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Another FKA Friday 11 December 2020 #44

11/12/2020

 
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11 December 2020 #44

768   ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs  
Mohd Athkaar from Mindful Muslim brings our last pitch in 2020. Nawaz is the champion and has compiled the DD Canvas with help from Andy, Hattaf (now UAE) and Nirjhor (Bangladesh Angels). Rudi is joining the advisory board.

Here the pitch! If you want to know more email Nawaz.Ahmed@fka.nz.

A lovely sum up of 2020 from Brough the CEO of Narrative Muse #18. A nice gesture and a great idea for other founders. Watch the 5min video!
TransferCar + TransferVan = NexTransfer #11. Now Brian has licensed TransferVan to Toll Networks to focus on TransferCar. Hear it from him! 
Lane from Chatterize #22 takes stock of 2020 and announces the new Speakia platform. More here.
Ju from Formus Labs #17 compares car parts to joint replacement parts Also, read about his ambitions for the next round - a big number.

More here.

A great little video that illustrates how difficult it is to work against the resistance to change. Do nothing is often the biggest competitor.

Another FKA Friday 4 December 2020 #43

4/12/2020

 
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4 December 2020 #43

768   ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs  

Happy money is not just the prerogative of queens

In November and December, we have collected $952k, just under one million for five portfolio companies, two follow on rounds and three new. 
 

Datagate #05 ○ Hot Lime Labs #13
Kwotimation #23 ○ Well Revolution #24 ○ Komodo #25

Andy, Hattaf, Nawaz and Rudi are still working on one pre-seed deal.
Normally at this time of year, we like to bring you reindeer related startups but Pöny was simply too good to pass up. See the full deck here!
Jason from Spoke #15 has circulated his quarterly investor update this week. Looking good! More enterprise contracts are generating more revenue than SMB.

Ping Phil.Southward@fka.nz if you didn't get your copy.

Brett Herkt has the hair colour and determination of a Viking. In 2014 he was targeting the top end of town when he pitched to FKA. He has pivoted to SMB since then, changed the branding, gained impressive traction, and he has won lots of fans among FKA investor reps. His current round is massively oversubscribed.

So no sweet-talking of a cat herder could get capacity when even a horned Sheppard who is an early investor may not get all he wants.

All the best to Brett, Kim and the rest of the BoardPro team! 

David Smol has been appointed as the new chair of NZGCP. Let's hope that this is the beginning of the changes that the ecosystem has been crying out for. LinkedIn Post.

Greg Sitters sums it up well "There is considerable work to be done to rebuild confidence and integrity both internally and externally in the market thanks to the damage done by previous management and lack of integrity in the previous board in dealing with things."

Don’t be a first-mover, be the first one to get it right! Remember: be an early mover, but don’t be a first mover as the lack of competition most likely signifies a lack of genuine customer desire. Interesting little read!
Lachlan from Pacific Channel has stepped up to fulfil his charitable commitment. However, with three female artists, painting and wine, he is visibly outside of his comfort zone. Help him, help the Talalelei Life Future Fund. Ruth Malo from NZGCP is! 

It was a great night last night!

Nate from Potentia takes away the 1st prize for the most creative registration for last night's Xmas dinner. He gave his title as Indie Angel.
We don't know what our Chief Event Officer Katheren has planned for the last week of January. She promises to bring the cheeky out in everyone. So, look out for more details on FKA HELLO 2021.
Katheren is FKA's CEO, Chief Event Officer, and Asthma' NZs Doco Diva aka CEO. Healthy Homes - a Kiwi Dream will screen on THREE, this Saturday at 16:00. 

Another FKA Friday, 27 November 2020 #42

27/11/2020

 
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27 November 2020 #42

766   ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs  
Rob Vickery will act as our Rangemaster and he will also provide the cabbage heads. Each of his 10 scouts will provide 10 heads garnished with a crazy shock of yellow floss.

We are still looking for a qualified astrologer to step forward and set the best date and place for the training

The team at HLL #13 has switched on the Xmas lights painting the greenhouse red and making Vlatko dye his beard white. The pilot trial with Gourmet Mokai is going full steam ahead. More...
Next Thursday, 3 December, 18:30 drinks □ 19:00 dinner □

Xmas dinner for FKA Angels and those who want to dine with angels

Le Vietnamese Kitchen, 107 Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby

$55pp - register here

Last reminder about three early pre-seed deals that are closing today.

