Monthly contributions. Invested in women building NZ.
A digital investment platform where any NZ woman can contribute a slice of her monthly income — build real wealth through a blended fund of liquid assets and female-led private companies — and join a community that shops, tests, and advocates for the businesses they own.
Wealth creation for womenCapital for female-led businessesCommunity & commerceDigital-first · low minimumsNZ regulated
Platform Splendid
Market New Zealand
Model Monthly contributions · equity returns
Here for Honest feedback
01 / 12
02 Two Problems
Two broken systems. One fix.
The Capital Gap — SMEs & Startups
Female-led businesses are starved of growth capital
NZ's SMEs and startups face a wall when trying to raise. Traditional investors pattern-match to founders who look like them. Banks require collateral women are less likely to hold. The capital gap isn't a pipeline problem — it's bias built into the system.
2.9%
of all NZ investment capital reached female-only teams in 2024
$32B
in economic growth NZ is leaving on the table by underinvesting in women
The Wealth Gap — Women as Investors
Women aren't building wealth through investing — and it's not their fault
Lower average incomes, career breaks for caregiving, and a financial system that assumes you need a lump sum to start mean most women never access equity investment. Confidence and exposure matter just as much as income. Investing has historically felt like someone else's world.
34%
less in retirement savings women hold compared to men on average
77%
of unpaid caregiving in NZ falls to women — interrupting income and investment momentum
02 / 12
03 The Insight
These aren't two problems. They're one flywheel running in reverse.
When capital flows away from female-led businesses, those businesses can't scale, can't create wealth for their founders and teams, and can't produce the successful women who become the next generation of investors. The cycle compounds — in the wrong direction.
Flip the flywheel: women invest → female-led businesses get capital → businesses grow → wealth created for founders and investors → more women invest. And now add a third loop: women test and buy the products of the businesses they own, giving feedback that makes those businesses stronger — and discounts that reward their loyalty.
Evidence
Research shows female investors back female founders at nearly twice the rate of male investors. Changing who invests changes where capital flows — automatically.
03 / 12
04 The Idea
The proposition
Regular contributions. Real equity. Directed by women, for women.
A Splendid monthly contribution builds equity in a curated portfolio of female-founded and female-led NZ businesses. Simple, transparent, built for her life.
Step 01
Set a contribution
Choose a monthly amount that works right now. Pause or adjust anytime — no penalty, no shame.
›
Step 02
Capital pools & deploys
Pooled and invested into a curated portfolio of female-led NZ businesses — startups and SMEs.
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Step 03
Your stake grows
You hold equity. As portfolio businesses grow, so does your investment. See what you own and why.
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Step 04
Returns & impact
Financial returns when businesses exit or distribute. Plus measurable impact: businesses funded, wealth built.
Think of it as KiwiSaver meets Sharesies meets a gender lens — your money works directly inside NZ businesses led by women who struggle to access capital from traditional sources.
04 / 12
05 Fund Structure
The emerging model — a mixed fund that solves the hard problems.
Conversations with experienced fund managers have shaped a cleaner structure: a blended fund that anchors on liquid assets for pricing and redemptions, while deploying meaningfully into female-led private companies. Start wholesale. Prove the model. Open to retail.
25% allocation
Liquid ETFs
Broad market or gender-lens ETFs. Daily-priced. Provides the pricing anchor for monthly unit valuations and handles redemptions without forcing private company exits.
Solves: unit pricing · liquidity
25% allocation
Women's Bonds
Women's empowerment global bonds — liquid, income-generating, and mission-aligned. Extends the gender lens across the entire portfolio, not just the private company sleeve.
Solves: mission coherence · income
15% allocation
Venture Capital
Seed-stage female-founded startups. High risk, high return potential. ~$1–2M deployed per year into 3–5 companies. Laddered entry avoids cash drag and pipeline pressure.
Returns: 7–10 year horizon
35% allocation
Growth SMEs
Established female-led NZ businesses with revenue and a clear path to profitability. Lower risk. May generate distributions. Anchors the private sleeve with stability and earlier returns.
Returns: 3–5 year horizon
Phase 1 — Prove it
Wholesale fund · anchor investors
Raise $2M tranches with 2–3 anchor wholesale investors. Possibly under an existing licensed manager's MIS licence. Prove pipeline, process, and returns without full retail regulatory burden.
