Founder of failed Wellington tech start-up declared bankrupt
Saturday, 1 November 2025
After months of fighting to stave off bankruptcy, the hammer has fallen for the founder of a failed Wellington start-up.
On Thursday afternoon, Melissa (Mel) Gollan was adjudicated bankrupt by the High Court, having lost her flagship company RIPA Global in a multimillion-dollar collapse earlier this year.
The bankruptcy ruling marks the end of a brief reprieve for Gollan, who was granted extra time to repay the $400,000 she owed to the Bank of New Zealand. The deadline passed on Thursday without payment.
The order also restricts Gollan from leaving Aotearoa or being the director of a company in New Zealand without the consent of the Official Assignee, who will oversee her financial affairs.
National manager of insolvency and trustee services, Russell Fildes, said he was unable to speak about Gollan’s case for privacy reasons but confirmed that the appointed Official Assignee will investigate any potential assets and report directly to creditors.
“In general, a person who is bankrupt cannot be a director of a company in New Zealand and must obtain the Official Assignee’s consent to leave the country.
“If the person was overseas at the time of adjudication, their movements are not restricted unless they return to New Zealand, at which point consent is required to leave again,” Fildes said.
Earlier this month Gollan announced on social media that she was leaving New Zealand to start a new venture in the USA.
In a lengthy LinkedIn post dated October 6, Gollan said she had come to the realisation that “New Zealand is not the place for me - I simply do not fit the ‘mold’ and I am ok with that”.
“It’s time to move to a country where I can be a gamechanger, a disrupter - fight the injustice in the world with people who support relentless drive and grit,” she wrote.
Gollan previously told The Post she was “unable to comment until the legal situation is resolved”, but that she would be “happy to comment post that”.
She did not reply to further questions and after being approached for comment by The Post on Friday, appeared to delete her LinkedIn profile.
Once hailed as a tech mogul on her way to global success, in 2011 Gollan founded The Work Shop Limited, which traded as RIPA Global New Zealand.
She branded RIPA Global as having“game-changing” technology that would reduce the time and cost of accounting through an app that automated the processing of receipts, invoices and payments.
In February, Inland Revenue successfully applied to have the company wound up. The first liquidator’s report, released in March, showed RIPA Global owed more than $5.5 million, including $316,978 to Inland Revenue and $252,289 to staff.
An updated report in September showed total debts had climbed to almost $7m, with most of the additional $1.5m owed to further unsecured creditors.
Gollan remains a co-director of Kumara Pai Ltd, according to the Companies Register, and is listed as the company’s chief executive officer on its website.
Earlier this year, The Post spoke to some of Gollan’s former employees about the impact of the collapse of RIPA Global. Where some had to take loans to be able to afford their bills, others said they faced losing their homes and had sold possessions to get by.
Most also raised concerns about others being “dragged into business with her” through Kumara Pai Ltd.
Gollan had been engaged in a protracted legal battle with the Bank of New Zealand, who applied to have her declared bankrupt in March after she failed to repay them $400,000.
Representing herself at a hearing at the High Court in Wellington, she argued she had been treated “unfairly and unjustly” by BNZ and asked the bank to sit down with her to work out a repayment plan.
“To make someone bankrupt is a big thing. To make a professional entrepreneur and a director bankrupt is a big thing. I feel like I’m just a number to BNZ,” Gollan told the court.
Acting on behalf of BNZ, lawyer Lauren Furley said the bank had “no faith” in Gollan’s ability to repay the money owed.
“She’s made several promises of potential repayments and potential money coming through, and the bank has seen nothing,” Furley said.
Ultimately, Associate Judge Andrew Skelton rejected Gollan’s claims that it would be unjust or inequitable to declare her bankrupt: “Ms Gollan’s indebtedness is the result of her own conduct in guaranteeing the obligations of the company she controlled as sole director.”
He added that bankruptcy served as a way of “protecting the commercial community from future commercial activity” by judgment debtors, such as Gollan.