sold eucalyptus and what it means for the future of healthcare

Tim Doyle

Visions Stage

Tim Doyle (Eucalyptus): Beginning Again - Why we sold eucalyptus and what it means for the future of healthcare

Visions Stage
One of the biggest liquidity events in Australian startup history just happened - and Tim's come back to Sunrise to tell the story. Eucalyptus co-founder unpacks the deal: why an acquisition over an IPO, what the journey actually looked like, and what it really feels like to sell something you poured your entire self into.

Tim Doyle

Co-founder & CEO at Eucalyptus

Tim co-founded Eucalyptus, the digital healthcare company acquired by Hims & Hers for US$1.15B, serving 500,000+ patients globally. Previously led growth at Koala.

Andrew Fraser & Malindi MacLean (Halter): Mooving Real Fast - Inside Halter's Wildest Year.

Malindi Maclean, Andrew Fraser, Lowry Gladwell

Visions Stage

Andrew Fraser & Malindi MacLean (Halter): Mooving Real Fast - Inside Halter's Wildest Year.

Visions Stage
Somewhere in a paddock right now, a cow is being gently nudged home by a solar-powered collar designed right here in Auckland. In the last twelve months, Halter has grown faster than almost any startup on the planet. That growth sits on the shoulders of farmers who trusted a young company with their herds and their livelihoods. It's a high steaks game. Andrew Fraser (President) and Malindi MacLean (VP of Customer) chew the cud on what it takes to earn that trust and hold onto it at speed.

Malindi Maclean

VP Customer at Halter

VP Customer at Halter. Malindi has led some of New Zealand's most-loved companies, from Outward Bound to Hubbards, before finding her way into tech.

Andrew Fraser

President at Halter

Andrew Fraser is President of Halter, whose virtual fences could wrap the planet dozens of times. He dreams of running his own beef station.

Lowry Gladwell

Country Lead at Airwallex New Zealand. He helped take Vend to exit and led Xero's embedded finance strategy, and now helps founders scale globally.

Ben Shewry (Attica): What Do You Do When the World Ends on a Tuesday?

Ben Shewry

Visions Stage

Ben Shewry (Attica): What Do You Do When the World Ends on a Tuesday?

Visions Stage
Ben Shewry built Attica into one of the World's 50 Best Restaurants. Then the world stopped, and overnight it became a bakery. This is the story of the culture that got them through it, and the strange, obsessive love that built it in the first place. What would your business become on its worst day?

Ben Shewry

Owner & Chef at Attica

Ben transformed Attica into one of the world's most celebrated restaurants. Star of Netflix's Chef's Table and author of memoir Uses for Obsession.

Connor Archbold (Tracksuit): This Talk Isn't Finished - Tracksuit, mid-rebuild

Connor Archbold

Explorations Stage

Connor Archbold (Tracksuit): This Talk Isn't Finished - Tracksuit, mid-rebuild

Explorations Stage
In about four years, Tracksuit went from nothing to the tool marketers open to see what real people think of their brands. It worked. It still works. And co-founder and CEO Connor Archbold has decided that won't be enough. This is a live report from somewhere in the middle. It's about turning a company built on marketing and sales into one that ships like engineers run the place, and rebuilding the product for marketers who now work alongside AI. Underneath this is a conviction that's grown stronger than ever. Launching has never been easier. Standing for something has never been harder. Brand is more important than ever.

Connor Archbold

CEO & Co-Founder at Tracksuit

Connor, CEO of Tracksuit, once ran a surf and yoga retreat in Nicaragua. Now he's bringing brand data into boardrooms worldwide.

Hands-on AI Optimisation: Caching, Evals and Architecture

Thomas Jeng, Weiran Sun, Ned Swaney

Explorations Stage

Hands-on AI Optimisation: Caching, Evals and Architecture

Explorations Stage
Join OpenAI for a practical 45-minute workshop on improving AI applications. We’ll start with 10 minutes on how we work with startups, using caching and evals as examples. You’ll then spend 20 minutes running cookbook skills for tasks such as caching, architecture optimisation and eval review. Together, we’ll discuss the findings and identify opportunities to improve performance, cost and reliability. In the final 15 minutes, bring your own technical challenges for an open discussion with the team and explore what to try next.

