Blog Archives

Another FKA Friday ● 25 February 2022#04

25/2/2022


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Looks like the above GIF missed our Valentine's issue...

HERE comes another video from our February pitch night. Arash from Kara has raised $500k already for his worthy mission and is looking for further funds.

We will bring you the PickMee videos soon.

Allbirds shares fall as sneaker retailer reports widening losses, despite 23% jump in sales. A tech stock? Listed on Nasdaq! More HERE.

A flavour of what AANZ is putting on for investor reps.

"We are lining up a stellar crew of experienced early-stage investors - including Dana McKenzie and Rudi Bublitz (newly minted Arch Angel) - who will all talk to us about specific examples of capital strategies [...]"

Talk to Garth.Hinton@fka.nz if you want to know more.

One Simple Rule On How Much To Pay Yourself Once You Raise Venture Capital. Or not so simple? Some food for thought.

A bit more depth and 2021 stats.

Sadly, John Huston (1945-2022) is no longer with us. He visited NZ in 2014 and influenced much of the thinking of the FKA founders. His AANZ talk has lost none of its relevance. See the video. His "Hustonisms" will remain quotable. See below. Our CCH has the whole collection and will share more over the next weeks.

In the theme park of finance, angel investing is the funhouse.

Bragging about an up-round is like bragging about your future grandchildren.

Directors of zombies should stop caretaking and start undertaking.

John was a reader from afar of this newsletter, the last one he opened was in October 2020.

See all our GIFs at GIPHY - 2000+ and counting!

Another FKA Friday ● 18 February 2022#03

18/2/2022


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Welcome back Dacreed. They pitched on Tuesday after they pitched in May 2021. They have restructured the business to be fully focused on the SaaS platform. With that, the DD team is resuming work. But we still need some helpers for DD!

Can you help? See the Pitch Video.

We will bring you the PickMee & Kara videos soon.

Ever wondered what all the NFT fuss is about. Mrwhoistheboss explains it HERE.

So cryptocurrency is safer than real money? Except for the occasional heist! Read.

ADI this week had an interesting hybrid of Uber Eats and My Food Bag - MEEZ. Good early traction but how much of that is due to Covid? We'll watch them.

SaaS Capital conducts a survey of private, B2B SaaS company metrics in each year. Bootstrapped companies are spending less (and are profitable), while equity-backed companies are operating at a loss to support growth. Equity-backed companies spend approximately 40% more on marketing, R&D, and admin while spending 82% more on sales. More HERE.

Debra brought back the impressive Arch Angel Award from the AANZ Summit and presented it to Rudi at our pitch night on Tuesday. Seriously though, it will not go in a bathroom.

Excerpt from an investor update of one of our portfolio companies just in:

"Total revenue was up from an increase in people testing for STDs after the holiday break "

Another FKA Friday ● 11 February 2022#02

11/2/2022


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We're seeing Covid RED Hence only 40 lucky individuals will be able to attend our first pitch night in 2022. Register HERE.

dacreed.com ○ pickmee.io ○ moxion.io

With all the recent exit news, let's not forget that we have also raised and paid money to several existing and new portfolio companies in December and January.

AV Gaming Fund $365k ○ Formus Labs $717k ○ Integration Fox $511k ○ FileInvite $1,096k ○ Well Revolution $40k ○ Σ $2.73m

Josh.Comrie@fka.nz will step on the board of Integration Fox. He says there is still a little capacity left in this round. Interested? Email him!

AML/KYC clarification: The above image bears no relation to where and how our fine FKA investors secure the requisite means for their startup funding.

Make no mistake, venture investing and thereby angel investing has gained sex appeal faster in recent years than angel investors are losing that quality. The size of the Tiger Global fund is an international reflection of what we're seeing locally. More VCs, too much money chasing founders who are getting seduced into unrealistic expectations of what the future holds. Value correction, down rounds!

So, let's focus on working with realistic founders and aim beyond the froth!

“Is there anything big or small, which is working better than you expected? Is there anywhere we could double down?” Interesting change of focus away from what is not working. More in video or text.

So tame in fact, that our Chief Cat Herder was deemed fit enough for the 2021 AANZ Arch Angel Award. Great to see the maverick recognised outside of our group!

Given that he is also the author of this newsletter there shall be no further spilling of self-congratulatory words. Onwards and upwards! Who will be the next Flying Kiwi after Debra and Rudi to be recognised as one of the Arch Angels of New Zealand?

But then Debra, as she so often does, takes the last word—the last edit.

«Angel investing has always been for the brave and the bold, and the whole FKA community - angels and founders - celebrate with Rudi!»

Only in this newsletter can Rudi trump Debra. So, for the avoidance of doubt, it is not Debra pictured above.

Another FKA Friday ● 4 February 2022#01

4/2/2022


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ADI.Clinic has resumed this week. 8+ mentors kicked off the first Auckland session in 2022 yesterday afternoon between 4 and 6. It was fully booked!

2022 is starting with a bang Please pencil the 3rd Tuesday in February for our 1st pitch night in 2022. As usual at KPMG It will be about learning, property, making films and plenty more. Cause for a sabrage?

Moxion was our 1st and biggest exit in December for 62 FKA investors. More HERE.

Vesper Marine was our 2nd exit in December for 5 FKA investors. More HERE.

Hivemind was our 3rd 'exit' in December, not so much an exit as an orderly winding up of the company. All 38 FKA investors donated the residual funds to a bee charity.

Cloudcheck - another exit early this year. Not from the FKA stable but Dark Horse, Karl von Randow had a hand in this as co-founder. Congrats! More HERE.