New Zealand venture studio

We build sweet companies, layer by layer.

Custard Square is an independent venture studio from Aotearoa New Zealand. We start, design, build and grow our own ideas — from pantry products to social apps, household tools and AI-first software.

4
ventures built in-house
3+
live products across shelves, phones and browsers
NZ
started in Aotearoa
What it is

A venture studio with range.

Custard Square makes and operates its own products. We are not an agency, fund or accelerator. We build the thing, launch the thing, learn from the thing, and keep going.

Different categories, same approach: find a real everyday friction, make something useful, and give it enough personality to be loved.

Portfolio

The things we're cooking up.

Food, consumer software, grocery budgeting and AI-enabled development workflows — all built close to the customer.

Live brand

Sweet Sting

NZ's original hot honey.

Chilli-infused, honey-based sauces inspired by the beautiful buzz of sweet and heat. Locally made in Aotearoa, no added sugar — just good natural stuff.

Hot honeySauce rangeStockists
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Live app

Grupie

Find it. Share it. Do it.

Save reels, TikToks and YouTube videos straight into shared boards with your friends — auto-pinned to a map, voted on together. The end of "wait, who sent that café?"

Shared boardsVotingMap planning
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In build

Kepie

Plan your week. Know what it costs.

A meal planner for NZ households that shows the cost of the week up front — so the weekly shop stops being a surprise.

Meal plansBudget viewNZ households
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Live software

Vibstr

Your AI writes the code. Vibstr remembers what it did.

An issue tracker built for vibe-coding with Claude, Cursor and friends. Items derive from markdown plans, the AI sidebar knows the context, and your team discusses in Slack.

AI devBuild historyContext layer
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Live portfolio view

A website that updates as the ventures move.

The Custard Square site pulls directly from product pages, app listings, recipes, release notes and stockist pages.

Fresh from the portfolio

The latest from each venture — products, releases, updates and build notes — surfaced automatically as they happen.

Sweet Sting is now stocked retailers in Australia.

Sweet Sting
Sweet Sting product spotlightPull latest sauce, recipe or stockist update from the Sweet Sting site.
Products
Grupie
Grupie app releaseShow the latest app version, feature launch or platform note.
App
Kepie
Kepie planning updateSurface meal-planning, grocery-costing or household budgeting milestones.
Home
Vibstr
Vibstr build noteShow latest version, changelog or AI-first development workflow improvement.
AI dev
How we build

Simple. Not always easy.

Every venture teaches the next one. Brand, product, software, operations and distribution all get better with each layer.

1

Start with a real itch

Food that needs a kick, links that get lost, grocery bills that creep up, software work that becomes messy.

2

Make it tangible

A name, a landing page, a prototype, a recipe, a bottle, a board or a workflow.

3

Put it in the wild

Launch early, sell directly, listen closely and let real behaviour shape the next version.

4

Compound what works

Keep what customers love. Improve the systems. Let each new layer sharpen the next.

About

Built in-house from Aotearoa.

Custard Square is a small, independent venture studio based in New Zealand. We make our own things and keep them close: strategy, naming, design, product, software, launch, operations and iteration.

The portfolio might look eclectic at first — hot honey, social planning, grocery budgeting and AI dev tools — but the through-line is simple. Useful things with a point of view.

Want a slice?

Partnerships, stockists, press or product feedback.

Whether you want to talk about Sweet Sting distribution, a Custard Square venture, or what we're building next, we'd love to hear from you.

hello@custardsquare.com