Keep The Change
The App That Builds Your Wealth As You Spend: Feijoa Founder Mark White-Robinson
27 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main function of the Feijoa app?
Generate is supporting my vision to improve the financial literacy of 100,000 Kiwis by sponsoring Keep the Change. Cheers Generate! Head to generatekiwisaver.co.nz forward slash change to find out more.
The traditional kind of way that people want to solve under-saving things like that is to get people to change their behaviour, but our idea is to make saving as simple as it can be. We want to take the behaviour you already got, spending, and turn it into saving. We're just over 3,000 active users at the moment. You're doing about $2.25 million of extra contributions a year at the moment.
So connect your bank account, we look at all the transactions you're doing. You can round it up to nearest $1, $2, $5. We calculate that and then initiate a payment from your account and put it in your or your loved one's Kiwi Savers.
Today, Mark from Fijoa. Let's get straight into it, mate. What does Fijoa do?
So Fijoa, we're an app to help you save and invest more in a really, really frictionless way.
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Chapter 2: Why did Feijoa choose KiwiSaver as their initial focus?
We don't want to put any roadblocks in saving and investing. We want to take the behaviour you've already got, spending, and turn it into saving and investing. So our idea is to make saving as simple as investing.
spending so first cab off the rank is going to be helping people round those transactions up so that your spend then becomes partly an investment as well yeah yeah so we've launched uh been about six months in the market with a roundups product so you connect your bank account we look at all the transactions you're doing you can round up to nearest dollar two dollars five dollars uh we calculate that and then
initiate a payment from your account and put it in your or your loved ones kiwi savers and that happens every day so every day you're getting somewhere from a few cents to a few dollars uh and straight into your kiwi saver and adds up to our average users doing about a thousand dollars a year two dollars sixty a day um extra into their kiwi server so yes ends up being quite powerful
Well I had a play with it many months ago and was impressed to the point where then when I saw you were doing a funding round I said righto, I would like to be an investor in this.
So full disclosure for those listening and watching, I am an investor, a very small investor I will say, in Fiji because I'm really keen to see where you guys can take it but also just really align with what you're doing. So how many people are using it now?
So we're just over 3,000 active users at the moment. So those are people who have signed up and actually transacting through the platform every day. And they're doing about $2.25 million of extra contributions a year at the moment. That's the run rate. Yeah, we've got about 5,000 who have started the process of signing up.
Well, another 2,000, so 5,000 total who have started the process of signing up and onboarding at the moment.
So 5,000 people have downloaded the app. That's the process, right? I went to the website, then I downloaded the app. The app runs in the background. It would give me a notification each time I'd done a roundup. I'm a no notification guy venture. I said, I don't need those, just do your thing. And now it's just working in the background for me.
And it's routing up my transactions and deploying those roundups daily, minus your guys' fee, of course, into my KiwiSaver fund. Yep. I'm with generate, and then it goes to generate. So if I go to my MyIR, I can see it go into the IRD, a daily amount, and then that pushes over to generate, and then they do their thing.
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Chapter 3: How does the round-up feature work for users?
We know that lots of people don't want to lock their money up until they buy their house or they retire. So we're working on that right now. What we're trying to do is make it as frictionless as we've made the KiwiSaver process. So with the KiwiSaver process, we don't need to do any AML on you. So you don't need your power bill or or anything like that. It's a really simple process.
We want to make sure there's something as simple as that for going elsewhere. So we're looking at going into your managed funds. So whoever you've got your managed funds with, go into that. Potentially ETFs as well, as well as bank accounts and things like that. The ultimate plan is to get a kind of wealth automation engine in the background that
It means you've always got the money you need to spend when you need to spend it, but your emergency fund's being built, you're getting your $1,000 or $1,043 into KiwiSaver to get the government contribution, then you're building your long-term wealth and your managed funds or your ETFs and potentially saving for your holiday or something like that as well.
So that's the vision, right? What I'm picking up is basically automating ways to build wealth because we're so in tune and being conditioned to spend. We're very good at that part of it and it's become so easy to do and then going into debt to do it and that's become magnified.
But it's almost going the other way that, okay, if we're going to have to try and fight that tide, instead of trying to fight it, let's almost go with it but then find a way to then use it for good or for the future. So eventually... Are you saying that I'll be able to spend and I might then be able to deploy some into my KiwiSaver, some into, say, an emergency fund, some into a managed fund?
I think my suggestion would have been, can we get it carving down the mortgage a little bit faster for some people?
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Feijoa face during its fundraising journey?
All of that's sort of ahead of you guys. You've just got to start somewhere and go from there.
