Hon Nicola Willis
Minister for Economic Growth

The Government is committing an extra $100 million in cash contributions to the Elevate NZ Venture Fund at Budget 2025 to support the growth of later-stage New Zealand startups, Minister for Economic Growth Nicola Willis announced today.

“This investment targets the young and innovative firms New Zealand needs to nurture in order to deliver higher incomes and better health and education for Kiwis,” Nicola Willis says.

The Elevate Fund helps deepen New Zealand’s venture capital markets by attracting private sector investment into venture capital funds to support emerging New Zealand firms.

Elevate is a “fund-of-funds” programme established in 2020. It is managed by Crown company NZ Growth Capital Partners on behalf of the Guardians of NZ Superannuation.

“Elevate invests in venture capital funds that in turn invest in New Zealand startups - young, high-growth, tech-enabled businesses.

“It has helped fund more than 120 growing New Zealand startups, including some like Dawn Aerospace, Mint Innovation and Halter that are now expanding overseas.

Some of Elevate’s investments have also returned money to the fund ahead of schedule.

“Since its inception, Elevate has also attracted about $600 million of private investment into the venture capital market.

“As a ‘fund-of-funds’, the Elevate investment is used by venture capital funds to encourage private investment in their funds. Annual venture capital investment into New Zealand startups has more than doubled, to over $350m in that time.

“$61 million of the additional funding for Elevate is coming from the Crown’s 2025 contribution to the NZ Super Fund.

“This follows the approach taken by the previous government when the fund was established, but because we are now approaching the time when the Super Fund is big enough to be self-sustaining, Crown contributions are reducing. Therefore, the contribution to Elevate is being topped up with $39 million from the Budget 2025 capital allowance.

Notes:

New Zealand Growth Capital Partners is a Crown entity company that manages two funds investing in high-growth startups and seed stage companies, alongside private capital.

• The Aspire fund makes direct co-investments into very early-stage startups at the ‘seed stage’
• The Elevate Fund invests into private venture capital funds alongside private investors, which in turn invest into slightly later- scale up stage startups seeking funding typically at the ‘Series A/B stage’ – the point at which startups typically need $2 to $20 million to scale beyond early seed funding.

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