It’s official - both our Student Startup Programme, Audacious, and the Student Pitch Competition have officially wrapped up submissions for 2025!
Big thanks to our funders & partners: Dunedin City Council, University of Otago, and Otago Polytechnic - and to our prize sponsors Momentum, Emerge, and Cue-Go for supporting this year’s cohort of student startups.
With $5,000 in cash available for student ideas, tertiary students from 21 different areas of study and disciplines were represented in our pitch submissions. Here’s a really quick recap of what we saw!
Startup Dunedin & Student Startups in 2025
35 pitches submitted
162 student startups engaged with us across the year
71 students did Audacious in 2025
32 tertiary workshops run across both Otago Polytechnic and Otago University campuses
$5,000 awarded to student founders
9 sustainability-focused startups and 5 food & beverage ventures included in pitches this year!
Finalists included a 38% / 62% split between Polytechnic and University students
This year also saw 102 hours spent on campus, whether that was at expos, at our Side Hustle drop-in sessions, workshops, or even our foray into teaching on the Bachelor of Entrepreneurship.
A wide range of study areas
The range of study areas represented this year was very diverse; from Finance, Law, and Marketing through to Marine Science, Culinary Arts, and Fashion Design. That mix of ideas around the table helped to created an amazing melting pot of pitches - but above all else, it truly shows how entrepreneurship can come from any student, any discipline.
For the first time, anyone studying at the University of Otago or Otago Polytechnic could enter our Student Pitch Competition. This was done with the aim of opening the door for a broader range of ideas and voices than ever before, and to tap into some of that amazing stuff happening on campus behind the scenes.
We’re incredibly excited for Pitch Night tomorrow, where our finalists will share their ideas live. It’s the perfect opportunity to celebrate the next generation of founders shaping Ōtepoti’s innovation community.