Komodo ○ Kwotimation ○ Well Revolution

FOMO? Ping Rudi

The investor report from Kami #02 is just out. The team have done exceptionally well under Covid, in fact, have been helped by Covid. Phenomenal growth! Now in 50 countries, helping schools on every continent. 

If you didn't get your copy ping David.Russell@fka.nz

The Hollywood Professional Association has awarded Moxion the Engineering Excellence Award. The video explains what Moxion #10 is all about. Spot the founder Hugh in black tie □
Also, Garth has joined the Board of Moxion this month. He is a big fan of boardPro and will onboard his beloved toolset in yet another FKA portfolio company in 2021

Brett the founder of boardPro has a deal for FKA portfolio companies that want to lift their governance game.

Tim has been a regular mentor at ADI Wellington since forever and gets big ticks from Josh, Ian, Phil and Rudi. Before we open the haven's gate to angeldom the obligatory question. Does anyone know of any reason why Tim should not join our group? Please, tell the Board in confidence.   
Christelle from Proxi prepared this interesting Kiwi SaaS infographic. "We had 47 respondents to the survey. During our Southern SaaS workshops, we asked the participants (close to 100) to score themselves on 3 of the questions and got the exact same results as in the survey."
Great guest speakers at this virtual event. Check the agenda!
Nick was our FKA apprentice in 2017/2018 and is now an analyst with Blackpeak Capital in Sydney. He has talked with Glen, Erick and Maheen. Unless anyone knows of skeletons in his closet he'd make a very fine angel. Tell the Board in confidence if there are any bodies buried
Debtor Daddy #08 has just come out with a new video and ebook to real in the punters. Check it out!
FKA and other Kiwi investors help clean up the mess in the UK that is fly-tipping. FKA's #6 portfolio company iDefigo.
Should FKA create an award? What would it stand for? Who would we give it to? How many? How often? More here...

Anther FKA Friday 20 November 2020#41

20/11/2020

 
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20 November 2020 #41

765   ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs  
Not so much fighting the virus as helping Kiwi startups
Three great pitches, funeral streaming, hyper-graphical blogging and mindfulness for Muslims. After animated Q&A, all topped off with a Sabrage, thanks to Julian Lambert.
Peter pitched OneRoom. He wants to take this business from $250k MRR to the next level. Email Peter for more info, he is looking to restructure with smarts and money.
Andy has more on the other two pitches.
The shampoo selection meme that is circulating on the internet poses an interesting question of how male and female angels pick their deals. Smart angel groups leverage the wisdom of both genders for better outcomes!
Rudi and Hattaf visited the Sharjah Entrepreneurial Festival in UAE last year. This year you can join the virtual event for free, lots of top speakers from around the world. Sharjah has built a startup ecosystem in record time, money, of course, helps a lot. Grab your ticket here!
Angels are training for the moonshot, others are surfing on cloud 9. Pauli from GridAKL and James from KPMG are getting married this weekend.

Our best wishes for both weddings ?

This graph shows shipments of cameras over 40 years. Digital cameras multiplied the market by 5 in ten years. Then smartphones killed it in five years. Shift happens! Shit happens!
Angels love multiples, the bigger the better. Some interesting numbers! 

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2020#40

13/11/2020

 
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13 November 2020 #40

762   ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs  
Last pitch night of the year! WED (NOT TUE) 18 November, 18:30.

Hosted by KPMG, 18 Viaduct Harbour Ave, Wynyard Quarter.

If you are no Angel ask an Angel to bring you as a guest

We have reasons to perform a sabrage or two ?

Will Potentia Julian & KPMG James top our past sabrages?

Two startups from the FKA stable, Kami and Chatterize made it into the HolonIQ Australia & New Zealand EdTech 50. That is also 100% of FKA's EdTech companies. Chasing NZ EdTech guru Moskovitz
Watch the 20,000,000 users video! From guess who
Garth, our post-investment manager, sets a fine example and wins the Puawaitanga Award at the 2020 AANZ Angel Summit.

"It recognises the Founder and Investor Director who exemplify what can be achieved when two committed people draw on their collective skills and experience to move forward an 'enterprise company in waiting'."

FileInvite was literally Garth's baptism of fire in the world of angeldom but he is lucky with a founder/CEO like James

Two FKA portfolio companies looking for extra staff - GOOD NEWS!