Phase 2 — Scale it
Retail MIS · monthly contributions
With track record in hand, apply for retail MIS licence. Open monthly contributions to any NZ woman. The mixed fund structure means unit pricing is solved from day one.
Phase 3 — List it
Listed fund · broader access
Consider listing on a secondary market (Punakaiki model) to enable price discovery and liquidity. Broadens the investor base without the cost of a full NZX listing.
Governance
A rigorous investment committee with demonstrable funds management experience is non-negotiable — for the FMA licence, for investor confidence, and for deal quality. Monthly independent valuations. Best execution policy. Screening process documented before the first dollar is deployed.
05 / 12
06 Investment Stages
How Splendid invests in SMEs.
The 35% SME sleeve is where Splendid's gender mission is most direct — backing established, female-led NZ businesses that have proven themselves but can't access growth capital through traditional channels. Here's what that looks like in practice.
What we look for
The right business
Female-founded, female-led, or female-majority owned. Generating revenue. Profitable or on a clear path. A product or service with a defined market. A founder who can articulate where capital takes them.
What we invest
Cheque size & terms
$200K–$800K per business. Equity stake of 10–25%. Preference shares with standard protections. A board seat or observer right. No extraction of value before the business is ready.
What we bring
Beyond capital
A community of motivated customers who test, buy, and advocate for portfolio products. Feedback that improves the business. Distribution through our investor network. Connections to co-investors and follow-on capital.
How we exit
Return pathways
Trade sale or strategic acquisition. Management buyback of Splendid's stake once the business is self-sustaining. Dividends from profitable businesses during the hold period. Secondary market sale of our position.
Too early
Pre-revenue
Still validating the product and market. Not yet generating meaningful revenue. Splendid doesn't invest here — too early for SME capital.
Watching
$100K–$500K revenue
Early traction, some paying customers. May be pre-profit. Splendid monitors but typically waits for a clearer path to profitability before committing capital.
Splendid — sweet spot
$500K–$3M revenue
Proven product, paying customers, near or at profitability. Needs capital to hire, expand, or enter a new market. Our $200K–$800K cheque is meaningful here.
Splendid — also here
$3M–$10M revenue
Established, profitable, ready to scale significantly. May need a larger syndicated round — Splendid co-invests alongside other impact or gender-lens investors.
Beyond Splendid
$10M+ revenue
Large, scaled businesses typically seek PE or strategic investment. Our cheque size is too small to be meaningful at this scale — but we may already be a shareholder from an earlier stage.
The key test
Every SME investment must pass one question: can our cheque get this business to profitability, or to a clearly funded next step? We don't build bridges to nowhere. If the answer is no, we don't invest — regardless of how compelling the founder or mission is.
06 / 12
07 How It Works
Three ways to be invested.
Splendid is built around three interlocking roles: investor, community member, and customer. Each reinforces the other — and each makes the businesses you back more likely to succeed.
01 — Invest
Set it. Stay connected. Adjust freely.
Monthly direct debit into a curated portfolio of female-led NZ businesses. No minimum term. Pause when life demands it. A simple dashboard shows your portfolio value and the businesses you own a stake in.
02 — Portfolio
Curated, vetted, female-led.
Businesses must meet clear gender criteria — female-founded, female-led, or female-majority owned. Due diligence is handled by Splendid. Investors don't pick individual companies.
03 — Community
Try it. Rate it. Get rewarded.
Splendid members get early access to products from the businesses they own. Test them, give honest feedback that helps those businesses improve — and receive exclusive discount codes to share with your wider community. Women make 70–80% of household purchasing decisions. That's not a footnote. That's a superpower.
04 — Access
Access first. Jargon never.
No financial literacy test to invest. Plain language throughout. Splendid explains equity, risk, and exits in context — not in a tutorial you have to complete before you're allowed in the door.
Example
Aroha is a 34-year-old teacher with two kids. She contributes monthly with Splendid and owns a stake in 12 female-led businesses. Last month Splendid gave her early access to a new skincare range from one of the portfolio companies — she tried it, left feedback through the app, and got a 30% discount code she shared with her mum's group. She's an investor, a product tester, and an advocate — all at once.
07 / 12
08 Landscape
Nothing anywhere does all of this.
