FKA 😇 Advice, Connections and Funding for NZ Startups

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2018#27

10/8/2018


	10 August 2018#27

CEO Mel is chuffed to have made it into the Top Three of Zino's New Kiwis Challenge. Now her sights are set on winning the top prize.

Uli likes how Geo AR Games is going after Chinese shopping malls and wants to bring Mel & Co FKA's August Pitch Night, Tue 21 August.

Rudi has been mentoring them since 2016 and the picture shows once again how FKAngels help Kiwi founders get liftoff.

Yabble and FKA have decided to stop DD so that Yabble can get some more runs on the board and prove out more of the international business model. The revenue from their consulting business puts Yabble in a good position to do that. We have a precedent for this with Wherewolf who are now portfolio company #12. Yabble could certainly repeat that - they have a similarly unusual name already. Cornelius will stay in touch with Kathryn and Rachel.

Dotterel pitched back in June and the DD process of the lead investor is only now completed. They are now waiting for final commitments from existing shareholders. Once we know if there is any capacity for FKA Rudi and Hattaf will report back.

Ralf Wittgen has talked with Jackie, Paul and Rudi. All three reckon he would make a fine FKAssociate. Ralf understands what is expected of him and he is happy to strengthen the German contingent.

He is promising to give Rudi a run for his money, little that he has, with his fast and furious, often video enhanced, LinkedIn posts, like this one following Wednesday's Ask Angels Anything event.

If anyone knows of any skeletons in the cupboard or any other reasons why he should not join our group, now is the time to speak up. Please advise the board in confidence of any material concerns to consider.

Nick Walsh has been a sterling support to the FKA board and wider group as our resident FKApprentice. His persistence in chasing signatures and investor certs is what most you have seen but that was only the tip of a big iceberg. Nick moved to Oz for a master in quantitative finance earlier this year and has still supported us from afar.

Now it is time to say goodbye and knuckle down for studies. Thank you so much, Nick! We want to see you back with FKA as founder or angel. Keep going the way you are!!!

He says, he'll miss ADI.Clinic and the Pitch Nights most! Oh, and Charlie.

Ray Thomson has been a force to be reckoned with in the NZ angel community. His style was divisive, he didn't mince his words, but by god did he get stuff done. He pushed CCH Rudi to grow his wings and cat herding skills faster then he'd ever expected. No doubt, Ray's recent passing leaves a hole that will take time to fill.

See the many reactions that have accumulated on Rudi's post here.

✞ Funeral service Tue, 14 Aug, 11:30, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell.

Next Wednesday, 15 August at noon. ☞ FREE Registration

Andrew and Julie will share their experience helping tech companies develop and negotiate term sheets for deals from small friends and family rounds through to large VC and private equity deals. They will also go through the creation of a term sheet using the equity investment term sheet doc maker, a powerful tool for founders or investors alike.

Unexpected news from a law firm: The doc maker is FREE to use!

A must for all current and aspiring FKA investor reps!!!

A night of coprolalia hosted by Mr Paul Ego of "7 Days" and featuring two of NZ's funniest ladies Mel Bracewell and Justine Smith. Tickets here. Light snacks provided, consider bringing a food platter to share. Cash bar. Doors open 7.00pm. Pre-load at Rudi's next door to TGS (not Dr Rudis).

Email Rudi

All mistakes, grammar, spelling or otherwise, in this publication have been made by Rudi and then overlooked by Debbie, Jackie, Karl, Katheren and Masha. Same goes for all images, however, Rudi has been known to insert some after the early morning review.

As it is the case with this little insert.

Haha, Debbie should have been Debra of course! [RB]

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Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2018#26

3/8/2018

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	3 August 2018#26

Clever names or photos often inspire the GIF animations for this publication. It is obvious in this case that it was the wordplay and not the picture of Wayne Hudson who is the clean-shaven complement to Charlie James at our Wanaka ADI.Clinic.

He is also the Ⓗ in HGM Legal. The self-inflicted branding of his boutique Wanaka practice is very different from the corporate HGM brand. He is, of course, one of the most respected NZ IP experts.

Some have suggested this would a perfect 'corporate' video for WHipIT!

