Nick Mowbray

Nick Mowbray is a New Zealand entrepreneur and co-founder of Zuru, the toy and consumer-goods company that grew from a Waikato farm shed into one of the largest privately owned toymakers in the world. With his brother Mat he sits at the top of the 2026 NBR Rich List, the family's Zuru fortune estimated near NZ$20 billion.

Where Mat is the engineer who stays close to the factory floor, Nick has been the seller and public face: the sibling who took the early products to buyers, kept pushing into new markets, and still speaks for the group when New Zealand wants to hear how a dairy-farm family ended up running factories across China and brands across more than 120 countries.

From Cambridge to Guangzhou

Nicholas James Mowbray was born in March 1985 and grew up on a dairy farm near Cambridge in the Waikato, later attending St Peter's School. As schoolboys he and Mat made model hot-air balloon kits from Coke cans and plastic bags, an idea that started as a science-fair project and never quite took off at home. After school Nick started a law degree and dropped out in his first year. Mat walked away from engineering after a year of the same.

In 2003, with a NZ$20,000 loan from their parents, the brothers moved to Hong Kong and then Guangzhou. They were teenagers and early twenties, spoke no Mandarin, knew nothing about intellectual property law, and bought an injection-moulding machine anyway. The company was first called Guru; when that name was already taken they became Zuru. Sister Anna joined in 2005 to run operations, and the three siblings settled into a clear split: Nick sold, Anna managed, Mat engineered.

The early years were lean. Nick has said he slept on a mattress under the table in a tiny Hong Kong showroom, washed in public bathrooms, and once hid under that table when a buyer arrived before he was awake. The break came when Walmart asked to visit: he agreed first, then scrambled to rent a room so there was somewhere to show them.

Building Zuru

Hit products did the heavy lifting. Robo Fish was the world's fastest-selling toy in 2013. Bunch O Balloons, the self-sealing water-balloon kit invented by Texan father Josh Malone and scaled by Zuru's manufacturing, spent three months as the top-selling toy in the United States in 2016. By the end of 2020 Nick said Zuru employed about 8,500 people across 26 offices with turnover over US$1 billion. The advantage was always the same: own the factories, automate hard, and get products to market faster than the big listed toy groups.

Zuru has since moved well past toys. Zuru Edge put the group into fast-moving consumer goods across nappies (Rascal + Friends), haircare (Monday) and wellness. Zuru Tech is trying to reinvent house-building through robotics and automation, with early commercial homes planned on beachfront lots in Malibu. Nick was named EY New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018 and inducted into the World Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Illness, Auckland and a quieter stretch

At 26 Nick developed Crohn's disease. In his early thirties he moved back to New Zealand for surgery after doctors told him that without treatment he might have only a few years left. He has spoken about that period as the moment the relentless pace nearly killed him, and about rebuilding life and work around recovery.

He is based in Auckland. In 2016 the siblings bought the Coatesville estate north of the city, the former Kim Dotcom mansion, for a reported NZ$32.5 million, and Nick has since added homes in Herne Bay and at the Te Arai golf resort. In late 2020 he also bought a 40-metre yacht, reported at around NZ$21 million.

Jaimee Lupton and family

Nick is engaged to Jaimee Lupton, co-founder of the haircare brand Monday. The couple have a daughter, Noa, and have spoken publicly about fertility struggles, including miscarriages, failed IVF cycles and the stillbirth of a daughter at 24 weeks in 2022. They later launched Gingernut's Angels to help other families afford IVF. In mid-2026 Lupton announced they were expecting a baby boy.

Related: Famous New Zealand entrepreneurs

Sources: Wikipedia · NBR Rich List 2026 · NZ Herald · BBC · Zuru