Platforms exist that solve one side of the problem — in the UK, Europe, and ANZ. None combine all four in a single regulated platform.
Platform
Regular contributions
Real equity returns
Female-led only ★
Market
KiwiSaver
✓
—
—
NZ
Sharesies
✓
✓
—
NZ
Coralus / SheEO
✓
— 0% loans
✓
NZ · AU · UK · CA
Arc Angels
— HNW only
✓
✓
NZ
Angel Academe
— £10K min
✓
✓
UK
We Are Jane
— institutional
✓
✓
Belgium
Joanna Invests
~ €2.5K min
✓
✓
Netherlands
Splendid
✓
✓
✓
NZ — first of its kind
08 / 12
09 Why Now
The moment is right.
1
NZ has already proven the habit
Sharesies built a platform with 600,000+ users, many first-time investors. NZ women are ready to invest digitally — they just haven't had a product built for their specific situation and values.
2
The data on the gap is public and damning
Jenny Rudd and Dame Theresa Gattung's Gender Investment Gap research has put hard numbers on the problem. The conversation has moved from anecdote to evidence. Momentum is building.
3
Global models show it's possible
Joanna Invests (NL), Angel Academe's EIS Fund (UK), and We Are Jane (Belgium) have proven regulated, women-focused investment platforms work. ANZ has no equivalent.
4
NZ regulatory pathways exist
The Financial Markets Conduct Act provides clear licensing pathways for exactly this kind of platform. The FMA has shown willingness to engage with innovative models.
09 / 12
10 Open Questions
What we're working through — and what we've resolved.
Feedback from experienced fund managers and investors has sharpened our thinking considerably. Some hard questions now have structural answers. Others are still live.
Structural answers in place
Unit pricing against stale unlisted valuations
The 50% liquid sleeve (ETFs + bonds) provides a daily-priced anchor. Monthly independent valuations applied to the private sleeve. Unit price is credible and auditable.
Cash drag and pipeline pressure
$2M raise cadence, deploy $1–2M per year into 3–5 businesses. Laddered entry avoids accumulating uninvested capital and removes pressure to do marginal deals.
Regulatory pathway and timeline
Start wholesale under an existing licensed manager's MIS licence. Build track record. Apply for retail MIS licence with proof of concept behind us rather than ahead of us.
Liquidity for investors
The liquid sleeve handles redemptions. Long-term: consider listing on a secondary market (Punakaiki model) for price discovery and broader access without full NZX cost.
Still being worked through
Total capital stack for portfolio companies
Our cheque must get businesses to profitability or a clear funded next step. We can't build a bridge to nowhere. This shapes our investment criteria and company selection from day one.
Manager economics and anchor investors
Who are the 2–3 anchor wholesale investors for Fund 1? What FUM level covers operating costs? We need a one-page model before the first investor conversation.
Investment committee composition
The FMA will want demonstrable funds management experience. Who chairs the investment committee? What credentials does the team need to make the licence application credible?
Community and commerce — conflicts of interest
The community layer is powerful but needs a clear policy: how do we ensure product feedback is honest? Who funds discount codes? How does this interact with MIS licence obligations?
10 / 12
11 What I'm Looking For
Not funding. Honest feedback.
I'm at the stage where the right conversation is worth more than capital. I want to talk to people who'll poke holes in this — not just tell me it's a great idea.
1
Founders who've raised equity in NZ
Especially those who've navigated term sheets, angel networks, or SPV structures. What do founders actually need from a platform investor — and what would be a dealbreaker?
2
People with FMA / FMCA experience
Financial markets lawyers, compliance leads, or founders who've been through licensing. I want the real cost and timeline, not just the theoretical one.
3
Women who would — or wouldn't — use Splendid
Would you set up a monthly contribution? What would stop you? What would make you trust it? The concept is nothing without honest answers from the people it's built for.
4
Anyone who thinks this is a bad idea
Seriously. What's the killer objection? What have comparable platforms tried and failed at? I'd rather hear it now than in two years.
11 / 12
Thank you
The field is ours to build.
Women in NZ are ready to invest. Female-led businesses are ready to grow. The gap between them is a structural problem with a structural solution. Splendid is built to be part of that fix — and I'd love to hear what you think.
Founder Bridget Snelling
Email besnelling@gmail.com
Mobile 021 414 214
Status Early concept · seeking feedback · May 2026