Queenstown-based tech entrepreneur Brian Cartmell has donated at least $500,000 to New Zealand political parties, RNZ reveals.The ACT Party confirmed receiving $200,000 total in 2025, with $100,000 arriving in December. The Electoral Commission disclosed a $100,000 donation to The Opportunity Party on February 25, 2026. National and NZ First have not publicly confirmed their donations from Cartmell.Cartmell explained his strategy in blunt terms: he contributed matching amounts to National, ACT, and NZ First because "none of the three represents his thinking, but he believed the three parties complemented each other." Regarding Opportunity, he noted that "healthy democracies need parties willing to put forward ideas major parties won't."Big money in New Zealand politics. Even in a country with tighter donation rules than most, tech wealth is starting to shape political outcomes in ways that challenge the Kiwi egalitarian self-image.The American expatriate relocated to New Zealand in 2010 and renounced his US citizenship in 2015. He built his fortune through technology ventures, starting with live streaming technology development in the 1990s for an adult entertainment platform.Cartmell founded a domain registry managing .cc extensions, eventually selling to Verisign in 2001. He also founded SpamAlert, an anti-spam service that won litigation against Hormel over "spam" terminology. He was an early Bitcoin adopter and Coinbase investor.His current directorships span PledgeMe, Angel Food, and Yeastie Boys. The donations are legal under New Zealand's electoral rules, which require disclosures exceeding $20,000 within 20 days during election years.The scale of Cartmell's giving raises questions about political influence in a country that prides itself on relatively clean politics. While no explicit concerns about donor influence appear in official responses, the sums involved represent significant funding for smaller parties — money that inevitably buys access and attention from political leaders.