Hot Lime Labs is looking for a superstar student chemical engineer or chemist. More here.

Moxion is looking for a full stack developer to deal with the influx of work from film studios around the globe. More here.

FORWARD MULTIPLES: This is a preferred metric used to value SaaS companies, who generally carry very few assets, little to no profitability, but all kinds of potential. That number is wildly variable and often bonkers - as of June 2020, the median SaaS valuation multiple for public companies stands at 11.4x ARR. So how is that number calculated? The answer?.....it depends: But a companies revenue growth and sales efficiency dominate the model. Cash flow margins, net income margins (profitability), gross margins, and many other metrics are largely irrelevant.

Unshamed lift from the great newsletter that Jon Davies puts out every week 

See that LinkedIn post  but also Michael Murphy's top five takeaways from the summit
Where is Wally? Where is Andy? Debra? Garth? Gavin? Heath? Julian? Nawaz? Rudi? More pictures here.
A crowed afternoon, yesterday at ADI Auckland. Not only founders had to wait their turn, with nine angelic mentors they had to take turns too in order not to overcrowd the meeting room. The excitement, especially from Garth, is due to a skincare range for men. Glen took home the pies.

Some interesting propositions, Deal Flow Andy will follow up

We bring you three Parties!
Check out the new coworking space for CreativeTech. What better way than going to the opening party,  Wed 2 Dec, 18:00!  REGO
Brent, Lachlan and team are celebrating NZ$55m for science and advanced engineering ‘deep-tech’ investments in NZ.

Launch party - Tue 8 December, 16:30 - 19:30. REGO

Note from the editor: Photo sourced from the web.

Thu, Nov 19 · 17:00 It's party time in Wellington! Secure your spot here.

Spot in the pic at least one Trevor Dickinson who has picked more startups to invest in than most.

"The facts and figures show that everything is pretty f@!$ed in regards to our mental health!" Jimi Hunt is touring the country with FREE talks to recalibrate our concept of mental health. The same Jimi who built the longest water slide in the world near Auckland in 2017.

Sadly, many of the attributes that make great founders also mean they are faced with more mental health issues than most. We Angels also have a responsibility to help with this!

Great to see GridAKL, Mum's Garage and Selfstarters come together for this pre-Xmas gift for Kiwi founders and peeps with an idea. They would also appreciate some Angels in the wings (with wings).  REGO

Newsletter ➢ ᴀFKAғ•2020#39

6/11/2020

 
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6 November 2020 #39

760   ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs  
Serge van Dam was decorated, well deservedly, with the 2020 Arch Angel Award only minutes after his double act presentation with CoGo founder Ben Gleisner. A business that is gunning for a moonshot!

Read more...

The Startup Investment Magazine November 2020 is out, perfectly timed to hit the crowds at the Angel Summit. Some interesting stats on our local NZ ecosystem. Grab your copy here. Thanks, Anand Reddy!
FileInvite has done well in business and with the last round. The press loves a good story nearly as much as a bad one.

Good one, CEO James & Investor Rep Garth!

Hot Lime Labs gets more coverage from Technology Valley Forum.
At AUT the 2020 X Challenge pitches of the finalists are held on Monday, 16 November. Limited seats for angels if your register today!
Imagine—Tai Tokerau in Whangarei over the weekend of 13-15 November. This promises to be an interesting event with a twist. Martin.Knoche@fka.nz is one of the organisers. He can help with accommodation and is keen to see strong FKA support. More here.
Rob on Rounds or as he puts it "Bringing New Zealand to parity on the global startup venture capital process". Semantics and sense - a useful resource and reminder that our NZ startup and innovation ecosystem is only a minuscule part of the global ecosystem.

One of the summit panels with Rob and Lance Wiggs looked temporarily to go past semantics. Big egos among VCs □ 

At the Angel Summit one of the summit panels with Rob and Lance Wiggs looked temporarily to go past semantics. Big egos among VCs!

Oh, IPOs  Squashed like a bug: Ant’s suspended IPO.
The Kami team picking up the 2020 AmCham-DHL Express Success and Resilience Award. Note the gender and age diversity from a team from around the globe.
Halloween was a busy night. ADI Party at Glen and Jeneen's, then Kami and onwards. A cat herding night! □
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