Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2020#15

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22 May 2020 #15 We don't know how Andy did with his TheWineList but we know that Kyla lifted sales of her bubbles brand MASSIVELY during the compulsory bubble period. Martin in Whangarei seems to have managed lockdown with extra bubbles and is sharing this article. COVID-19 times are tough times to raise beyond Friends and Family! Chnnl and Hivemind and their respective champions Cornelius and Garth have worked hard to help close these rounds. Both companies have now cleared the minimum investment hurdle. If you want to find out more get in touch with Cornelius.Boertjens@fka.nz  or Garth.Hinton@fka.nz  ✓ A mischievous mistake or tacit typo by the Chief Cat Herder? When Rudi wrote Catterize instead of Chatterize in a recent email Lawrence was confused. "What's Catterize? I don't see any reference to it in any emails other than this one? Something about cat herding?". R "No, no. [...]". L "Lol!  Cat != Chat :)". [End of French session] Seriously though, Chatterize was voted into DD earlier this week and Phil is now assembling the DD team. We shared the Pitch cum Q+A session on Wednesday with Angel HQ, the best in Wellington. The NBR also covered Chatterize in this interview/article - paywalled #$@&%*!  Phil and the team at Chatterize had a really positive experience working together as part of the most recent Startmate Sydney cohort. The programme is now coming to NZ with a first virtual cohort kicking off in July. Startmate values are well aligned with FKA's thinking. So Angels and founders check it out and get involved!  A few weeks back The Economist reported about online dating sites like Tinder suffering under COVID-19 but Tinder seems to be inspirational. But Jennifer at GridAKL is a natural at this and is organising another Speed-dating for founders and mentors. As part of Digital Techweek 2020, she will be matching mentors and founders on Wednesday, 27 May, 17:30 - 19:15. Digital - so all via Zoom! Rudi has 'Tinder fatigue' and hopes that another FKA Angel will step in. Just email Jennifer.Smith@GridAKL.com to release him. Thank you to everyone who attended the early sessions and Tuesday's session to refresh FKA's strategy. These are the key highlights. Reaffirmed focus on engaged Angels ○ streamline processes to embrace more early-stage investments ○ roles and responsibilities to extend beyond the Board ○ more angelic fun! Phil is picking up the DD processes, Josh role definition to get going. Rudi is working with Mel and she reckons she can bring her tech to create an FKA Pool Party to remember. Mel brings dolphins, Rudi the pool. Somebody bring the mermaids! See here what Mel is working on, amazing animatronic dolphins LOL! Tinder tactics at Timely □ Timely provides the awesome booking system for ADI.Clinic and is running an FWB promo. CLICK HERE to refer yourself or a friend to grab 3 months at half price and $100 for FKA. Lance Wiggs is an investor so let's take $100 notes from his pockets!  Learn more about shit, ice cream and how one of the brains thinks that is behind celebrated VC Andreessen Horowitz. A lengthy but worthy article in The New Yorker.  Shit-smelling-like-ice-cream? The Economist Espresso. Son Masayoshi, a Japanese tech investor, will today announce a historic loss for his company, SoftBank Group, as it reports results for the financial year ending on March 31st. SoftBank warned in April that it expects to lose ¥900bn ($8.3bn), compared with a profit of ¥1.5trn the previous year. The chief culprits are SoftBank’s $100bn tech-investing vehicle, the Vision Fund, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, as well as its own investment in WeWork, a troubled office-sharing company. SoftBank’s massive bets on WeWork and other sharing-economy firms, such as Uber and Didi, are backfiring amid the pandemic. SoftBank itself is one of Japan’s most indebted firms and investors worry that it could sink under its weight of loans. Today Mr Son will doubtless talk futuristically about how the pandemic is accelerating technology adoption. But he will struggle to convince investors that the Vision Fund will be anything but a drain on precious resources. Watch the Bloomberg video "The Spectacular Rise and Fall of WeWork". Our CHH has licenced a mail merge app to avoid multi-addressee emails getting spam blocked. However, it also means we will probably spam FKA Angels with more emails.  Among others Angela, Ralf W and Stephen have received emails that were returned by their bank. These were failed attempts at changing account details on the assumption that email address on the fka-domain would give access to the bank account Mason Yates from Blackbird VC has launched the Wild Hearts podcast. In the first three episodes, you’ll hear the stories of companies like: Eucalyptus, who are delivering truly patient-centric healthcare online. Fleet Space, who are connecting everything, everywhere on Earth via toaster sized satellites. Vow Foods, who are resurrecting past culinary delights long forgotten by history via synthetic biology. The man who brought you Rogernomics and one other bring you what they think should be done to get the Kiwi economy back after COVID-19.