Blog Archives

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#13

26/4/2019


	26 April 2019 #13

Ben from Āhau pitched this month. Voting is now underway and you can see his video here. Heath is champion and Steve has already raised his hand to help with DD. So far 30% of the votes are in but we need a simple majority to proceed with DD.

One voting comment: This is a very borderline yes from me. I could have gone either way. I really like the concept but it seems very early stage and was hard to get a feel from the presentation and website as to how much substance there is behind the concept. Is there an early prototype of the system? Are there any early paying or non-paying customers? Or is it simply a concept at this stage?

A rare find of this likely forefather of a Lime Scooter has inspired the two above images to promote our Techweek19 event 50 Angels Flying □

See LinkedIn post here. Liking or commenting will show it to your network. Mike Hanna was the first to book! We also have first bookings from Aussie investor pros. 33% of registrations are from female investors, Debra was the first and AANZ's Suse has not confirmed yet.

Don't delay REGISTRATION. Places are numbered!

This month was our 50th Pitch Night, a great milestone from our humble beginnings in May 2014 with only a Dirty Dozen of Angels. Our first Pitch Nights were hosted by Angels like Angela or other charitable organisations until KPMG stepped up as us our principal sponsor in 2015 and gave our Pitch Nights a steady home. Thanks, Paul and team!

FKA brings special startup know-how to this partnership and KPMG brings smarts and much power as our celebratory sabrage video shows. Watch the 2015 sabrage again here.

These three have done their time at NZVIF. Word on the street is they'll make some noise in the ecosystem. Alas, not the $100m hollow kind of noise that same are straining to produce from a $3m instrument.

The duel between Bootstrapping Queen Sarah Perry and Chief Cat Herder Rudi Bublitz has finally culminated in this video interview staged by the NBR. Both bootstrapping and fundraising are just different sides of the same medal, a successful business. Smart investors like to see some narly bootstrapping on the way to validation and traction. Sarah calls it «Brave Bootstrapping» in her book!

StretchSense №01 is finding a new market with VR gloves after Zozo abandoned its ambitious sensor suit project and switched to alternative tech based on camera measures from a dotted suit.

Accuracy issues [and probably a lack of initial market validation] have now forced Zozo to close its European and US operations according to this breaking BBC News article.

Josh is a media manic, suffering from a medical condition that is extremely useful in founders of a startup. Hear and see more from this poster boy as he talks with a Lama journalist. Go, Josh!

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#12

19/4/2019


	19 April 2019 #12

Let's kick off Techweek19 ?

Register now for 50 Angels Flying ?

The voting for The Property Crowd and Zeddy is now complete. They both got very close but neither of them got over 50% support for FKA to lead the round. Zeddy landed exactly on 50% and there are several Flying Kiwis who will assist with DD under the lead of MIG Angels. If all stacks up they will bring Zeddy back to FKA as a co-investment opportunity.

We wish Jim and Kate all the best for their journey ahead

James should be a Happy Bunny! He is the CEO and co-founder of narrative.so, came to ADI last week, pitched on Tuesday and has today, on Friday commitments from FKA to take his round into oversubscription. With a little help from our friends (at NZVIF), we could compile adequate DD in super quick time. FKA ≈ KAF ≈ Kick-Ass-Fast

Late breaking news, disappointing news. It seems that ICE money doesn't want to mix with FKA money. So we wish James all the best!

Our 50th Pitch Night had all that one could wish for: two great pitches, a proud update from a portfolio company, lessons learned from the coal face and a sabrage that topped all so far - we just need the video footage to prove it. There were 50 or so phones out to record it.

Please send your clips to rb@fka.nz ?

Hopefully, the Lime run will pass without incident. Straight after you can roll on to the Health Tech Investment Showcase.

Read more about this NZTE ATEED event and register here.

An interesting read! «An obvious problem for many companies, however, is that they are creating new types of businesses and services that don't lend themselves to easily identifying such invisible asymptotes. Many are not like Amazon where there are readily tracked metrics like the size of the global book market with which to peg their TAM.»

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#11

12/4/2019


	12 April 2019 #11

OMG, we're turning 50! No, understood many of you already have. Next Tuesday will be our 50th pitch night. We had several improvised venues until Paul McPadden from KPMG stepped in and gave our pitch nights a steady and much more professional home. Thank you!!!

Heath is bringing you Ben from Ahau. The odds on Heath or Ben doing a Haka are fairly even. Don't miss it! Also, we have James from FileInvite #14 giving us an update on progress. Debra will legalise on lessons learned from our last deal FormusLabs #15. Mabye one more pitch!

Chief Cat Herder called out 'BAD GIRLS' when the last two FKAngels to complete their investor docs for March 2019 were Jackie and Marisa. They have since come good but Jackie couldn't help sending a tongue in cheek image of the Bad Girls musical.

Garry is circulating the quarterly update for Hot Lime Labs #13. Rudi will circulate a co-investment call for Vesper Marine S02 and an opportunity to buy some shares in Moxion #10.

Keep an eye out in your inbox and tame your spam filter! Funny, but we now have two companies in our portfolio that end in LAB. The founders are certainly not but does that make FKAngels lab rats?