Jai Somaratne is the first awesome addition to the FKA board, not just because of his impressive facial hair. It must have been in a moment of temporary insanity when he volunteered the Chewbacca pic taken at a bankers' fancy dress party. Nowadays he is not so much putting down money but rather more pavers at PaveCraft.

Jai has taken part in several DD exercises. He loved it so much so that he has put his own and the learnings of others together into our DD process and templates that we are using at present

The 20 LPs of LP1 should have received their respective copy of the 2018 tax return by email overnight. You know who you are and if you cannot find it in your inbox, there is no shame in that, just ping CCH.

Uli and Co have worked with the Toothcrush team through DD. Among other things, this means that there has been a lot of product testing, aka toothbrushing going on in the DD team. With a shift in the business model, the need for funding reduced and based on their strong cash flows our team suggested they look at bank financing.

Cut a long story short, Toothcrush succeeded in getting their US market entry financed by their bank which is a great outcome. We wish cofounders Anabel and James all the best for the road ahead and hope they'll pick up with us again when they need more growth capital for the next stage. Banks may not always play so nice. Ask Jai or Garth, they know all about risk management at banks!

Thanks again to the sterling DD Team! Dan Burrill, Garth Hinton, Marisa Fong, Melanie Langlotz, Phil Southward, Tim Gelston, Uli Wiehle.

ADI.Clinic is going from strength to strength. Brian Dawson has vowed to abide by the ADI code of practice and will be running clinics in Blenheim with our fellow angel group, the AIM Angel Investors Marlborough. Charlie James is finally escaping the confines of Wanaka and will have another go this year at running clinics in Queenstown.

Top of the list, however, has to be Campbell Scott, with Takapuna generating more bookings than Auckland this week. Good reason for Campbell to don what is called a fat suit in the film industry before making a splash.

Now, let's make sure we're in Blenheim when they have reason to open bottles of booze. AANZ Summit would be a good opportunity!

Last night saw the announcement of the Top 5 contenders in the 2018 Kiwi Challenge. Geo AR Games is one of them and already pitched to FKA in June 2016. Their council focus was a turnoff then. Although they extracted more money from councils, than could be expected, it is their recent pivot to Chinese shopping malls which makes them look very interesting.

Rudi has kept mentoring the founder and CEO Mel since the pitch in 2016. Uli was on the Zino judging panel and likes the new model so much, that Rudi could twist his arm to be the champion for Geo AR Games and bring Mel to our pitch night this month.

Funny thing is, all three - Mel, Rudi and Uli are German. So the Germans are going after the Chinese retail sector with massive support from Zino. Who in turn have massive support from Debra who is driving, literally whipping, the 2018 New Kiwis Challenge forward!

Serendipity! The NZ Game Developer Association released some interesting stats on the very same day. The local game industry shows strong growth over recent years and is predominantly export-oriented.

The full report is an interesting read, read it on our blog.

Māori Motor Mouth ROBETT HOLLIS has a big mouth but also Ⓖreat ⓈⓄⒽ. When the editor notifying him by text about last week's 'Uber/Lunch' plug his brief response was: "Man I love your style. Sooooo epic. Haha. You actually rule." CHH "Hahaha." RH "But actually. You rule."

$54-lunch at The Northern Club, Wednesday 15 August. ☞ Register

"Win A Work Day" was a 2017 initiative of CareersNZ.

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Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2018#25

27/7/2018

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	27 July 2018#25

Two videos on LinkedIn. One for all those AI zealots, like Josh and Tim, proving that not all jobs will be displaced by AI. Another to illustrate how incredibly stubborn Kiwi entrepreneurs can be.

Debra and Zino are calling for the next elimination stage in the New Kiwi Challenge. Taking the Top Ten down to the Top Five.

Join the fun next Thursday, 2 August at the fabulous BizDojo Parnell. Register ☞ here.

Phil in Munich is not just a maverick hang glider, he is also a deeply philosophical angel investor. The only problem is that with the time difference his contributions to this publications always arrive last minute, most un-German. Here an interesting HBR article on the platform debate.

These recent articles (A1) (A2) from Eloise Gibson make interesting reading and speak for themselves. Our LinkedIn re-post has produced some interesting commentary.

☞ newsroom.co.nz is worth a read!!!