Yeah, we picked KiwiSaver because it's the biggest financial product in New Zealand. 3.4 million or so people in it. There's like 1.6 million who don't regularly contribute. A million of those will get the government contribution and don't. So we kind of identified that really early on as a really compelling story.
That million people, right, they're getting an instant 25% return on every dollar that we round up for them. So that becomes really powerful.
Yeah, nice for that first $1,043. So are you having active conversations with the different share platforms to start explaining how we want to take this down this path?
Yeah, we're part of our kind of business plan and go-to-market plan is we want to build the partnerships with fund managers. We already started it with the KiwiSaver schemes. We've been around, I think, spoke to just about every scheme and said, hey, we're here, we're coming. This is our process. You're going to start seeing these little amounts coming in. You know, want you to be aware of it.
So if your customers call up, you can say, you know, yes, we understand, we're aware of it. And then the next phase is that kind of managed funds phase. That's kind of where we see the next step going. So building those partnerships with the fund managers as well so we can get you
So, question for you, and this is a selfish one. I had my main bank account, you know, signed up to it. Can I have multi-bank accounts? Yep, yep. Okay. I've just got lazy and haven't done that yet.
Yeah, many bank accounts if you want. So, personally, I've got my main bank account with ANZ and then... I've got a KiwiBank credit card and that, and I've got it all just linked up.
So you can do your debits and your credit cards as well?
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Chapter 5: What are the future expansion plans for Feijoa?
So that's where we initiate a transaction from, which then flows through the Fijar system and into your currently KiwiSaver in the future, like managed funds and things like that. Yeah, cool. But yeah, it doesn't matter. Credit cards work, debit cards work, basically anything through just about any, well, every New Zealand bank and some other platforms as well.
So I think I was reading maybe a couple of months ago, maybe even less, that you're at 2,000 active customers. So if you go to two to three, there's a 50% increase in less than a couple of months.
Yeah, we're growing pretty fast. So we're in a double-digit week-on-week growth. We've maintained that pretty much since we launched. It's been really exciting. Part of our plan was we'd seen similar things overseas and we knew that it was something that worked overseas, that this kind of behavioural growth
stuff worked really well the traditional kind of way that people want to solve under saving and things like that is to get people to change their behaviour but we saw these kind of tech tools showing up overseas and we decided we wanted to build ourselves a tech tool to not change people's behaviour but use the behaviour that's already there to help them have a really good outcome which is building that wealth
which then snowballs into getting the compound growth and passive income and things like that through that.
And the app starts to predict out if you were to contribute daily the same amount in your type of fund based on the rules of the FMA, I believe it is, with the percentages they allow. So say it's, for example, what I'm trying to explain to people is that
You might be in a high growth type fund, but the max that you're allowed to suggest that that may grow at would be 5.5%, which is probably lagging behind the reality of the market at the moment. Obviously, that's a long-term guideline of 5.5%.
And so then it's mapping out, okay, if you were to contribute or round up each day that same amount, here's what your amount would be at 65 when you can then access that in your KiwiSaver.
Yeah, so we do that. It's really powerful to understand the impact of what you're doing. Because I think when we were going through our beta and talking to our original beta customers, what was really powerful for them is they'd see these 50 cent transactions coming out and on a little notification we can pop up. You bought a coffee for $4.50, 50 cents is rounded up.
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Chapter 6: How does open banking facilitate Feijoa's services?
Yeah, yeah, and it's the same, right? Like if you need a truck for your business, you need capital for it, whether that's debt or selling equity to get it. So, you know, capital's kind of that driver of business growth. You need it to grow to either have another service or, in our case, push it to marketing and get that word out there. We need that capital basically to grow.
Otherwise, you know, we've got a cool little business and we can get something and that organic growth will hopefully grow, but it's a long, slow process. So the capital helps us accelerate that and get to a place where we've got a self-sustaining business a lot sooner. How much have you raised so far?
We're about, we've just done a 750 grand we've raised so far and we're looking for a million total.
Nearly there. Nearly there, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you've got some, well, you've got 250 available for potential investors if they do want to look at getting involved, but they've got to be a wholesale investor?
Yeah, generally a wholesale investor. There's, yeah, they're under who you can raise money from if you're not a listed company and you're not throwing out massive expensive prospectuses and things like that. You're relatively limited about who you can accept money from.
Um, so generally it's a wholesale investor and that's basically people who do it for a job or have significant amount to invest. There is a potentially an option for people who don't fit that if they, um, if they've got a relationship to the business or a special kind of circumstances, there's a small category under that. But yeah, it's, um, It's one of those funny things.
It's actually hard to give some people an opportunity to invest in a company like ours.
