This article was originally published on Stuff.co.nz on 27 July 2023. By Aimee Shaw.

A new list of the best 100 New Zealand tech companies and start-ups to work at has been drawn up by venture capital investors and career platform Matchstiq.

To be considered, companies had to be of a minimum size and be well-funded, and up to 30 years old. They were chosen for their growth potential, innovation, purpose, and contribution to nurturing a diverse pool of talent.

This year’s list includes Kea Aerospace, the company building a solar-powered stratospheric aircraft, Auror, a retail crime intelligence software used by some of the biggest retailers in the world, and Cogo, a carbon footprint management platform that enables businesses to measure their impact on the climate.

This is the third time a list of the top tech companies and start-ups to work for in this country has been published.

The tech industry is the country’s fastest-growing and poised to become the biggest.

Matchstiq co-founder Greg Denton said the organisations included in this year’s list showed tech was not just for computer engineers, with examples of former butchers, bakers and electricians all finding their home in a tech start-up.

The recruitment platform, along with well-known names from Blackbird VC, Icehouse Ventures and K1W1, amongst others, spent three months compiling the list from over 450 nominations.

Runn.io, a resource planning software for progressive companies, that allows firms to create a fully remote working culture with people working overseas, and brand tracking software firm Tracksuit, one of New Zealand’s fastest growing start-ups, were also included.

MenuAid, Lumin, Harmoney, Whip Around and Partly were also featured.

Denton said he picked Auror or Tradify, a job management software platform for tradespeople, as up and coming start-ups to watch – and potential contenders to be the country’s next billion-dollar company.

Companies included on the list were some of the fastest-growing in the sector, he said.

“The New Zealand ecosystem continues to go from strength to strength, attracting more domestic and international investment, more companies being created as well as existing ones growing and succeeding on the international stage,” said Denton.

“Tech is now our second-biggest industry and will very soon be our largest industry.

“Unfortunately in New Zealand, tech is still not quite seen as the same as in America, for example. There, if you took the top 10 companies that everyone worked for, almost every single one of them would be a tech company, whereas that hasn’t really permeated to this side of the world yet,” he said.

“We’re a little bit behind in terms of people recognising that this is our fastest-growing industry, and perhaps from a careers standpoint, the extremely interesting opportunities.”

The purpose of the list was to help jobseekers and in part to showcase interesting companies that some people did not know exist, said Denton.