NZ Ambassador to find how Kiwi tech taps US Market

April 20, 2007

MEDIA RELEASE

NZ Ambassador to find out how rising Kiwi technology companies tap into US markets

New Zealand’s Ambassador to the United States, Mr Roy Ferguson will visit the Girvan Institute of Technology in Santa Clara, US tomorrow (Saturday, April 21NZ time).

In collaboration with knowledge-broker Nick Gerritsen of Crispstart, the Girvan Institute has assisted a growing number of New Zealand technology start-ups to set up a beachhead in the US, accessing local markets and capital.

The Girvan Institute is a non-profit, public benefit corporation established to speed up the development of cutting edge technologies into useful products and services. Girvan’s affiliates and partners include global research labs, Fortune 1000 companies, small and medium high-tech companies and a number of private equity and venture capital firms.

“We understand the Ambassador is interested in hearing of Girvan’s experiences working with NZ companies and learning any lessons that may benefit other NZ companies wanting to break into the US market,” says Girvan Chief Operating Officer, Evan M. Epstein.

In the last year, Girvan has been working with a number of companies from New Zealand including:

Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation, NanoClusterDevices, Celsias, Sonar6, VortexDNA, Departure 1, Ponoko, FX Bikes, Windflow Technology, NZ Windfarms, Water Rite and Pioneer Capital.

“It has been indeed a pleasure to work with our NZ affiliate companies and especially with Nick Gerritsen who has been championing and channeling most of these NZ technologies and start-ups - so he deserves a lot of credit for his outstanding efforts in putting this together,” comments Mr Epstein.

“Getting the NZ government involved in this process would be great and an excellent opportunity to strengthen our efforts - because ultimately the success of these companies would also be a success for New Zealand's entrepreneurial and innovative spirit.

“We are therefore very keen to keep collaborating and supporting NZ entrepreneurial ventures and new technologies and matching them with US-based know-how and capital. I truly believe that we are in a great position to achieve this goal and, we have already been very successful in creating this ‘market driven’ deal flow.

Finally, says Epstein, we are only at the very beginning of the process and we therefore want to consolidate this relationship and ultimately help to nurture the next big global ‘high tech’ company or technology ‘made in New Zealand’.

ENDS

Background on Girvan Institute:

The Girvan Institute of Technology is chartered to foster and support entrepreneurial business ventures, especially early-stage high-tech companies. The Institute was established in January 2002 with its first undertaking to assist the Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to transfer and commercialize technologies developed at the center. The overarching functions of the Girvan Institute are to: 1) help launch high-tech companies; 2) transfer innovative technologies; 3) introduce companies to sources of capital; 4) provide office space to early stage companies; and 5) showcase new companies and technologies.

Today Girvan has over 70 affiliate companies and offices in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Cambridge, MA. For more information go to www.girvan.org

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