Investment opportunities, news, and views for New Zealand angel investors and entrepreneurs
August 25th, 2010 — events
Unlimited Potential and Grow Wellington bring you the Co-founder Match-Making Event!
Come along and meet Bright Ideas Challenge finalists from the ICT stream. We’ll shout you a drink and facilitate introductions to help build teams to go forward to the next stage.
July 21st, 2010 — events
Hi Tech Innovations – a showcase of NZ University Hi Tech IP
When: Wednesday 4 August, 5.00-7.30pm
Where: Te Papa, Oceania room, level 3, 55 Cable Street Wellington
Guest speaker: Phil O’Reilly, Chief Executive, BusinessNZ
Seven universities showcase their leading edge Hi Tech innovations including:
What could your organisation achieve through partnering with New Zealand’s top researchers? Come and find out.
Register Now for the event – RSVP essential.
A project sponsored by the Tertiary Education Commission
July 20th, 2010 — events
The Angel Association of NZ will have its annual summit on 4-5 November in Nelson this year. The last two summits have presented great networking opportunities; it’s always interesting to find that angels in other cities in NZ are facing the same issues and challenges as the rest of us.
Keep those dates open, check back here on nzangels.com occasionally, and we’ll post more information as it comes to hand.
June 1st, 2010 — events
The New Zealand Venture Capital Association, Investment New Zealand, and The Aviation Cluster present a series of seminars for aviation entrepreneurs, investors, and those who advise them in:
The Seminars run from 9:30am-3pm in each centre; all venue details will be confirmed on 15 of June.
Seminar attendees will learn about:
There will be a $15 cover charge as a contribution to catering costs.
Jim will have some limited time slots available to meet one-on-one with aviation entrepreneurs, investors and those who advise them.
Please register your interest by Friday 11 June with:
Shaun Mitchell
AIC General Manager
Aviation Industry Cluster
Email: shaun@aviationcluster.co.nz
Office: (07) 8297557
Mob: (021) 308 333
About Jim:
James M. McCoy is a multi-career entrepreneur, venture investor and business development executive based in California. Over four decades, Jim has founded and grown multiple billion dollar (US) international companies and contributed in a broad range of industries and technologies. His work spans computer, consumer electronics, aviation and biotech instrumentation industries.
Jim has been a seed, founding or early stage investor and/or Board Director with over 20 successful companies. He graduated from San Jose State University, California, with a B.S. degree in industrial engineering and management and has been issued five US (and related international) patents. Jim’s longest professional interest, deepest roots, first employment and current primary business focus is in aviation. He has been an active private pilot for over 30 years.
Jim began his career as a second generation engineer at United Airlines (SFOEG, now MRO HQ) in San Francisco as a cabin equipment safety engineer. Following service in the US Air Force (Reserve,) his career moved into engineering and marketing in the computer industry with IBM, Kodak and Xerox and the consumer electronics field with Textron and RCA in early video recording. Jim’s entrepreneurial career began with the co-founding of two venture capital funded, international and highly successful ($B+) computer storage start-up companies in the 1980’s, Quantum and Maxtor. He was President, CEO and Chairman of Maxtor for 12 years, through its IPO and eventual sale to what is today Seagate Technology. He currently serves as Chairman of Pliant Technology, Inc., an early stage enterprise computer SSD storage company in California.
In 2002, Jim began aviation business development projects in general aviation, working primarily in new green, low cost, extreme efficiency turbine propulsion concepts. Initially allied with a major GA airframe designer, this work eventually encompassed a wide range of programs including a NASA SATS Project and DARPA subcontractor, a turbine engine design spin off from Pratt and Whitney, an Asian nation’s national transportation and economic development ministries, major VLJ developers in various systems, Stanford University, and a major computer industry X-Prize sponsor in a low-pilot workload, high efficiency helicopter design. Jim is an active angel investor and limited partner in numerous (US) venture capital funds, serving as an advisor to several. He has been a part of dozens of equity and debt financings and liquidity events for young companies including transactions with multiple merchant and investment banking organizations.
