Soda's latest Seed Grant round received more than 40 applicants from all across Aotearoa with ten finalists selected to pitch their business online and be in to win a share of $10,000.

The winner was Hitch - a ride share platform which connects commuters who are travelling in the same direction, reducing the number of cars on the road. Founders Claudia Grave and Todd Foster have won $7,000 to take their business to the next level.

"Hitch is absolutely stoked to win the Soda seed grant. Having this help so early on will give us a huge leg up. We've got 17 epic Wellington CBD based organisations to trial the beta version of Hitch. The Soda grant will go towards making this trial a great success. Once we get through the trials we will be looking to build a more scalable dynamic mobile version of Hitch that we can roll out across many more kiwi organisations, helping them commute more sustainably," says co-founder Claudia Grave.

In second place was OneSub who won $2,000. Founder Sam Beattie is developing an app that enables retailers to sell their products to customers as a subscription instead of one-off purchase.

SkillsMe and Bayuble were awarded joint third place, receiving $1,000 each. SkillsMe have developed an artificial intelligence and machine learning tool to determine developer's coding ability, providing recruiters with data to recruit top developers without having to spend time screening CVs. Bayuble are developing home compostable and edible stickers for fruit, made from food waste.

We'll share more about these innovative start-ups soon.

Pictured: Hitch co-founders, Claudia Grave and Todd Foster.