PRESS RELEASE - 28 February 2011

$300 million invested into 100 companies

The NZ Venture Investment Fund has invested $123 million into 100 seed and start-up companies since its establishment in 2002. Combining private investment, those 100 companies have received $308 million of venture and angel investment capital.

Of the 100 companies:

* 79 are exporting.

* 29 have received investment from offshore investors.

* 23 emerged from either universities or Crown Research Institutes, and 19 have been part of business incubators.

* Auckland is home to 53 of the companies, with Christchurch hosting 16.

* 9 have been sold and 7 have been written off or liquidated.

* 28 of the investments were into seed stage enterprises, 56 were into start-up companies, 15 into early expansion companies, and 1 company at the expansion stage.

NZVIF chief executive Franceska Banga said that it is pleasing to have partnered with the private sector in providing over $300 million of investment capital to promising young technology companies, but considerable work is required to establish a vibrant and sustainable venture capital industry.

"Good progress has been made. Orion Health is showing what is possible; and there are many others with huge potential, such as Zephyr, Biovittoria, and Open Cloud. The angel investment sector is growing quickly and we expect that to continue. We do need to see new venture capital funds emerging if young technology companies are going to consistently have access to New Zealand investment capital.

"Typically the companies have developed new technologies, backed by patents, which give them a distinctive niche into high value international markets They are usually in sectors such as software and internet, agricultural technologies, medical devices, niche manufacturing and biotechnology. Key traits exhibited by these companies are an export-focus, high growth, and high productivity.

"New Zealand now has the right foundations to begin seriously building growth companies- but we need to finish the job. High value add companies can have an outsized impact on our economy - but we need to step up our game if we are going to see enough of these companies have a sizable impact in areas such as increased export growth.

"If New Zealand was able to ramp up the formation and growth of new companies in high value industries, and if only 10 to 20 percent of those companies were to realise their full potential exporting high value goods and services around the world, this would have a considerable impact on New Zealand's future economic prosperity."

ends

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