NZ’s Angel Industry Flourishes describes NZVIF’s quest to increase the pool of angel investors in NZ. Franceska Banga: “Finding 1000 angels is about deepening the number of angels that are active, and in particular drawing them into formalised networks, as well as encouraging new investors. There are some big pools of cash sitting around New Zealand looking for a home.”

Nothing Ventured begins (perhaps unfairly) with Jenny Morel describing the current state of the VC industry in NZ as “dire” citing the lack of institutional investors; K1W1’s Brian Mayo-Smith chimes in that the $150M they’ve invested is “a bit of a drop in the bucket” compared with what’s needed. Banga again: “The message from the Australian market to our institutions is: ‘Just get started. Stop mucking around and just start.’ Because until they actually bite the bullet and get engaged, they won’t know what they don’t know. It’s just conservatism at the moment.”

Who’s Who in the NZ VC Industry provides profiles of some of the key players. I was left scratching my head though at the journo Karyn Scherer’s opening line that “the purpose of venture capital funds is to give large loans to tiny businesses” … I think Karyn needs to do a little more research into the difference between debt and equity finance.

Computerworld also ran an article last week, Start-ups warned of VC funding pitfalls. Tony Crewdson, the former director of the INCIS project, suggests that entrepreneurs avoid external funding altogether as it “can distract you from your business, and it can also make you create a business you didn’t want.” Unfortunately for those individualists out there, in my experience, most great ideas require more capital to get off the ground than can be funded by organic cash flow. My unsolicited advice to budding entrepreneurs: If you’re planning on building a wildly successful business, you are almost certainly going to require external funding to get offshore. Sure, go in with your eyes open, but start seeking investment well before you need it.

Former Intel NZ MD Scott Gilmour echoed my comments from last week’s nzangels.com podcast interview with Doug Woolerton, that ‘[y]ou can’t be a globally successful company based here, I don’t think … So let them go, encourage them to go – just like our kids go on their OE – but try and retain more and more significant ownership stakes so that as they succeed and generate a capital return to shareholders, those returns are invested into further companies, so that cycle keeps repeating.”

The rest of the article is well worth a read … good work, Simon!

His core theme is that ”Like most things in life, being clear about your goals and having a plan to achieve it is pretty much the only way to maximise your chances of success.”

Greg argues that like any sales process, it’s a good idea to start developing relationships with potential partners well before you intend to bring them into play, and being able to prove your ability to deliver on commitments.

That’s excellent advice for entrepreneurs, and we look forward to reading the rest of the series!