Ben Ryan, originally from Nelson, and Chris Thomson, of Invercargill, met at university about 10 years ago, travelled a bit together and then "bumped into each other" again in Sydney.
It was there the pair started talking about making camera equipment to fill a gap in the market.
Mr Ryan worked in film production, while Mr Thomson had a background in industrial design, so after moving to Queenstown and establishing their start-up company, Syrp, they got to work on developing the Genie, which is a simple, portable and user-friendly device which allows for motion control in time-lapse photography.
"All the other equipment is really bulky, difficult to use and really expensive.
"You've got so much equipment you need ... you can't integrate it into everyday production.
"That's where the Genie solves those problems."
Mr Ryan said the product, capable of panning and linear movement and able to connect to existing film equipment like sliders, dollies and tripods, could fit in a camera bag and had been created in 12 months on a shoestring budget.
"We've done it on our own and we've put a lot of our own money into it.
"We always had the plan to launch it on kickstarter to get funding."
After completing the research and development phase, the business partners launched the product on the global funding website last Friday, hoping to attract a minimum of $150,000 in pledges.
In just over a week the Genie had more than $US281,000 of funding and more than 400 orders - from Asia, Europe and the United States - for the product, Mr Ryan said.
"It's pretty mind-blowing - we didn't expect it.
"We thought we could potentially get that much, but not so quickly - it's pretty overwhelming."
One of the added incentives for those who pledged money to help get the product into production was being the first recipients of the end result and being able to buy it at a cheaper price than the $US990 it was expected to retail for.
The money over and above the $150,000 the pair had been hoping for would go towards the initial production run, now likely to be at least 1000 units, still leaving the ability to either invest in more production or begin paying off debts incurred over the past 12 months, Mr Ryan said.
The Genie will be manufactured in Asia, in several factories, with production expected to start at the end of next month.
