The Raise

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Hear from the best in tech - Get exclusive insights and advice from Aussie and Kiwi tech leaders. We uncover how they grew from startup to scale-up.

  1. 2025-08-12

    Sharesies co-CEO Leighton Roberts: When scaling hits gravity

    In the dynamic world of fintech, few companies have revolutionised wealth management quite like Sharesies. Co-CEO and founder Leighton Roberts joins us to share insights on the journey of Sharesies, from its inception in 2017 to becoming a household name in New Zealand and Australia, serving hundreds of thousands of customers. I reflected on a time before Sharesies, where household investors had clunky apps, high fees, and limited market access. Today, Sharesies is more than just an investment app - it's a "heart of wealth" platform, aiming to be deeply integrated into people's financial lives. During our conversation, Leighton gives the backstory into the evolution of this vision, the challenges of scaling a tech company, and the surprising opportunities that have emerged, including their strategic move into B2B services and their outlook on the transformative power of AI in financial advice. Listen and find out what Sharesies is taking on next 👉 *spoiler - Leighton hasn’t ruled out cryptocurrency…

    43 min

  2. 2025-06-23

    James Fuller Isn't Giving Up Hnry's First-Mover Advantage

    I’m always on the lookout for SaaS products that don’t just digitise old processes but fundamentally reimagine them. Recently on The Raise, I had the chance to speak with James Fuller, co-founder and CEO of Hnry, a company that’s transforming the lives of freelancers and contractors across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK. What started as a side project born from personal pain has become a venture-backed, fast-growing business that’s helping their customers manage self-employment tax as they would salaried job. James didn’t set out to build a global fintech—he just wanted to help people facing the same headaches as he was. With competition now hot on their heels, they Hnry team knows the only way to win is to keep delighting their customers. Listen to find out what that means in reality 👉

    44 min

  3. 2025-05-26

    Delivereasy Co-founder Tim Robinson on Valuing Local Growth

    I’m always fascinated by the stories behind the platforms that quietly become part of our daily lives. Recently, I sat down with Tim Robinson, co-founder of Delivereasy, to unpack how three friends with $700 each and a handful of battered scooters turned a scrappy side hustle into one of New Zealand’s leading food delivery services. What follows is a raw, inspiring look at grit, hustle, and the strategic pivots that fuelled Delivereasy’s nationwide growth 👉

    33 min

  4. 2025-04-14

    How to win media and influence people with Encour founder Jessy Wu

    Welcome to The Raise. In our latest edition, I spoke with the dynamic Jessy Wu, founder of Encour. Encour are a strategic communications powerhouse who’ve partnered with some of Australia's leading fintech, marketplace, and healthtech startups. Jessy has a knack for storytelling in the context of innovation, capital raising, and world-building. Before founding Encour, Jessy was an investor at Afterwork Ventures, where she championed innovative companies like Everlab, Primary, and OwnHome. Her insights are regularly featured in top-tier publications such as Forbes and the Australian Financial Review. Jessy generously shares her expertise in communications strategy across the tech sector. Scroll on to hear Jessy’s answers to these burning questions for on the minds of entrepreneurs 👉 When should my startup start doing PR? Do investors care how good founders are at storytelling or should they stick to building the tech? Should I DIY comms and PR or use an agency? How do I respond when my company makes a mistake and our reputation is on the line? I naturally shy away from the spotlight…what can I do?

    46 min

  5. 2025-03-10

    Wicked entrepreneurship with Luke Campbell from VXT

    Welcome back to season two of The Raise ⏩️ This week, I spoked with Luke Campbell, co-founder of SaaS startup, VXT. Honestly, going into this interview I thought we would get more into the tactics and technicalities of running a SaaS company. Instead, the story that unfolded during my conversation is so much more than an archetypal founder story. What I discovered about Luke is that he’s someone who puts fun at the heart of everything, isn’t ashamed of his ambition to one day make it into space, and has a deep desire to learn and grow as a leader and entrepreneur. He has a huge respect for the people who’ve helped him create VXT, emanating the entrepreneurs who inspired him as a teenager. Taking a leaf out of Ben Horowitz’s book, he once made the bold move of driving five hours without an appointment to get a meeting with the CEO of Two Degrees Mobile in the early days of building VXT.  Don’t let the fact that Luke almost flunked university make you think he hasn’t worked hard either. Like many entrepreneurs, the traditional path was never going to be for him. Fast forward to now, and in the 12-months, with co-founder Lucy Turner, VXT has tripled its ARR to almost $3m, servicing customers in the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and Canada. They happily call New Zealand their smallest market. Their team of 17 “really, really like working at VXT and people who don't work at VXT, when they find out about what it's like to work at VXT, really, really want to come and work at VXT.”