Shame or Fame?

Alex Teh, Colin Dawson, James Hoseason, Josh Comrie, Karl von Randow, Ralf Muller and Steve Copley, your votes are still needed to decide if we should do DD on The Property Crowd.

Alex Teh, Colin Dawson, Dan Burrill, David Russell, Jackie Young, James Hoseason, Jesper Petersen, Karl von Randow and Tim Gelston, your votes are still needed to decide if we should do DD on Zeddy.

When FKA's CCH recently attended a studio interview at the NBR one of the reporters, ex-NZ Navy, Sanjay Prakash spontaneously gifted his hat to match Rudi's jacket. Pictured above is the very same Sanjay receiving the Sword of Honour. Undoubtedly a perfect celebrant for FKA's next sabrage - maybe with 50 Angels Flying on Lime Scooters in May ?

Let's kick off Techweek19 with a blast! ☞ 50 Angels Flying ?

Techweek is getting bigger after our fledgling FKAngel Jennifer did such a great job getting it established. We will combine pitches and talks with some real action, fruity action. Debra has already vowed to practice her liming moves to be ready for the day. Let's have a lot of fun!

Please share the event page fka.nz/50-angels-flying wide and wildly, Dale might say Weirdly, amongst your investor network, the more the merrier, syndication always trumps! Registration will open shortly.

Jackie here, wearing a Grow North, ecentre and FKA hat. Tue 21 May, 4-6pm at Smales Farm. The 'north of the bridge' innovation ecosystem from schools to scales ups, will discuss Tech that’s good for the world. Would be awesome to have some FKAngels as guest thought leaders to fire the conversation and answer questions around tech investment and funding. Ping me Jackie.Young@fka.nz or call me 021-655-522 ?

Anthony Gibbons from ATEED is calling for a workshop on Entrepreneurial Auckland, 30 April, 17:30, GridAK, 12 Maden St. Here are the summary points from the previous session. Please register!

ATEED hosts our Auckland ADI.Clinic every week thanks to GridAKL, makes sense that FKAngels help define the way forward! GO ANGELS!

Interesting talk by the man who inspired "Catch me, if you can". Insights into poor security practices that enabled the 16-year-old to fly and feed off Pan Am for years. Great way to fly but little help for angelic flight.

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#10

5/4/2019


	5 April 2019 #10

We now have the pitch video from Zeddy. Voting is underway.

Voting for The Property Crowd is still undecided. Some more votes are needed to have a clear majority, one way or the other.

Debra called for cake and champagne to celebrate with staff and investors after the first FormusLabs board meeting. This was almost like a christening of our portfolio company #15 which marks the midpoint of our second batch of 10 companies.

Late breaking news! Moxion has just appointed Philip Ashcroft as President, North America.

InvesTinder was a successful April Fool Joke by Brent S. Ogilvie, the man who had a great exit with sperm counting tech. Did he have that middle name before the exit?

Tim W. saw it a day later and promptly believed it. ∎ Paul admitted he had a WTF moment. ∎ Nicolás Erdödy «And where can I check the credentials of the CTO? Does he understand entrepreneurship at all? I'm only looking at this because I trust the broker -always trust the broker!» ∎ Julian «An investment opportunity not to be missed. It will be our next New Zealand Unicorn.»

For Techweek19 we're looking for 50 Angels from across New Zealand and other early-stage investors to take flight on Lime scooters to visit various companies that are all about transport innovation. Pencil 20 May!

There are VCs working the NZ Angel space and they are very much aligned. It's important to separate the VC-Angel conflict of the Valley from our local circumstances. To this end but more importantly the benefit of Kiwi startups, Simmonds Stewart et al are bringing several VCs to our shores for Techweek19. Find out more and register ☞ HERE!

LinkedIn ► Flying Kiwi Angels have just released 5-year stats to March 2019. $7M invested plus $1.9M co-investment from NZVIF. For most other NZ Angel Groups, at 6% that $8.9M total means about $540k commission fees that are charged to startups. #FKAngels don't charge fees which means $540k more for #KIWIstartups to grow

FKA's Chief Cat Herder Rudi circulated an email to all active FKAngels with instructions to access a new section of the website with Internal Resources. A little hint: The password was contained in the image.

Jackie has a day job as CEO of the ecentre where lots of founders are working on their startups. From time to time she calls on fellow FKAngels to help, such as Cornelius, Debra, Ralf W and Rudi. He was put in the ring on Wednesday with Sara Perry, Bootstrapping vs Fundraising.

Interesting conversation discussion, pros and cons on both sides. NBR was in the room and might follow up.

FKAngels and AU students congregate every year at the Velocity competition which has produced many startups that have grown into great Kiwi companies, among them portfolio company #02 Kami.

CEO Hengji was one of the judges and mentors last year. Read more about the programme here and simply join here.

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#13

26 April 2019 #13

Don't delay REGISTRATION. Places are numbered!

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#12

19 April 2019 #12

Let's kick off Techweek19 ?

Register now for 50 Angels Flying ?

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#11

12 April 2019 #11

Shame or Fame?

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2019#10

5 April 2019 #10

Categories

Archives