The Conqueror is a fitness app that motivates people to stay active through virtual challenges tied to real-world locations, offering unique medals mailed to participants upon completion of a challenge.
The Conqueror is a fitness app that motivates people to stay active through virtual challenges tied to real-world locations, offering unique medals mailed to participants upon completion of a challenge.
A fitness motivation app company in Mount Maunganui has beaten giant global brands to nab an international award in Las Vegas.
It’s among small Tauranga-based companies making waves on the world stage recently, including a skincare brand’s deal with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, and a gin distillery eyeing aBritish expansion.
The Conqueror app helps motivate people to exercise through virtual challenges tied to real-world locations, such as walking the distance of the Inca Trail.
Licensing deals with major franchises – The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter - also allow participants to explore fictional worlds.
The business won Best Interactive or Digital Product at the Licensing International Excellence Awards late last month for its Harry Potter-themed bundle of seven challenges.
It was up against the likes of Minecraft’s Hello Kitty and Friends, and StoryToys’ Lego Duplo Peppa Pig.
The business was co-founded by former Katikati College PE teacher-turned-entrepreneur Adam El-Agez and operates worldwide from its Mount Maunganui base.
El-Agez told the Between Two Beers podcast last year that the business was bringing in more than $80 million in revenue a year, and had 70 staff in six countries.
The Conqueror global general manager Carol Machaj told the Bay of Plenty Times that winning the global award as a New Zealand company was “amazing”, especially having beaten such strong competitors.
The Conqueror's Rebecca Sandlant (left centre), and Hayley Ellis accepted the award for Best Interactive or Digital Product in Las Vegas.
Machaj said the team was proud to be recognised as a small Kiwi company.
“There is talent in New Zealand, there are ideas here, it’s just sometimes a struggle to get out into that bigger world because we are so far away and so small.
Carol Machaj is the global general manager at The Conqueror.
“It would be great for people to realise that there is the desire and the knowledge here to innovate and create something new that helps people worldwide.”
Machaj said the colourful medals that rewarded completed challenges were designed by hand by 3D designers in Mount Maunganui, and ideas for challenges were also created locally.
The Conqueror has grown to become a global platform, with more than 900,000 participants from more than 100 countries, and a Facebook community of 420,000.
She said the company had “momentum” and aimed to keep building and sharing interactive features for app users.
Another award winner is Tauranga-based Clarity Distilling Company, which won Spirit of the Year for New Zealand at the 2025 London Spirits Competition in March, for its high-end navy gin.
The company won the same award in 2024, and two golds at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits competition.
Founders George White and Stephanie Downer were looking to establish the brand in the British market off the back of the London win.
Clarity Distillery Company co-founders George White and Stephanie Downer. Photo / Alex Cairns
Rotorua-based Downer said it allowed them to “start those conversations” with the UK industry, with help from competition organisers.
The pair of long-time friends were working with organisers to arrange meetings with distributors and importers.
White said gin was seen as a “summer drink”, and business slowed a little during winter.
“We were really focused on a northern hemisphere country, so you can basically ride the summer wave all year round.”
Longtime friends George White and Stephanie Downer, here at the ANZ Producer Showcase in Tauranga last year, founded Clarity Distilling in 2022.
Expanding was their next goal – while also not losing focus on the New Zealand market, “because it’s been really, really good to us”.
White said they did not envision this type of success within two-and-a-half years of launching “with nothing but two gins, a tiny shared workspace, and a vision to do things differently”.
Clarity individually distils 100%-natural botanicals such as berries, bark, roots and herbs, before blending them, instead of distilling all botanicals at once, as was the industry norm.
White said their dream was to be a “household name”.
Pāpāmoa’s Lara Henderson always knew the Pure Mama brand was designed to be “on the world stage”.
But she said the success of the skincare business, co-owned with her sister Yasmin Shepherd, since launching in the United States eight months ago, still surprised her.
It was in six “major” US retailers, including “celebrity supermarket of LA” Erewhon, Nordstrom, and Revolve.
In April, it expanded to Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, Anthropologie, and wellness and lifestyle company Goop, which Gwyneth Paltrow founded.
This marked “a huge moment for us” as it was “extremely hard” to get listed by the carefully curated platform, she said.
“They’ve sold out once, and then they’ve had to put in a couple of replenishment stock orders in.”
Henderson said its products had been available online with Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus for a few weeks, and sales were going “incredibly well”.
Henderson said it was “unbelievable” how fast the brand had taken off in the US.
It would be focusing on its US retailers for the next 12 months, as well as US partnerships with leading hotel chains and wellness spas.
Henderson has been nominated in Viva’s 2025 Beauty Awards for brand founder of the year, Pure Mama for New Zealand beauty brand of the year, and the magnesium body rub for best in wellbeing.
Kaitlyn Morrell is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has lived in the region for several years and studied journalism at Massey University.
