Every year we take a look back at the year that was in our Startup Year in Review - a video that documents and celebrates the startups that have reached major milestones throughout the year.
User Experience / User Interface Designer
Icehouse Ventures is looking for a talented designer to join our growing product team. We are using technology to disrupt the venture capital industry by opening up investment to a more diverse range of investors and streamlining capital raising for New Zealand technology startups.
For all the positives that come with the expansion of Aotearoa's venture ecosystem, we have growing pains. And while we pride ourselves on diversity, inclusivity, kindness and equality, the startup community must acknowledge that we have a ways to go to meet these foundational Kiwi principles.
For an industry that invests in innovation and disruption for a living, the venture capital ecosystem has been pretty resistant to disruption itself. There have been attempts around the edges such as rolling funds, equity crowdfunding and better CRM systems, but the core process of raising capital from investors and deploying capital into companies has remained the same since the early days of VC.
Every year we take a look back at the year that was in our Startup Year in Review - a video that documents and celebrates the startups that have reached major milestones throughout the year.
Many of our portfolio companies are searching for talented developers across a range of languages and at different skill levels. We've partnered with Skillsme who have developed a powerful AI tool that assesses candidates' tech capabilities to enable us to easily match startups with qualified talent.
Last month we held the 5th annual Icehouse Ventures First Cut Challenge - our nationwide search for New Zealand’s most promising young founders.
Introducing the IVX Fund
Today we announced the launch of IVX (as in Icehouse Ventures Expansion), a late-stage venture fund that will invest in 20-30 of NZ’s leading tech companies.
We have already raised over $50m to date from Simplicity, an Iwi, Hobson Wealth, Sir Stephen Tindall, and over 100 individual investors and are moving towards a $75m final close. The fund is now open for investment from new investors.
What is "late-stage venture capital?
IVX is a late-stage fund. What does that mean? Most of the capital will be deployed into companies with established and growing teams, well-developed products & services, evidence of competitive wins, five or more years in market, revenue & proven business models, and strong governance. And the most critical feature: potential for significant global growth. Example companies already in the IVX portfolio include Shuttlerock who are generating $10m+ revenue, Dawn Aerospace who have their technology commercially operating on multiple satellites in space, and Sir John Kirwan's Mentemia whose tech is used by The Warehouse, Sky, Eroad, and others.
How does IVX compare to other VC funds?
IVX leverages our unique relationships, information, and follow-on rights we have as a result of being among New Zealand’s most active early-stage investors. Our pipeline includes our 250+ startup investments, a subset of which thrive and become sought after. This simply cannot be reverse engineered. (Note IVX can also invest in startups outside of our family.)
This is not a novel model. YCombinator, a Silicon Valley-based accelerator that got its start making $20k pre-seed investments, subsequently raised a $1b “continuity” fund to invest further in its top performers like Airbnb and Dropbox. Having long-duration relationships with founders and longitudinal data on their performance is a real advantage.
Icehouse Ventures has launched its second index-style fund, “IV100 II”, offering unprecedented access to 100 brave New Zealand startups.
With plans to raise $10m, IV100 II will invest into 100 startups over the next three to four years. The first $5m has already been raised (the fund was initially launched in September) and ten startups have already been backed including Organic Initiative, Remotely, Refund Club, and HeartLab.
IV100 II opens up access to a portfolio of companies across a wide variety of industries and stages of their capital raising journey, from pre-seed funding to Series B expansion capital.
The new fund follows the success of the first IV100 raised in 2017, which backed its 100th company, Revolution Fibres, in March this year. It specifically co-invests in well-funded startups backed by one of its other active funds such as Tuhua Ventures or the newly launched Level Two Ventures deep tech fund.
Unique insights on the backed startups are presented to the fund’s contributors via a new Icehouse Ventures Investor Portal. Launched in July, the portal offers a simple way for investors to observe, learn and compare the progress of more than 100 companies across a variety of founders, business models, industries, growth stages, and missions.
Investors can use these insights to pick and choose the individual startups they like the most, identify opportunities where they can help the startups grow faster, and then invest further in their subsequent rounds.
CEO Robbie Paul says the IV100 funds are new territory for New Zealand: “Our second IV100 fund is enabling a magnitude step-change in diversification at an investment quantum previously reserved for individual company investments. In many ways, it is democratising the ability for Kiwis to get exposure to venture investing, an asset class where they have traditionally been left out, priced out, and jargoned out."
“In an asset class defined by one-in-one-hundred outliers, missing one outlier can be the difference between success and failure. Local investors in 2008 did not know they would be defined by wireless power or accounting software.”
He says the type of diversification offered by IV100 has been historically limited to ETFs and other listed funds. Of the startups that are part of the IV100 funds, 23 are led by female founders, 22 were started by entrepreneurs who were under 30, 21 are deep tech companies, and 18 are ‘impact” ventures striving to create tangible positive environmental or societal outcomes.
IV100 taps into Icehouse Ventures’ unique deal flow as one of the most active investors in New Zealand. The group is on track to invest more than $30m into 75 companies in 2020.
The fund is currently open for investments from eligible investors and there is an Information Pack available to interested parties.