Thank you, Joe. Thank you, MIG, for bringing your portfolio company to FKA for this round.

FKA is a labour of love and only possible with a division of labour amongst our Angels. The new fka.nz/roles page attempts to show who is taking care of what at the moment. GIF alert!

A big THANK YOU to all who have, are or will take on such roles from time to time to share the workload.

Wayve is dedicated to accelerating autonomous mobility and has raised a US$20M Series A round. Co-founder Alex Kendall took his first entrepreneurial steps at Velocity.

This is why FKAngels help every year with judging and mentoring at the Velocity's $100k Challenge - a breeding ground for startup founders!

Garth is our NZVIF Rep and makes sure that FKA and NZVIF will continue to work together closely on diligence to co-invest in great deals.

1. Having one voice for the NZ startup community to policymakers is key.  This voice only needs to focus on 3-4 key high priority/mutually agreeable actions to lobby government, not try to get wide approval on too many issues (to hard considering the diverse interests at play). And this voice must include founders and/or ‘founder come funders’.  The primary voices in NZ, AANZ and the emerging Startup Leadership Group, are both lacking in the latter and arguably may not be the best vehicle for this voice (just my opinion)…
2. Establishing communities, especially around key subsectors (e.g. fintech, creativetech, agritech, spacetech etc), is critical in fostering innovation and growth.
3. Involving corporates, not just superficially, is the next level.
4. The 100 (1, 9, 90) rule. It only takes one leader, nine key do’ers, and 90 supporters to influence and create change in any ecosystem!  You just have to give it a crack.

We had five great pitches, two are looking for FKA to lead the round and will go to the vote to confirm support for full DD. The three others will be circulated as a co-investment opportunity in due course.

Thank you, to our hosts at KPMG and everyone who came out to make this a great night.

In the meantime, watch the pitch!

Your feedback is very welcome! See the updated IMO ☞ here.

See this funny interview ☞ here.

If you're interested ping [email protected]

Tuesday 19 November, 18:00 is our last Pitch Night in 2019. Hosted generously by KPMG, 18 Viaduct Harbour Ave, Wynyard Quarter, AKL.

Guests by invitation from our Angels or sponsors KPMG, LoJo and Potentia are always very welcome.

Great to see Terry win the engineering award and progress to pitch.

James at KPMG is working through the red tape so they can bring a real cow for a practical demo to the townie Angels in Auckland.

✐ Please pencil Tuesday 19 November, 18:00 for the last pitches in 2019.

The new Blackbird offices in New Zealand send a strong message to bootstrapping startup founders and Angels across the country. Needless to say that Blackbird will not be charging founders any fees. They will, of course, like any other VC charge investors.

Welcome, Sam and Tip! One diurnal bird, one nocturnal bird. Perfect!

Rudi says humorously "Rob preys with great success on minorities that most others ignore. His US portfolio is 50% coloured i.e. from migrants and has 30% female founders. But hear it from the horse's mouth." 

Unwrapping the party favour late at night Rudi wondered if it was a beggar's cup to help with fundraising or simply a teacup.

Welcome, Rob & Co in Aotearoa, let's do some great stuff!

See for yourself here

Support our Angel Jackie in her role as CEO of the ecentre and come along for drinks on Wednesday, 27 November, from 5:00pm at Freeman & Grey in Ponsonby. She is celebrating the end of the year and the wrap up of the 2019 Sprint Global founders' programme. RSVP

That was the Propaganda Jacket at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards Gala night 2019. Get in the spirit for 2020 and grab one of the last places for the launch events in Auckland and Wellington, 27 November and 3 December respectively.  Register for AKL or WLG!

SOSV ranks among the top four global accelerators and VC funds by a number of metrics. Isabel, our Angel in Munich, has attended their Deep Tech Trends 2019 and is shareing this report.

PDF    VIDEO

We're grateful to our sponsors KPMG for hosting all of the FKA Pitch Nights in 2019, except for two that were hosted by LoJo, and Potentia with NZTE. However, Halloween calls for a special thank-you to James McGeorge of KPMG who saves us every time the lights go off at 20:11.

Here is the pitch video from Freighthub again.  Ping Phil if you can help with DD! You can learn lots from him. He is a member of more Angel groups and has done more DD than most.

See this piece on Moxion - FKA's portfolio company №10.

Note how they also back Canva whose CEO, Mel Perkins was a keynote speaker at BlackBird's Sunrise event last Friday. BlackBird led the $15M Series B round in 2016. Mel shares the embarrassing first pitch deck here.

Aussie funds syndicate, something some Kiwi funds have yet to learn.

Come along on Wednesday, 27 November, from 5:00pm at Freeman & Grey in Ponsonby, to celebrate the end of the year and wrap up the 2019 Sprint Global founders' programme.

RSVP to have a drink with Jackie & Co

Last Friday Blackbird Ventures called for their launch event Sunrise. It was an awesome and inspiring day for founders and investors alike. Anybody who attended would agree that Blackbird has arrived in the NZ VC market with a strong commitment to the local ecosystem.

WELCOME! 

This month In Hamilton Soda Inc had its CO.STARTERS celebration night, see their newsletter. Julian is our Angel with two wings and he is also a member of two groups, EA and FKA. Until now Josh held the title of Chief Photobomber at FKA, however, he may have to concede this title to Julian.

Seriously though, Julian is a busy and much-appreciated mentor and also responsible for ADI Hamilton. 

Sharon from Love My New Zealand has brought us 50 Angels Sailing - an awesome day on the water. Little surprise that she has now picked up a coveted award from LUXlife, the bimonthly luxury lifestyle magazine that offers a glimpse into the world of the glamorous.

When the Chief Cat Herder advised FreightHub and Phil last night that they had reached enough support to go to DD he did so via the "YES - Borat" image and added, "Ever wondered what Phil could look like with curly hair, a moustache and sunnies?".

The prompt pictorial proof from Phil made it in good time for the copy deadline of today's issue.  Of course, hairpieces will not be compulsory for anyone joining the FreighHub DD. Phil is way more professional than his hair colour of yesteryear might suggest.