New Zealand is on the rise. As Australia struggles to adjust to falling commodity prices and rising unemployment, the New Zealand economy is going from strength to strength. The Kiwi dollar is poised to pass the Aussie dollar for the first time in over 40 years. Kiwi tech companies are leaving their rain-soaked shores behind and expanding abroad. What better time for Australian investors to put the trans-Tasman rivalry aside and consider some Kiwi companies that are taking on the world.

Gentrack

Gentrackprovides 'mission critical' billing and customer management software solutions to airports and utilities. In other words it is just the type of defensive business that we love to find at The Motley Fool, with over 60 per cent of revenues coming from sticky recurring fees and support services. Like most software companies, Gentrack is capital light, allowing it to scale-up quickly without tapping shareholders for more funds.

Gentrack's airport software already has over 85% share in the Australasian airport market as measured by passenger numbers, and the company is now expanding internationally, with just under 20 per cent share in the United Kingdom and 7 per cent share worldwide. Gentrack is forecasting revenue growth of 16 per cent in 2015 and if it can continue gobbling up market share overseas it is definitely one to keep an eye on.

Wynyard Group

Wynyard Group's ground-breaking technology allows law enforcement agents and groups to quickly sift through vast arrays of data, much of which is unstructured, and draw connections between people and events.

It is of the few companies in Australasia that is built around machine learning (think: artificial intelligence). Wynyard's systems actually grow smarter over time as its more than 100,000 users enter increasing amounts of data into its systems (including everything from police records to data from recovered mobile phones).

In the meantime, Wynyard has already locked down deals with inter-governmental crime agencies, Fortune 500 companies, big banks, and 50-plus law enforcement agencies spread across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

We're impressed by Wynyard's technology and the strong, recurring cash flow it will generate. Not only are many of Wynyard's clients on multi-year deals, but once a client starts using the company's products, we doubt they'll ever want to leave.

Wynyard is currently listed only on the New Zealand exchange, but has announced plans to list on the ASX before the end of this year. Australian investors should be on the lookout when it does.

Xero

No list of Kiwi world beaters would be complete without featuring the cloud-accounting rocket ship that is Xero.

Xero has grown revenues at a compound rate of 130 per cent per year for the last five years and looks set to grow revenues another 80 per cent in this financial year. At the same time, it has been building a platform of small enterprise innovation, with hundreds of add-on partners building their own ground-breaking businesses around Xero.

But Xero deserves a mention on this list for another very important reason – it has changed the game for tech entrepreneurs in New Zealand. Kiwi founders used to be happy with selling out to a large multi-national after their products started to gain traction. Xero's success has changed all that, with an emerging generation of Kiwi entrepreneurs that are now setting their sights on world domination.

Foolish takeaway

After decades of being known for little more than its dairy and its Hobbits, New Zealand's economy is changing. An emerging generation of tech companies are putting the country on the business map. With the Australian economy slowing, Aussie investors would be wise to put these Kiwi world beaters on their watch-list.

Matt Joass is a Motley Fool analyst. He owns shares of Xero, as does The Motley Fool. This article contains general investment advice only.