$20m Funding Boost For Women-led Startups

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, April 6, 2022 - Icehouse Ventures is today announcing a $5m first close of a new fund set up to invest in women-led startups.

Launching with a $20m target, the new ArcAngels Fund II is New Zealand’s largest fund investing exclusively in female-founded and women-led ventures.

Business leader and Chair of Global Women Theresa Gattung is a cornerstone investor in ArcAngels Fund II, with key contributions from Vend co-founder Mel Rowsell, and Sir Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 investment company.

Up to 50 female-founded startups will be backed over the next four years with the fund’s first investment made last month, and a further two underway.

ArcAngels Fund II builds on the success of the inaugural ArcAngels fund, which raised $2.8m less than two years ago. This capital went into 31 New Zealand startups including accounting startup HNRY (Claire Fuller), cryptocurrency exchange platform Easy Crypto (Janine Grainger), online marketplace ArchiPro (Brittany Gribben) and Astrix Astronautics (Fia Jones).

A 2021 University of Auckland study reveals several hurdles facing women founders raising capital in New Zealand, and ArcAngels manager Lauren Fong says ArcAngels Fund II and its wider community of supporters are aiming to address some of these barriers and make funding more accessible to women.

“A community-driven approach is key to encouraging more women entrepreneurs into the ecosystem, and our second ArcAngels fund will be playing a more active role in growing this community,” says Ms Fong.

“Women are out there building $1 billion businesses, and there’s no reason why these companies can’t make their start in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Theresa Gattung, who is also the New Zealand country lead of the global women entrepreneur initiative SheEO, says she intends to keep giving her time, energy and money to backing women entrepreneurs.

“Early-stage ventures are receiving more funding than ever before and yet the amount of money going to women raising capital in this country is tiny,” says Ms Gattung. “This needs to change, and it is really exciting to back women entrepreneurs and investor groups like ArcAngels who are growing angel investor networks to support women-led businesses. I believe New Zealand has the opportunity to stand out and make a difference on this if we all work together.”

Sarah Balle, who was backed by the first ArcAngels fund shortly after launching online supermarket challenger Supie says: “It is super inspiring to see amazing women like Theresa Gattung and Mel Rowsell, who’ve built and led incredible businesses, stepping up to help other women like me who are new to entrepreneurship. The encouragement and support we receive through the investment community helps us keep pushing those boundaries and opens doors to new connections, which is especially important in those early days of launching a new company.”

While the fund is limited to backing women-led businesses, the ArcAngels investor network is gender diverse, with around 40% of the fund’s investors being male.

According to a 2021 Pitchbook report, companies founded solely by women garnered 2.1% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the US.

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