Pinch Me! I Want $50K Hackathon

What happens when you give ambitious builders access to real payments technology, a problem to solve and $50,000 to chase? We decided to find out.

Over the past few months, Pinch Payments and The Founders Union brought together founders, developers, designers and product thinkers from across Australia for Pinch Me! I Want $50K – a national hackathon built around a simple challenge:

Find a real problem. Build a real solution.

The result was bigger than a competition.

Around 150 teams entered. New teams formed. Ideas moved from conversations to working products. Participants tested their thinking with mentors, refined their businesses and, eventually, six finalists earned the opportunity to pitch live in Sydney.

On 10 August, it all came down to one final night at The Collider.

And one team walked away with $50,000.

It started with a challenge to build something real

When we launched Pinch Me! I Want $50K with The Founders Union, we wanted to create something that rewarded execution.

The hackathon was open to founders, developers, designers, product thinkers and anyone prepared to take an idea and actually build it.

Teams were given access to the Pinch Payments API and sandbox environment, allowing them to experiment with real-world payment functionality.

The brief itself was deliberately open.

Participants could explore billing and invoicing, subscriptions, payment automation, embedded payments, marketplaces, reconciliation or an entirely different problem where payments technology could help create a better solution.

There was just one important condition: solve a real problem.

Teams formed ahead of the official launch on 24 July before heading into an intensive 48-hour build weekend on 25–26 July.

But this wasn't about throwing together a prototype and calling it done.

After the first submission deadline, teams had a further polishing week to test, refine and strengthen their products before final submissions closed on 31 July.

Then came judging.

From roughly 150 teams, six finalists emerged.

They had one more challenge ahead of them: pitch what they'd built live.

Six teams. One final pitch.

On Monday 10 August, the finalists came together at The Collider in Sydney for the Pinch Me! I Want $50K Demo & Pitch Night.

Each team had already made it through weeks of building, testing and refinement.

Now they had to convince the judging panel that their idea had what it took to go further.

The six finalists were:

• Volty, created by Harrison Hreszczuk and Ruby N.
• Impulse, created by Rahul Markasserithodi and Manojvradan Balaji
• Moroku, presented by Colin Weir
• Monaal Madan
• The Bearded Developers, represented by Christopher Dodson, Jacob Gibellini and Luke
• Queue Busters, created by Philip Johns

The ideas were different, the problems were different and the approaches were different.

What they shared was the willingness to turn an idea into something tangible.

And after the final pitches, the judges had a winner.

Meet the 2026 winner: Volty

Congratulations to Harrison Hreszczuk and Ruby Nanda, creators of Volty and winners of the 2026 Pinch Me! I Want $50K Hackathon.

Volty tackles a problem that's becoming increasingly relevant as electric vehicle adoption grows: how do people living in apartments conveniently charge an EV at home?

For apartment residents, installing EV charging infrastructure isn't always straightforward.

Buildings may require specialised metering and additional power hardware, creating cost and complexity for residents and strata managers.

Volty's approach is designed to make that simpler.

The solution enables strata managers to use existing power outlets without requiring specialised metering and power hardware, creating a practical path towards making EV charging more accessible in apartment buildings.

It was a strong example of what the hackathon was created to uncover: a clearly defined problem paired with a practical solution and genuine commercial potential.

Harrison and Ruby leave the competition with $50,000 in cash to help take Volty further.

We can't wait to see what they build next.

Impulse takes second place

Impulse, created by Rahul Markasserithodi and Manojvradan Balaji, secured second place following an exceptional final pitch.

Rahul and Manojvradan received $25,000 in fee-free payment processing from Pinch Payments to support the next stage of Impulse's growth.

Making the final six from an initial field of around 150 teams was already a significant achievement, and the quality of the final pitch made Impulse a worthy runner-up.

More than a hackathon

There was $50,000 on the line, but one of the most interesting outcomes of the hackathon wasn't the prize.

It was what happened around it.

People who hadn't worked together before formed teams.

Ideas that had existed as notes, conversations or half-formed concepts became products.

Technical builders worked alongside commercially minded founders. Participants shared skills, challenged assumptions, solved problems together and built connections that will continue long after the competition.

That was an important part of why we created Pinch Me! I Want $50K in the first place.

Hackathons can be about speed. We wanted this one to be about momentum.

The 48-hour build created urgency, but the polishing week forced teams to go further. They had to ask whether their idea solved something meaningful, whether somebody would use it and whether there was a path from prototype to product.

The final six showed just how much can happen when people are given the environment and incentive to stop talking about an idea and start building it.

Built by a community

An event like this doesn't happen because of one company or one night.

Thank you to every participant who took a chance on an idea, formed a team and put something forward.

Thank you to our judging panel – Paul Allen, Carolyn Breeze, Ben Cull, Julian Wraight and Tim Lea – for giving their time and expertise to the finalists.

Thank you to the mentors and supporters who helped teams work through technical, product and commercial challenges along the way.

And a huge thank you to our partners at The Founders Union, who helped us turn an ambitious idea for a national hackathon into a community of people building together.

Finally, an extra-big thank you goes to the Pinch team.

There were months of work behind what eventually appeared on stage at The Collider: planning, coordinating, mentoring, answering questions, supporting participants and bringing the final event together.

Members of the team travelled to Sydney for the finale and worked behind the scenes to make the night happen.

We're incredibly proud of what they created.

What happens next?

The hackathon is finished.

The building isn't.

Volty now has $50,000 to put behind its idea. Impulse has $25,000 in fee-free Pinch payment processing to support its next stage. And across the wider hackathon community, dozens of teams now have products, connections and ideas that didn't exist before the competition began.

Some will keep building.

Some will change direction.

Some of the relationships formed during the competition may turn into future businesses, partnerships or opportunities we haven't seen yet.

That's exactly the point.

Pinch Me! I Want $50K was designed to give ambitious people a reason to stop waiting and start building.

Around 150 teams answered that challenge.

Six made the final.

And Harrison Hreszczuk and Ruby N. walked away as our 2026 winners.

Congratulations to Volty and to everyone who built something real. 🎉

Pinch Me! I Want $50K was presented by Pinch Payments in partnership with The Founders Union.