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New Zealand VC firm Movac announces NZ$105 million raised for later-stage Fund 4
New Zealand VC firm Movac has announced it’s raised NZ$105 million for Fund 4, with $75 million coming from institutional investors including Ngāi Tahu.
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The Difference Incubator reveals social enterprises pitching to win trip to Social Enterprise World Forum 2017
The Difference Incubator [TDI] has selected four out of 36 social enterprise startups to compete in its Dragons’ Den competition for the chance to win a trip to the Social Enterprise World Forum 2017 in New Zealand. Along with the trip, the successful startup will also receive $15,000 in cash and a spot in the incubators Investment Readiness Program.
Advice
New Zealand fintech startup SavvyKiwi helps people find and monitor the right KiwiSaver account
SavvyKiwi looks to help match savers to the right fund. It then keeps monitoring the fund to keep savers abreast of any issues or changes that they should be aware of and, if they choose to switch, helps them easily transfer to another fund.
Advice
Western Australian startup Demand.film looks to transform cinema distribution
Perth startup Demand.film is on a mission to fill those empty cinema seats on the quietest nights of the week and secure the demand of audiences who want to watch films that are off the beaten track.
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Kiwibank opens applications for New Zealand’s first fintech accelerator
Kiwibank has opened applications for New Zealand’s first dedicated fintech accelerator, powered by Lightning Lab, to run in Wellington in collaboration with Callaghan Innovation and Xero.
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Domino’s partners with Australian drone startup Flirtey to launch world’s first ever commercial drone pizza delivery service
Domino’s has today announced a partnership with Australian drone startup Flirtey to launch the world’s first ever drone delivery service in New Zealand. The partnership aims to connect people with pizza via CAA-approved trial store-to-door drone deliveries.
Other
QUALGRO is the $50 million fund you didn’t know is investing in Australian and New Zealand startups
The fund is focused on making investments into Series A and Series B rounds, with its smallest investment to date being US$750,000 and its largest being US$3 million.
Advice
The Social Club is bringing social media influencer campaigns to the New Zealand market
The Social Club is looking to try its hand as one of the first platforms in the social media influencer space in New Zealand. Its mission is like most others: to connect New Zealand’s largest community of social media influencers with brands and agencies in order to create authentic and meaningful influencer campaigns
Other
Top 50 Australian and New Zealand Women in Tech 2016
We have made a few changes to our annual Women in Technology list for 2016. The first and most obvious being that it is now purely focused on women in technology, with the second being that, given our expansion into New Zealand last year, we are now including both countries on the list. Thirdly, we’re doing away with the under 40 age limit we used to apply.
Other
StarNow has 3.5 million registered members and has never raised any capital
Without a doubt, Wellington-based startup StarNow is one of the most well-known global success stories to come out of New Zealand in recent years. The tech company is a casting and talent platform for the entertainment industry that connects aspiring and professional actors, models, musicians and crew with casting agents and production companies.
Advice
Has Wellington created the most feminist tech ecosystem in the world?
It shouldn’t have been surprising when I found myself sitting in front of so many women in tech during my visit to its capital Wellington last week, yet I did. The reason I found it surprising is because although Australia is only three hours away from this beautiful windy city, what I found was an ecosystem that was light-years ahead in terms of its diversity and celebration of its female founders and employees.
Advice
Should startups be obsessed with becoming a Unicorn company?
Within the last 12 months the global tech startup ecosystem has seen more companies than ever before rise to the status of unicorn. Just this week hipster glasses ecommerce play Warby Parker joined the club with its new billion dollar valuation. In fact, it’s starting to become an occurrance that happens every other month with New York based marketing startup Sprinklr reaching a $1.17 billion valuation in March.