    51 min

  6. 2024-12-10

    Authentic Community Building with Axel Sukianto, Generate Founder

    Skim the show notes from our chat with Axel Sukianto: Your Community Backs a Cause "I think there's been a fatigue of like the large companies selling to them, advertising to them. It's like, well, I just want to hear a trusted voice. If I am considering between two pieces of software, I trust people who are in the same seat as me who are fellow marketers and I will listen to them as opposed to whatever ad gets thrown out at them or whatever like webinar that they see." Work Authentically with Existing Communities “TLDR for most startups with limited bandwidth and time look for existing communities and to work authentically with them to reach them.” Why Community Complements Search Channels “These people know what they're talking about, they know how to serve my audience and my need. I think that's why like there will always be a need for that community and people aspect of it.”

    34 min

  7. 2024-11-11

    Executing a Business Model Pivot with Appetise cofounder Toby Hilliam

    What struck me about Toby, was his open-mindedness. After having a few "bites at the startup cherry," he founded Appetise with Elise Hilliam. Starting out as a consumer focused menu planning service, they pivoted into a B2B insights platform, sparked by a conversation with a friend who ran a beverage brand who said, "I have no idea whether people are buying 12 of our cans and drinking them on a night out with friends or they're just buying a six pack to drink on a sunny afternoon at the beach." Turns out, food brands are still stuck in the nineties when it comes to consumer insight, paying tens of thousands for reports with outdated data. Now, their consumer platform fuels the data for their B2B insights business. Their meal planning and smart shopping service is completely free. Toby recalls with mixed feelings the moment they sent out the email to their users, moving everyone to a free plan: "There was a huge opportunity here to basically turn off our consumer revenue, which was a little bit daunting. A couple of hundred grand just turned off overnight. But we just went all in on B2B from there." ==> Listen for more insights

    30 min

  8. 2024-10-28

    Making it in the US with Scott Dommett from Rampersand VC

    Skim the show notes from our chat with Scott Dommett: Play up ANZ’s capital efficiency - The US has capital abundance in the venture ecosystem and lots of tech companies being built. ANZ are a little more conservative in the way it deploys cash (less cash + smaller round sizes). This, alongside the like cultural differences between us and the USA is actually means you get these incredible ANZ founders that are able to do so much with a lot less than what the US people are able to do. And the Americans love it because what we’re able ton convert with a small elite team is factors ahead of what US founders can do with each of their million dollars. US customers are a must have - “Generally, even if you've scaled well in Australia and New Zealand, if you don't have proven ability to go to market in the US, and that's either through revenue traction or user traction, they'll tend to discount your ANZ revenue to zero.That all changes once your revenue is starting to look like 50% from the US or you have a few more customers over there, Then they will no longer have to discount your ANZ revenue because they'll know that that revenue is also proof that there are customers in Asia Pacific region.It starts to accelerate once you have those first US customers, they start to pay attention to you, like, can think of you as “REAL.” Get comfortable with the hustle - “If you don't pitch a grandiose vision, you kind of sound, weak, not the right word, but like, that's the kind of vibe you get. The other thing is the networking over there is next level. After a ten minute conversation, LinkedIn requests are flying out before you’ve even learned the person’s name. While it might feel surface level, people are forthcoming with friendly introductions e.g. “you have to meet this person, you're building in the same space, you need to sell to this person etc.” And then they would* actually make the connection. You’d be getting instantaneous value adds.”

    48 min
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Hear from the best in tech - Get exclusive insights and advice from Aussie and Kiwi tech leaders. We uncover how they grew from startup to scale-up.

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    The Raise