This week we start our contribution to the rebuild of the Aotearoa New Zealand economy. Movac’s part is to accelerate the launch of our fifth technology investment fund, Fund 5. There is much work to do and we’re incredibly motivated to play a significant part working alongside New Zealand’s outstanding technology founders and our committed group of investors to help define and shape our collective future.
This has been an incredibly disruptive and challenging time. Lives and countless jobs have been lost in New Zealand and around the world. We’ve all had to learn how to work and live differently, but now is not the time to pause but to find the opportunities in those changes. We need to get busy redefining and growing the next wave of tech businesses in New Zealand.
History tells us that it in periods of significant disruption we see the most significant technology innovations. We launched Movac Fund 3 during the Global Financial Crisis and had the privilege to invest in companies like PowerByProxi, sold to Apple in 2017, and GreenButton, sold to Microsoft in 2013. Vend and Unleashed were created during the GFC and our 4th fund has subsequently invested in those business. Xero, RocketLabs and PushPay started just before and grew up through the GFC. Trade Me started at the beginning of the dot.com boom survived the dot.com bust and thrived subsequently.
Innovation is happening at pace around us. Prior to the Covid-apocalypse there was a clear but slow-moving trend to digital everything and automation, but in many traditional industries inertia reigned. That changed from March 2020. Everything that could move on-line, moved on-line. Companies that we’re involved in Mobi2Go – online food ordering – and Shift72 – streaming video for cinemas and film festivals – exploded. Worldwide, everyone learnt to Zoom and daily meetings on that platform grew from 10m to 300m in a matter of weeks. International trade shows went virtual and attendance went up. Despite the fact that none of us can travel, international boundaries have disappeared, and communication has become more frequent and easier. Even our American friends started turning up to meetings on time! Despite this we still crave a 3d meetup!
So, what’s Movac doing to lean into this? More of what we’re good at, but at greater scale and with more impact. Today, we’re kicking off the process to raise our 5th technology investment fund. This one will be $150m to $200m. The bigger we get it the greater the impact that we can have. We’ve super-charged our team to deliver on this commitment and deepened our international connectivity.
Our immediate challenge is to raise the capital that enables us to go to work. To do this at scale we’re looking forward to bringing a wider group of New Zealand institutional investors – Kiwi Savers, Community Trusts, endowment funds and Iwi – who share our vision for and the potential of New Zealand. We’ve always enjoyed fantastic support from a committed group of private investors and a few leading institutional investors. Let’s take that few to many; now is the time to punch through the barriers and go to work for New Zealanders.
Ehara tōku toa I te toa takitahi.
He toa takitini tōku toa.
my strength is not due to me alone, but due to the strength of many