February 8th, 2010 — events
Kevin McCaffrey runs Effective Governance, an independent privately-owned consulting firm that delivers advice on Corporate Governance to clients in New Zealand and Australia. Kevin will discuss governance across all sectors of society and its power in making a difference. This will include how to do due diligence as a director.
When: Tuesday 16th Feb, 5.30-7.30pm
Where: Russell McVeagh, Level 24, Vodafone on the Park.
We look seeing you there, where you’ll have the opportunity to talk with Kevin and network with your Wellington peers.
Simon Telfer, co-founder of SpringBoard’s national group, who will talk more about SpringBoard and governance.
For more info and to RSVP, see the Springboard Wellington LinkedIn Group.
February 8th, 2010 — events
Unlimited Potential are running a Damsel’s Den event, where you can “get to know local angels before you pitch your brilliant idea to them. Angel HQ and Unlimited Potential matchmake our entrepreneurs and investors.”
When: Tuesday 9 March 2010 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: Deloittes 10 Brandon Street, Wellington
RSVP: Unlimited Potential
Special Guest: Bill Payne
I always advise entrepreneurs to get to know their local angels well in advance of even thinking about asking them to invest. This evening will be a perfect opportunity to network, practice some lines before using them in a pitch, and meet other entrepreneurs and investors.
See you there!
October 12th, 2009 — events
Strong governance is critical to support a growing business however many business owners grapple with the concept. Governance has become synonymous with compliance, mitigating risk and those obligatory board meetings, yet it’s a lot more. It can be a platform that enables business owners to ensure their foot remains on the accelerator while maintaining control.
It is important you take the right people along for the journey. But how do you get them on board, maximise the guidance, advice and the challenge?
Ultimately the end goal is to achieve growth – but how do you ensure you end up there? Join the panel for alively discussion.
Faciltated by Simon Telfer, Director & Co-founder of Springboard
Event details
Date: Wednesday 11 November
Venue: Deloitte House, Level 8, 8 Nelson Street, Auckland
Time: 5.30pm
RSVP: via Linkedin
October 2nd, 2009 — events
The Angel Association will be holding their second annual summit in Queenstown on 5 and 6 November.
Speakers include Stephen Tindall (K1W1), Eion Edgar (Forsyth Barr) and Alan McConnon (Aorangi Labs).
Last year’s summit was brilliant, with great presentations and unparalleled opportunities to network. Angel investing is all about building relationships and building the best teams to make your investments fly; you won’t find a better place to share knowledge and war stories with the great group of people that are New Zealand’s active angel investors.
To book your place, contact Anna Hamilton-Manns, or you can download the flyer for more information.
September 16th, 2009 — events
We Angels frequently find ourselves explaining the role of a Board of Directors to entrepreneurs, and why governance is important even in a nascent business.
Springboard NZ has been busy filling the gap between the big-end-of-town Institute of Directors and the legendary entrepeneurial garage in terms of helping entrepreneurs upskill themselves and each other on governance issues.
Springboard ran a session last night on SME Governance which I was unable to attend, but thanks to Simon Telfer, Vicky Taylor and the Springboard team, the’ve posted slides from the two presentations on the Springboard web site:
If you’re on LinkedIn, I can recommend the Springboard group for lively discussion and getting to know the next generation of people serious about running great New Zealand companies.
September 10th, 2009 — events
What: Wellington to the World 2009
When: Tuesday 17 November 2009 2:00pm – 8:00pm
Where: Civic Suite, Level 2, Wellington Town Hall
Unlimited Potential’s W2W eventaims to build bridges between academia, technology entrepreneurs and investor communities. The focus for this year’s event is “internationalising your technology venture”. Appropriately, our keynote speaker will be Richard MacManus, local web entrepreneur and founder of ReadWriteWeb, one of the world’s leading tech blogs. This year W2W will be an official Global Entrepreneurship Week event and represents a huge opportunity for our local tech sector to gain global recognition.