Yeah, because they might have the means to do it, but they might not quite meet the wholesale investor requirements. People can go and Google those if they do want to explore the wholesale investor rules. I don't want to get them wrong or get into that rabbit hole.
um but it's normally a like a level of assets or understanding of what you're getting yourself into it's there designed to protect the public from getting into things that they don't truly understand the risk of i would say it's like an overall piece right it is and it also it's also because we don't have the resources to do a full prospectus so um it allows us to do kind of a short form capital raise where we
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Chapter 7: What are the different user demographics engaging with Feijoa?
I'm willing to back you and give it a go. You know, most of our investments are relatively, they're not like hundreds of thousands of dollars. They're in that kind of,
you know 50 to 100 kind of level but um people willing to kind of kick that in to give it a go it's been really cool nice any uh hard work investors like me no no no nobody's been hard work everyone's been really positive what what we're getting a lot of as well as people coming on board and then going how can i help yeah so we've been we have been a bit picky about um who we've been bringing on board um
And those kind of people who've got connections, you know, want to see us succeed, want to introduce us to people. You know, we're based in Wellington and I'm up here for Meet You and then for a few other meetings. And one of those meetings tomorrow, I'm meeting... a new company that one of our investors has also invested in. He's like, go meet this guy.
He's built a company based on these financial institution partnerships. So it'd be really good to talk to him about his lessons he's learned. So that kind of community is starting to get going now and that help that we were getting, but now we're getting in at a better and bigger way is really cool.
It's funny because I think we do have like a big tall poppy culture in New Zealand, but at the same time, once you surround yourself with the right people, you realize that there's almost a complete reverse of it where people are, oh, you're doing well, mate, how can I help you? And they're just like rooting for you and trying to connect you and find the answers for you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's cool. There's just heaps of help out there, right? That has been the biggest lesson I've taken from a startup, just asking for help and people saying, yes, how can I help? Before we launched, we probably spent two years with...
a reasonably senior kind of governance guy who's been on a bunch of boards and chairs of boards on the NZX and things like that, who basically sat down with us every couple of weeks, talked us through kind of our ideas and helped us kind of come up with the business around our kind of tech idea. He didn't do it for anything, right?
We'd go around to his house and he'd give us a beer and we'd sit there and we'd chat and He never got anything back. I think he just liked helping out people who were giving it a go, who had an idea, who wanted to try something. And there's been a lot of people like that. Right from day one, people who, like, get stuck in and introduce us to people, set up connections. It's been amazing, yeah.
And that's the cool thing, I think, about New Zealand, right? Like, everyone's only one or two people away, so... So, yeah, I've been in the room with telco CEOs and CEOs of financial institutions and things you just wouldn't get overseas.
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Chapter 8: How can users get involved with Feijoa and its community?
cash misdirected or whatever, it's still not going to matter. You've still got to have a vision, be able to sell that vision, talk to people about it, and that requires actual human energy.
Yeah, I think that vision is critical, eh? Like, we're not just... It defines what we're building and why we're doing it. We spent a lot of time kind of talking about that story in our really early days.
We initially kind of identified, we called them the missing million, those million people in KiwiSaver who aren't contributing and missing out on the government contribution and trying to understand why they weren't doing it and what the impact was and how we could help in a really frictionless way. And that kind of vision defined a whole lot of how we wanted to make it simple.
And we've obviously grown since then and our market, we think, is a lot bigger than that. It's anyone who wants to better their financial situation, which is pretty much everyone, and we want to build the tools to help do that. But yeah, that kind of how do we help people get there was really important. And we kind of identified that it wasn't that people don't want to, it's that people don't
are afraid or don't understand, and it's that those, when they're that, those tiny points of friction are just enough to go, I just won't do it today. So, you know, I'm just a little bit scared and a little bit nervous, and this one thing's popped up, so I'm just going to put it off for today. And that put it off for today happens every day.
So we wanted to solve those friction points to just make it really, really easy so that when that kind of confidence pops in a little bit, You get it over the line and then you're done and you're set. And you can just let it roll on and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow.
Well, I think, you know, going from no customers to 2,000 to 3,000 and doing their last 1,000 very quickly, you're now getting to the stage where you're starting to get, you know, you guys, the brand's getting recognised and you guys as founders are getting recognised all around the country, I hear every now and then.
Yeah, I had a guy on the airport this morning, you know, we're just waiting for a cough and he pops over and he's like, excuse me, and I'm like, like I always do when a stranger comes and talks to me, that little panic happens and he's like, just wanted to say I really love your app. Awesome. And it was just awesome. Had that a few times.
Like we do with the branded stuff around all over the place now. And people are noticing us and saying hello, which is really, really cool. The best story I think though was about a month after we launched. And we're up here in Auckland for a bunch of meetings, getting around some of the schemes.
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