Kiwi start-ups seek investors at R9 Accelerator Demo Day

Kiwi start-ups seek investors at R9 Accelerator Demo Day

Seven Kiwi start-up teams will pitch their business cases to an audience of public and private sector investors and supporters in a quick fire programme for R9 Accelerator Demo Day this Thursday 2 June.

Accelerators are used globally by private sector entrepreneurs to develop their businesses to a stage where they are ready for investment and growth. The R9 Accelerator has been developed in a public and private sector partnership to generate, drive and implement innovative solutions to address major pain points for New Zealand businesses when dealing with government.

Over 250 people will be in attendance at Demo Day. The majority have been invited by teams and are either potential investors or supporters.

Creative HQ Chief Executive Stefan Korn says Demo Day is an opportunity for the seven teams who have made it through the 14 week Accelerator process, to pitch their concepts to public service agencies, industry bodies and potential investors.

“A panel of experts will assess each of the concepts and, if they believe they have a good chance of success, they will approve the teams to progress to the next stage of their development,” Korn says.

“R9 Accelerator uses the Lean Start-up and Agile methodologies as a way of rapidly testing an idea before investing in it. Ideas that are worth pursuing, as well as those that are not can be identified quickly through the accelerator process. Those solutions that have been validated in the accelerator are then more likely to gain investment for further develop in a quicker timeframe than standard project methods,” he says.

Better for Business Programme General Manager Andrew Bardsley says government agencies are committed to delivering better public services for all New Zealanders.

“To achieve this goal we need to look at new and innovative ways of working right across the public sector. This innovation is specifically important in the areas where government interacts with the private sector,” Bardsley says.

“We know accelerators work. The private sector is full of great examples of successful initiatives that began life going through a start-up accelerator. Our challenge is to now use this way of working and transfer it to the public sector. This is the second time we’ve run an Accelerator that aims to tackle the pain points businesses come across when dealing with government. We have built on what we have learnt from the first Accelerator and we’re excited to see what Demo Day will deliver,” Bardsley says.

Accelerator team profiles

On Demo day there are seven teams pitching in this order:

Team MIBIZ – Working with Inland Revenue: Getting it right from the start – Starting a business as a migrant. This opportunity is about helping new New Zealanders overcome the hurdles they face when starting a new business in order to decrease the number of these businesses that fail.

Team OneX – Working with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and Customs NZ): Give Businesses someone to talk to. This opportunity is about making New Zealand’s exporting simpler, by providing businesses with the right info at the start of the process and putting them in touch with the right people when things are going wrong.

Team Visard – Working with Immigration NZ on mobile migration. This opportunity is about making a mobile channel for Immigration NZ’s visa applications. In other words, ‘pocket immigration.’ They want Immigration New Zealand to be the first agency in the world to create a mobile guided immigration process.

Team CoHelix – Working with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Give field staff services a makeover. This opportunity is about helping businesses be compliant by improving the field-staff services from regulatory agencies. CoHelix are working to enable meaningful interactions between businesses and government.

Team Traject – Working with Immigration NZ: Make easier for businesses to hire talent. This opportunity is about making it easier for any business to hire highly skilled employees from overseas through accredited employer schemes.

Team Co centric – Co centric are working on Opportunity 3 (IR): Getting it right from the start – Starting a construction business. This opportunity is about helping people who are starting construction related businesses to ensure that they start in the right way to avoid problems down the track. Currently only 29% of construction related businesses are still going after five years. CoPlan want to help more of them stay in business.

Team 2Shakes – Working with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Tailor interactions to suit. Business owners and sole traders are busy people who need to focus on building their businesses. Many will hire other people like bookkeepers, accountants and lawyers to look after their compliance needs. To do their job, a bookkeeper, for example, needs to deal with large organisations such as government agencies or insurance companies or banks. But with concerns over privacy and security these organisations need to be sure they are only giving information to an authorised person. Setting up authorities takes time for the bookkeeper, for their client, and for the large organisations. This time adds no value – it is administrative setup, not useful work.

For more info visit: www.r9accelerator.co.nz
EVENT DETAILS
What when: R9 Accelerator Demo Day, Thursday 2 June 2016, 3-5pm
Where: The Embassy, 10 Kent Terrace, Mt Victoria, Wellington

ENDS

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