Sharesies
Sharesies is a Wellington-based investing platform that made share ownership accessible to everyone through fractional investing.
- Category
- Fintech
- Fund
- NZVC II
- Website
- www.sharesies.nz
- On TechMates
- 3 episodes
What Sharesies does
Founded by six people who started work on it in October 2016, it lets people invest from as little as a few cents into thousands of companies and ETFs across the New Zealand, Australian, and United States sharemarkets, and has expanded into KiwiSaver, savings, and other wealth products. It removed the traditional minimums and complexity that kept many New Zealanders out of the market.
The secret
Brokerage fees were never the real barrier, the minimums and the intimidation were. Building so that someone with $5 gets the same options as someone with $5 million turned first-time investors into a market rather than a rounding error.
Why NZVC invested in Sharesies
NZVC invested in Sharesies from NZVC Fund II. We file the company under Fintech on the portfolio wall.
We backed Sharesies because most people were locked out of investing by high minimums, brokerage costs, and intimidating interfaces, and fractional shares opened the market to a whole generation of first-time investors. The product paired genuinely low entry points with a friendly, trusted experience, which built a large and loyal customer base and a foundation to expand across wealth products. The founders understood that accessibility, not just price, was the real advantage, and they built at the moment retail investing went mainstream in New Zealand.
Sharesies in the press
- The X-factor behind Sharesies' leadership successBusinessDesk · 15 November 2025
- Sharesies founders sold down part of their holdingsBusinessDesk · 5 November 2025
- Democraticising stocks: Brooke Roberts leads an investment platform valued at $500 millionRNZ · 17 September 2024
- Sharesies was reported to be raising another $5 million at cashflow breakevenNBR · 9 September 2024
- Sharesies raised $50 million at a $500 million valuationBusinessDesk, Stuff · 27 October 2021
Sharesies on TechMates
Meet the Founders Disrupting Australia & NZ's Banking Monopolies
You hear three fintech founders explain why Australia and New Zealand, with close access to regulators and little competition between big banks, are strong places to build. Dom Pym tells how frustration with legacy banks led to Up, a bank designed to beat TikTok on engagement, Dermot Butterfield explains the open banking pipes that free your financial data, and Leighton Roberts lays out how Sharesies gives someone with five dollars the same access as a millionaire. Together they take apart the ANZ banking establishment.
“We need to build an app that is engaging. We don't need to build a bank.”Dominic Pym, Up
- Dominic Pym spent six years building banking software for Bendigo Bank before deciding to build his own bank out of frustration.
- Up's design brief was to beat TikTok, Instagram and Uber on daily engagement, not to beat other banks.
- A traditional banking license needs around $100M in reserve, $100M in runway, and core systems from SAP, Oracle or IBM.
Sharesies on TechMates
Scaling from the Edge: NZ’s Global Champions | NZVC Portfolio Day
You hear how VeVe signed Disney and Marvel without a headquarters and how Sharesies took on the big blue banks in pink. You get the fundraising stories behind $120M raised, including being sued by your only investor, and how Crimson turned a pandemic into a tailwind. You also hear why Kiwi generalists win abroad.
“wearing pink and giving the middle finger”Leighton Roberts
- Hyper-growth: scaling to 900k users and $2.2B in sales.
- Fintech disruption: how Sharesies democratized investing.
- Fundraising realities: the difference between NZ, US and Asian capital.
Sharesies on TechMates
From $50 to Millions: Investing Tips I Wish I Had at 17
You hear how a $50 investment club and a coin toss on a cafe table led to a platform with 800,000 users. Leighton Roberts covers three co-CEOs, AI answering most support tickets, and a brewery he started by accident.
“Create one million millionaires.”Leighton Roberts
- $50 to financial freedom: teen investment clubs and compounding power.
- Building Sharesies: fractional shares, regulation hacks, and three co-CEOs.
- AI and customer care: 85 percent of support now LLM-powered.