Author Archives: Lance Wiggs

The New Zealand Venture Investment Fund was set up 14 years ago with the best intentions – to foster an early stage investment sector in New Zealand by being a fund of funds. It’s has $250 million for VC and PE funds, but only $129.7 million of that had been invested to June 2015 and $100 million of …

Continue reading “Is NZVIF Directionally Correct?”

Chris Humphreys and I will be presenting about Punakaiki Fund tomorrow, Thursday, 6pm at Deloitte Auckland, 80 Queen St. Many thanks to Deloitte NZ for providing the space and to Snowball Effect for arranging this. Signup here – space is limited. The presentation is targeted at eligible investors who are interested in our latest offer. You can read …

Continue reading “Auckland Punakaiki Fund Presentation: Thursday 28th”

New Investment: Mindfull Group At the end of last year we invested into Mindfull Group, and Punakaiki Fund now holds 20% of the shares. I have joined the owners Belinda Johnson and Richard Johnson on the board of directors. CEO Belinda Johnson and CTO Richard Johnson are a high energy duo, and I have been very …

Continue reading “Punakaiki Fund: Mindfull Group and Melon Health”

At the end of last year we extended our wholesale fundraising offer until 31 January. While that was a bit over five weeks in time, in our summer season it’s really only a couple of weeks of business time.  Meanwhile however most of the companies we have invested are continuing strongly, most with steadily growing recurring revenue, and many …

Continue reading “Punakaiki Fund: Fundraising update”

Trade Me has announced that it is changing its auction fees from February 1 – and quite a big change at that. Let’s look at the changes from the old fees to the new. Listing (Upfront) Fees Here is Trade Me’s page on the change. The first change is important – making extra photos free. That’s a …

Continue reading “Simplified pricing may significantly boost Trade Me’s revenue”

Solid progress continues We have now received over $1 million in applications for the the December 2015 Offer, with over $800,000 received directly and $231,000 via the Snowball Effect Wholesale Platform. Offer Extended until 31 January We had a good number of investors and financial advisors, along with Snowball Effect, ask us for more time. …

Continue reading “Punakaiki Fund Update: new investment, extended offer”

We’ve just launched a new wholesale offer to investors for Punakaiki Fund. It’s available only to Exempt investors, as we hit the legal limit of $2 million for crowd-funding investors back in June. There are two ways to invest. The easiest for new investors is through Snowball Effect’s wholesale platform, or you can download the Information …

Continue reading “Punakaiki Fund – new offer for exempt investors”

Christchurch is a hive of activity at the moment, a combination of the old, the destroyed, the temporary and the new. It’s a place that will energise photographers – so much is going on that it is hard to know where to look. Definitely worth a visit, and the accommodation shortage issues seem to be …

Continue reading “Pictures of Christchurch December 2015”

In the last 50 years New Zealand has done a wonderful job of diversifying our export markets for food and beverages, a process somewhat forced by the UK joining the EU in 1973. We are in a strong position. China is the biggest growth market for us – in both dollar and in percentage terms. That’s been …

Continue reading “The future of food exports from NZ”

An update from Punakaiki Fund. At our September 30th AGM we elected three new directors – Mike Bennetts, Bryan Hutchins and John Berry. We held our first board meeting earlier this month. It’s a great board, and we continue to be also inspired by the founders and staff from the companies we have invested into. Chris and I have also moved into an office …

Continue reading “Punakaiki Fund Update – Mike Bennetts is Chair”

Flounders Club is a periodic gathering of Auckland-based founders of companies, generally very high growth and relatively early stage. It’s not actually a club – but simply an event focused on learning from other founders (rather than advisors or other boring speakers), and on meeting other people like yourself who are going through the start-up …

Continue reading “Flounders Meetings – for founders only”

Punakaiki Fund press release today, marking the beginning of a new era for the fund. Chris Humphreys and I are very happy to be able to welcome such an excellent set of directors.   Three new directors bring wealth of experience  Auckland, 13 October 2015– Punakaiki Fund Limited, an investor in growth stage technology and …

Continue reading “Punakaiki Fund adds three new directors”

The global stock markets are in turmoil. There are rumblings from China, Europe and the USA. Are we in the middle of  another crash – or is this just market turbulence? Whatever it is, we’ve seen this sort of thing before, and we should brace for the potential bear* market. It’s also just good business …

Continue reading “We’ve heard this music before”

Here’s the latest chart of how we use energy in New Zealand. It’s from the excellent Energy in New Zealand 2015 publication from MBIE. As y Luca see we are edging up towards 600 PetaJoules.   Transport, in purple, makes up 36% of our energy use – and that’s essentially all petrol and diesel. What if …

Continue reading “Introducing a decent carbon tax will reduce our overall spend on fuel”

NZTE (this time joining forces with Callaghan Innovation and the Asian Business Angel Forum who are looking after different categories) are once again helping companies get ready for investment by using a showcase event as a catalyst. The last one of these was in March 2015, held for Agri-Tech businesses during the Central Districts Field Days, which is in Fielding. This …

Continue reading “NZTE is offering to help you raise $1-$5m. Apply now.”