Startup Club NZ Summit

SCNZ Summit 2026 is the largest student-led entrepreneurial event in

Aotearoa. Three days in Auckland from 14 to 16 August, built from the

ground up by Startup Club New Zealand, the country's largest university

entrepreneurship club. The Summit is what happens when the most

ambitious student-led organisation in New Zealand decides to build the

room it has always wished existed: a single weekend where the founders,

operators, and investors who shaped this country's business landscape

share a stage with the students who will shape its next chapter.

The audience is 300 (each day) of the most ambitious students from across Aotearoa.

These are not general university delegates. They are the student

founders already running companies out of their flats, the operators

about to join the early teams at the next wave of New Zealand

businesses, the dual law-commerce majors and engineering students who

will become tomorrow's CEOs, partners, and investors. They are also,

critically, the customers who will define which brands the next

generation chooses to back. The Summit is the highest-density room of

this demographic you will find anywhere in the country this year.

The programme has been built around the founders, operators, and

investors whose stories matter most to this audience. Sam Stubbs from

Simplicity is confirmed. Late-stage conversations are underway with

Blackbird, Icehouse Ventures, and GD1 for the venture capital panel,

with Silicon Valley operators with kiwi roots like Bowen Pan and Maya

Pan, and with a range of NZ founders whose names will be revealed in

the official announcement on 26 June. Across the weekend, panels and

fireside conversations cover venture capital, mission-led business,

climate and impact, brand-building, and the long arc of building

global companies from New Zealand.

Beyond the weekend itself, sponsoring SCNZ Summit 2026 is an entry

point into a longer relationship with Startup Club New Zealand and

the most ambitious student community in the country. The relationships

built here compound across years. The students in this room will be

your graduate hires next year, your customers within five, and your

co-founders, business partners, or commercial counterparts within ten.

Being seen by them now, with your name on the wall of the country's

biggest student-led summit, is the kind of brand affinity that pays

back across years rather than weeks. Sponsor confirmations close end

of June for inclusion in the official 26 June announcement.

The honest ask is this: we are two students asking you to back something we have spent six months building because we believe it matters. We also believe that being in front of this generation, with your name on the wall of the country's biggest student-led summit, offers brand affinity that pays back across years rather than weeks.