ROBETT HOLLIS, the Māori Motor Mouth, has sold down various business interests recently. Making him richer, in experience if nothing else. Hear him speak and ask your own questions over lunch at The Northern Club, Wednesday 15 August. ☞ Register for $54.

4x4 Extravaganza ♦︎ Pirate Podcast ♦ Who is Robett Hollis?

Two things for sure, a genuine Tim torso and a Tim birthday. Is it Tim Gelston or is it Tim Warren. Which of the two is celebrating a birthday?

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Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2018#24

20/7/2018

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	20 July 2018#24

Last week the editor was going insane with the internet speed and decided to skip the issue to keep his sanity. This week back from Fiji, he is hampered by full-on flu which he brought back from there. So it'll be brief.

All up, 14 FKAngels have backed Vesper Marine with $259,000 and this round is now closed. Thank you to everyone who has decided and responded so swiftly.

Somebody has suggested that FKA not only FLY but SWIM and DIVE just as well. So much talent in a little fat bird

Yabble and Toothcrush due diligence are still progressing. It is unclear which one will call a result first but Charlie is bracing himself for his task as our investment manager. He responsibility is to read and critique the reports before approving them for release to our investment vote.

Rudi is diligently providing FKA's data into these Dow Jones reports that we get for free in return. Q2’18 US + Q2’18 Europe + Q2’18 China. But it remains a mystery into which of the three reports our numbers get rolled up into.

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Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2018#23

6/7/2018

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	6 July June 2018#23

Jack Nicholson in ☞ The Shining,1980. Clearly, FKAngels want active, not crazy angels.

FKAngel and ecentre CEO, Jackie says, ≪ We’re “lifting the lid” on ventures driving New Zealand's innovation agenda forward. Join the ecentre Innovation Showcase to connect with startups and entrepreneurs focused on accelerating their growth.≫

This may not be a fair depiction of the sterling ADI Team in Wanaka with the most usual suspects being Charlie James and Wayne Hudson. Their sessions run every first Monday of the month. This month they were fully booked. Awesome guys!

Usually, the Far North team is busier with younger founders and more female mentors. But not so this month! Just before the Tuesday session, their only booking was pushed out to August. So the mentors are off to the beach where most likely all the founders can be found.

Thank you, Auriole Ruka, Linda Reid and Martin Knoche.

ADI.Clinic is nothing like a talent quest nor a shark tank. However, if we had a gold buzzer, we felt each one of the three visitors in Auckland this week deserved one. Challenge now? To find a champion. Just talk to Uli!

Jan and Paul are very early, won the 0.Sprint judging and now want to leverage blockchain for carbon trading. New CEO Mike from Boxfish can do underwater imaging like few others. Svetlana is print- and e-publishing a very compelling youth science magazine that already generates interest from schools of different parts of the world.

See the two links below for two recent complete copies plus more online previews. Make sure to check out the instructions on the first page for cool AR aka Augmented Reality enhancements of each cover page.

Tim has indicated that he wants to step down from the FKA Board after three years of super service. That leaves Charlie, Josh and Rudi looking for some new blood. Angel or not, please talk to either of the four to find out what is involved and how you can help to keep the tempo at FKA. Rewards are high, remuneration is nil.

Little known fact: Tim was a drummer in his not too distant youth. Add in NZVIFler and crooner Chris, also Datagate's rockstar Mark and we'd have a trio of a jammin band.

Recent capacity building activities: Fᴇʙʀᴜᴀʀʏ, CCH talking @ Y-Tech, Jᴜɴᴇ, judging @ 0.Sprint, Tᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ, Erick & Rudi @ Zino's NKC workshop [two edits from Zino's Chief GIF Maker sunny Luna], Wᴇᴅɴᴇsᴅᴀʏ, great beer and talk @ Ask Angels Anything.

In April Heath attended the ACA Summit in Boston. He brought back an interesting table, that contrasts the return multiples metric that is so popular in angelic circles with the more general IRR metric.

There is never a free lunch but BNZ provides a free breakfast plus an opportunity to meet Kate Daly, an ace comms professional and also well respected in rugby circles.

Thanks to NZVIFler Hattaf for bringing this to wider FKAttention