Investment Ready Programme Creates New Opportunities For Food And Fibre Businesses

Manawatū, 20 November 2023 – The Investment Ready Programme, designed to equip food and fibre businesses with the tools and strategies to successfully raise capital, has achieved remarkable success in its inaugural year. By delivering on its goals and receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants, the programme has demonstrated its unwavering commitment to driving growth and innovation in the food and fibre sector.

“The programme is hugely beneficial to helping a business understand and navigate how to seek investment,” said Dave James, Co-Founder of BeGin Distilling Limited.

One notable achievement of the Investment Ready Programme is the successful fundraising of $265,000 by cohort company Olive & Ash with their product Vince Mince. This showcases the tangible results that can be achieved through this transformative initiative. Furthermore, three companies are actively pursuing investment opportunities: BioGold, H2Ortigator, and BeGin Distillery. This development underscores the programme's effectiveness in preparing food and fibre businesses to access essential capital for expansion and sustainability.

Programme Partner The Factory’s CEO, Nick Gain, emphasised, "We're not here to be their best friends; we have genuinely challenged them to think differently. For a few of them we have stripped their businesses back to their fundamentals and rebuilt them with the right framework.

Also, it was interesting to observe those companies who’d been through an Accelerator or similar programme prior to Investment Ready had already gained valuable insights to better position them to be investment ready over those who hadn’t."

This was echoed by cohort company H2Ortigator. Founder Brendan Hamilton said “Investment Ready completes the puzzle, focusing specifically on investment and building on other accelerators and programmes that we have participated in.”

The Factory is a Manawatū based incubator that lives and breathes the food and fibre industry, as well as supporting start-ups and growth-stage businesses. It is the champion of choice for high-growth start-ups. It has 19 years of experience working with 6000+ entrepreneurs, and businesses, helping to raise over $60m of investment for 60+ companies.

One of the standout features of the programme is the completion of an Investment Memorandum (IM), which provides substantial value to participating companies. This IM serves as a critical document that not only saves a significant amount of time and cost but also acts as a tangible asset to present to potential investors or for companies to use to review their progress. This invaluable resource, if sought externally, can cost companies thousands of dollars per IM. One of Investment Ready’s experts Rachel Allen, who played a pivotal role in shaping these documents with the right language, has proven to be a crucial asset to the programme's success.

Other experts involved in the programme have opened doors to international markets, connected companies to government support for exporting, as well as increased connections into the investment community.

The Investment Ready Programme has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the food and fibre businesses it has touched, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to thrive in a fragmented investment landscape. The programme was supported by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

As the programme continues to empower companies to reach their fullest potential, it is evident that the investment in their success is an investment in the future of the food and fibre industry.

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