Another FKA Friday ● 24 March 2023#24

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24 March 2023 #07 823 Thank you, KPMG for hosting our March pitch night. We had more Germans in the room than usual, and also more women than usual. Thank you to the presenters: Terry from Eight360, Debbie from Vince, and Mario from Organic Bioactives. More on the follow-up over the next weeks. The video tells you what Narrative Muse sets out to achieve—a worthy ambition that you can support via this PledgeMe campaign.   Yesterday several Flying Kiwis received a suspicious email purporting to come from Andy. He did not send these emails. Incidentally, he was undergoing eye surgery to restore his 20/20 vision.  He is looking after our deal flow and needs a sharp eye for startups! The range of founder ownership at exit/IPO can be quite wide and is dependent on a number of factors, the primary of which are the ability to command high valuations during fundraising and capital efficiency. Read on... From the NBR. "Phase One’s ambitious goal was to produce 10 Kiwi tech unicorns by 2026, something Muralidhar now admits is unlikely to be achieved in that timeframe.  But, in a PR spin worthy of a politician, he says the value of setting an ambitious goal has been fulfilled." See this update from EasyRent—one of the P1 cohorts! Proved AKL, then Sydney,  now NY The Auckland mayor is slashing budgets and GridAKL is likely to face the death that comes with the axe. GridAKL is FKA's HQ and we run our weekly ADI.Clinic there.  Spare a moment to tell the Mayor how important GridAKL and the John Lysaght Coworking Startup space are for the startup ecosystem. Tell him  HERE From the FT. MindGeek was acquired by Ethical Capital Partners. The company was brought to the brink of collapse in late 2020 after its flagship site Pornhub was cut off by the payments networks following investigations that identified unlawful content on the platform. How "ethical "is ECP? Funds tend to select staff and investments that remind them of themselves. And it leads to suboptimal outcomes…the more affinity there is between two VCs who co-invest in a new company, the lower the likelihood of the company succeeding. Groupthink is bad for returns! See a lively discussion seeded by Michael Jackson. From TechCrunch. Vinod Khosla’s advice for top VCs? Don’t sit on your founders’ boards. We say, beware of angels who have more money than experience and behave like backseat drivers. Also, on LinkedIn and over 2,000 FKA GIFs on GIPHY.