Thomas Jeng

Head of Startups, APAC at OpenAI

Thomas Jeng leads OpenAI's Startups team across Asia-Pacific, backing the founders and investors building toward a future that benefits everyone.

Weiran Sun

Applied AI Engineer, Startup at OpenAI

Weiran leads OpenAI's technical engagement with the top startups across SEA and ANZ.

Ned Swaney

Ned is the engineer on OpenAI's Startups team in Sydney, making sure Australia's most ambitious founders can push frontier models to their limits.

Michelle Walshe (Coachmate): Seeing What Others Miss - From Documentarian to Startup Founder

Michelle Walshe

Visions Stage

Michelle Walshe (Coachmate): Seeing What Others Miss - From Documentarian to Startup Founder

Visions Stage
Michelle Walshe built her career asking questions, observing people and finding the story others missed. After a decade working with global stars and directing award-winning documentaries, she turned that lens on grassroots sport and spotted a problem hiding in plain sight. Investors doubted her. She nearly stepped down as CEO. Now she’s solving problems for the world’s biggest sporting organisations.

Michelle Walshe

Co-founder & CEO at CoachMate

Co-founder of sports EdTech platform CoachMate, and film director behind ‘Prime Minister’ an intimate portrait of Jacinda Ardern, that won Sundance & two Emmys.

David Hansen: Capital is abundant and undifferentiated. You are not.

David Hansen

Visions Stage

David Hansen: Capital is abundant and undifferentiated. You are not.

Visions Stage
David grew up in South Auckland, where nobody is taught to ask for much, and now builds motors and robot actuators in California, backed by the world's best investors. He has watched New Zealand founders negotiate as though they were asking investors for a favour. A story about where that instinct comes from, and how to put it down.

David Hansen

Founder & CEO at Westmag

David spent a decade in a train carriage mastering electric motors. Now his company Westmag builds the muscle inside America's drones and robots.

Pixel Collective: Aotearoa in 2126: Reimagining Aotearoa's Future Through Today's Nostalgia

Promise Akindeju, Niko Purdie, Tenaya Smerdon

Visions Stage

Pixel Collective: Aotearoa in 2126: Reimagining Aotearoa's Future Through Today's Nostalgia

Visions Stage
Somewhere between our nostalgia for the past and the glittering promises of AI is a question about who we want to be. As we look to the next generation of worldbuilders, we see a shift towards analogue tech, physical media and local communities. What does this mean for how technology will help humans live, connect and create 100 years from now? If we look closely at what we long for, we might find a blueprint for what to create next.

Promise Akindeju

Filmmaker at Lemon Time Studios & Alcova

Promise is a filmmaker and technologist from Aotearoa, building spaces, on screen and online, where people feel free to be fully themselves.

Niko Purdie

Chief KiwiHacker at KiwiHacks

At fifteen, Niko flew to Austin for a hackathon and came home wondering why NZ had none. So he built one. Now he's seventeen, taking it national.

Tenaya Smerdon

Tenaya is a community builder and artist. Parallel Layers, the project they founded, uses creativity to bring people together across differences.

Fundraising Workshop: Get that Bag from your Friendly Neighbourhood VC

Andrew Wierda, Warren Shaeffer

Explorations Stage

Fundraising Workshop: Get that Bag from your Friendly Neighbourhood VC

Explorations Stage
Andrew Wierda is raising right now. It isn't finished and he doesn't know how it ends. Warren Shaeffer, formerly of Pear VC, has sat across the table from a lot of Andrews. This is a workshop designed to give you a feel for the fundraising environment on the ground, right now. Bring your laptop and your questions, and be ready to give advice as well as take it. For founders about to raise, mid-raise, or just wondering how to get that bag from your friendly neighbourhood VC.

Andrew Wierda

CEO at Nylon

Andrew left EY Law frustrated by tax tools that weren't fit for purpose, and built Nylon, a research platform for advisers, to fix that.

Warren Shaeffer

Venture Partner at Pear VC

Founder-turned-investor at Pear. Built products used by hundreds of millions, sold his last three companies, and has a soft spot for ANZ founders.

