Sunrise is Blackbird’s love letter to founders and the beautiful things they create. It’s a celebration of ambition and creativity, where Australians and Kiwis dream up the future.
Aotearoa 26
October 29
ASB Waterfront, Auckland, Aotearoa
What's on at Sunrise
Sponsors
Sunrise is made possible thanks to the support of our Sponsors and Community Partners.
Become a sponsorSupported by
Airwallex is an AI native financial operating system for modern businesses. We are building the future of global banking for a borderless, real-time, intelligent economy. We serve more than 676,000 businesses worldwide, either directly or through our platform customers. From startups to public enterprises, our customers use Airwallex to manage their global banking and financial operations, or to build and monetise their own financial products. Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex holds 85+ licenses across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, forming one of the most comprehensive financial infrastructures in the world. This regulated backbone powers Airwallex products at global scale, including payment acceptance, billing, global accounts, corporate cards, and spend management. The company is co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore with over 2,300 employees across 27 offices.
HSBC Innovation Banking partners with founders, high-growth startups, scale-ups, and their investors to ignite bold ambitions and power ideas that reshape our world. With deep sector expertise and teams across the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Israel, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, and India, HSBC Innovation Banking Australia offers tailored banking, lending, and treasury solutions – from Series A to IPO and beyond. Our global reach and agility connect clients to opportunities and insights, helping them scale internationally, reduce friction, and create long-term value in the innovation ecosystem.
Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities.
Community Partners
FAQs
Yes. Email sunrise@blackbird.vc from your student email address, and we'll sort you out.
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.
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.
Sunrise Aotearoa is on Thursday 29 October 2026 at ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland.
- Registration Opens: 8.00am
- Sunrise Event Times: 9.00am - 8.00pm
Discounted Earlybird tickets go live late July 2026. These are limited and will be available for just 2 weeks (unless sold out earlier), before switching to General Admission tickets in mid-August.
Yes. Morning tea, lunch and light snacks are provided across the day, plus an afterparty to close things out.