Market NZ companies feared now their biggest opportunity…
The US was once where Kiwi tech went to fail. Now it’s the sector’s biggest export market.
The TIN200 report shows New Zealand’s tech sector has achieved another year of record growth.
“There are more and more examples of success.”
As New Zealand’s tech sector celebrates yet another year of record growth, the latest TIN200 report shows with the top 200 companies generating $23.34 billion in revenue in FY2026, up $2.8 billion or 13.7 percent on FY2025. North America generated $5.9 billion in revenue, becoming the largest market for the TIN200 companies for the first time, ahead of traditional leader Australia.
But for Greg Shanahan, Technology Investment Network (TIN) managing director, the real story isn’t the headline revenue numbers, but the broader maturity of New Zealand’s tech sector and its ability to compete on the global stage.
“This is the first year that the United States has been the number one market for these companies,” he told iStart. “That’s an environment which is supposed to be hostile, where we’ve got tariffs and all the other uncertainties, but still the growth is strong.”
Historically, many Kiwi companies found success in Australia before attempting to expand into America. While Australia offered familiar business conditions and geographic proximity, the US demanded larger investments, greater scale and a deeper understanding of local market dynamics.
“Unravelling what’s required to grow there has been key,” Shanahan says.
Today’s companies, however, are far better equipped for the challenge. “We now have companies that are a lot more sophisticated and well-funded to ride out the waves.”
He points to growing experience across the sector and a stronger understanding of what success in the United States actually looks like.
“There are more and more examples of success,” he said. “Kiwis’ understanding of what success looks like in the US and the US business culture is more widespread. With that goes a growth in confidence.”
That confidence appears to be creating a virtuous cycle. As successful companies demonstrate what is possible, other firms become more ambitious in their own international expansion plans.
“Success provides permission for other people to go out and be successful,” Shanahan says. “Once someone has done it, the level of ambition and expectations grow within the surrounding ecosystem.”
Europe too, saw solid growth, he says, as uncertainty about the US saw companies seeking to diversify their risk. Asia and Southeast Asia, India and China also grew from a relatively small base. “The third stage will be how well does New Zealand do in unravelling how to succeed in the large emerging markets of China and India.”
Big companies, big numbers
The report points to a sector reaching a new stage of development. The number of New Zealand tech companies generating more than $200 million in annual revenue has more than tripled over the past decade, rising from six in 2016 to 19 this year. Revenues have increased 148 percent during that period.
Meanwhile, the number of companies generating more than $500 million in annual revenue has doubled in just the last two years, according to Shanahan. He says that increasing scale gives companies the resources to compete across multiple markets rather than relying on a single geography or customer base.
There’s a larger story too, in the collapsing cost of doing business in terms of marketing, accessing customers and the cost of innovation. That’s putting New Zealand on a more level playing field with companies that might be in Northern California or anywhere else in the world.
“From a unit economics point of view, we’re more competitive and we’re working in an environment that’s small and focused and there’s less distraction, and best practice spreads more quickly in a smaller society.”
Where the growth is coming from
Export revenue rose 15.1 percent to $18.4 billion, placing technology second only to dairy as a source of offshore revenue. Dollar growth for the TIN 200 companies was larger than the growth for either tourism or dairy.
“The growth opportunity for tech is so much greater, and part of the MO for TIN is to say look, without being too churlish, the future is in our hands. These companies are starting from nothing, sometimes within markets that didn’t even exist until they came along, and turning themselves into multi-billion-dollar companies.”
Hi-tech manufacturing remained the largest sector, generating $11.2 billion in revenue, up 11.7 percent. ICT, however, was the standout performer, up 19.1 percent to $10.7 billion, driven by software, SaaS and fintech leaders such as Xero, Datacom and Windcave.
Fintech and healthtech, with their recurring revenue opportunities, continued their strong growth, generating almost $8 billion in revenue – or around 34 percent of the total TIN200 revenue – while creative industries, which includes gaming, is going ‘gangbusters’ soaring 38 percent to over $1 billion for the first time, with standout performances from Grinding Gear (now owned by China’s Tencent) and RocketWerkz.
Shanahan says agritech also saw a resurgence. He pointed to Gallagher Group and Halter, who both have virtual stock management offerings that are ‘going crazy’. Revenue for Gallagher’s offering has tripled in the last year.
Meanwhile the sector saw total global employment up 3,546 to 66,213, with 2,000 of those new roles created in New Zealand.
Early-stage investment saw $754 million invested across 166 deals in 2025, compared with $467 million across 146 deals a year earlier. The 2025 figures have already been smashed in 2026, with $776 million in investment across 68 deals in the first half of this year.
But despite the record growth figures, Shanahan also has a warning: “This year’s results are positive and it’s only going to get more positive and successful. So the biggest risk is that internally we destroy the goose that lays the golden egg in terms of having a well-functioning society where there’s social equity and opportunity and prosperity. “Once you start to get inequity and division in society, other things start to fall apart. We have an opportunity as a small nation to really manage those things.”