Brand for Technical Founders and Operators

Simon Pound

Explorations Stage

Brand for Technical Founders and Operators

Explorations Stage
Find your biggest brand opportunities - and what to do about them. You’ve built a great product with sales and users. How could brand help your company go further? A practical workshop for founders and operators of software, hardware and other technical companies that are commercialising or already in market. Through real examples and a guided diagnostic of your own business, you’ll identify where brand could help you connect with customers, make your value clearer and become known for something that matters. Leave with your priority brand opportunities, practical actions to take and a clearer view of what it will take to make them happen. Everyone receives access to Brand for Startups, with further guidance and exercises to continue the work. Bring your company website or a short description of what you’re building. No brand experience or pre-reading required.

Simon Pound

Co-CEO at Previously Unavailable

Co-CEO of Previously Unavailable and General Partner at Brand Fund. He built Vend's brand as it grew from under $2m to over $20m in recurring revenue.

Growth NZ × Sunrise Aotearoa: Dear Brilliant Stranger

Bowen Pan, Maya Pan

Explorations Stage

Growth NZ × Sunrise Aotearoa: Dear Brilliant Stranger

Explorations Stage
New Zealand is one of the most creative countries on earth. The world's most talented people just haven't heard yet, and some of them are Kiwis living in London, SF, NYC and even Sydney. This is a hands-on workshop on how we invite them here and help them land well. Growth NZ, the advocacy group proposing a visa for 300 exceptional people a year, will take what we build into their policy work.

Bowen Pan

Co-chair at Growth NZ

Bowen Pan built Facebook Marketplace into something a billion people use every month. Now he co-chairs Growth NZ and sits on three company boards.

Maya Pan

Co-founder at Growth NZ

Maya co-founded Growth NZ, led AI, data and privacy product at Meta and Grammarly, and now helps shape AI policy for NZ's Human Rights Commission.

What's on at Sunrise

Networking
Find your people. Make new connections. Build lasting relationships.
The Visions Stage
Groundbreaking keynotes & big ideas from visionary leaders.
Hands-on Workshops
Discover new tools & skills for practical takeaways to level up your journey.
1:1 Matchmaking
Get matched & book 1:1 meetings in advance via our AI-powered festival app.
Sunset Afterparty
Where Sunrise transforms from inspiration into celebration.
Catering
Fully catered lunch, coffee, snacks and refreshments.

Sunrise is where the startup community comes to dream big.

Here, you will meet new people, be inspired, and learn new things. Join us.

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Sponsors

Sunrise is made possible thanks to the support of our Sponsors and Community Partners.

Become a sponsor

FAQs

Are student tickets available?

Yes, we have a limited number of discounted student tickets available for Sunrise Aotearoa 2026. Email sunrise@blackbird.vc from your official student email address, and we'll sort you out.

Can I sponsor Sunrise?

Each Sunrise, we work with a small group of partners who are as committed as we are in creating an extraordinary event. We're deliberately pretty picky about who we work with, but if you work with a company that wants to champion startups and the people building them, then flick us an email at sunrise@blackbird.vc and we can chat there.

What awaits me at Sunrise?

Sunrise isn’t a business conference. It’s not exactly a tech event, either. It’s a cultural celebration. One where you’ll be exposed to big ideas, meet new people, and learn something new. At Sunrise, we promise:



  • You will be inspired: by stories of triumph and failure. By visions of futures just out of reach. By exceptional creativity and ambition.

  • You will meet new people: be it your future co-founder, next boss, teammate, collaborator, or fellow Traveller.

  • You will learn new things: fresh tools, frameworks, and mindsets to level up your journey.


Join us. Be part of it. Shape the future.

When and where is Sunrise Aotearoa 2026 happening?

Sunrise Aotearoa is on Thursday 29 October 2026 at ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland.
- Registration Opens: 8.00am
- Sunrise Event Times: 9.00am - 8.00pm

When will the full program be announced?

We have a number of new speakers and program drops in the lead-up to Sunrise Aotearoa 2026 via Sunrise emails, and Blackbird LinkedIn, Instagram and X. The full program and schedule will be released in early October.

When will tickets to Sunrise Aotearoa 2026 be available?

Tickets are on sale now. Hit the ticket button on this page to secure your seat.

Will there be food and drinks?

Yes. Morning tea, lunch and light snacks are provided across the day, plus the Sunset afterparty to close things out.

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