Feijoa has taken out the Audience Choice award at today’s Kiwibank Start Up Pitch Breakfast, sending a clear signal that everyday Kiwis are ready for frictionless ways to grow their KiwiSaver balances.

Held as part of the FinTechNZ Hui, the pitch breakfast showcased five startups from the Creative HQ Fintech Lab 2026 accelerator cohort, giving an audience of fintech founders, investors and industry leaders a first look at ideas emerging from Aotearoa’s fintech pipeline. The panel of judges selected fellow accelerator member Hello Cashflow a Best Pitch winner, but the audience, the very people shaping New Zealand’s financial future, chose Feijoa.

“Pitching to a room of people who are actively invested in the future of fintech and having them back what we’re doing is incredibly affirming,” says Mark White-Robinson, Co-Founder of Feijoa.

“The vote tells us that the industry recognises what we’ve been hearing from everyday Kiwis - that small, automated savings are a genuinely powerful idea that can shift their financial future.”

Feijoa rounds up everyday purchases and automatically invests the spare change into one or more KiwiSaver accounts. Today, Feijoa users are collectively on track to contribute $1.6 million extra to their KiwiSaver savings this year, forecast to grow to more than $60 million by the time they retire.

The app directly addresses one of KiwiSaver’s most persistent gaps: the nearly 1 million Kiwi who miss out on government contributions because they don’t contribute enough - including self-employed workers, part-timers and anyone without PAYE deductions.

“We built Feijoa to make saving happen in the background of everyday life,” says Mark.

“Being part of the Fintech Lab 2026 cohort has accelerated our ability to do that at scale, and sitting alongside Aotearoa’s most exciting fintech founders makes us even more determined to move fast.”

Creative HQ’s Fintech Lab has helped launch a number of standout New Zealand fintechs, including Sharesies and Hnry, with alumni companies collectively raising more than $300 million.