New Zealand’s venture capital industry raises $1bn in three years

Elevate launched in March 2020 with a target of reaching $1 billion capital invested into the venture capital sector by 2025.  We are pleased to announce this week that New Zealand venture capital firms have achieved this in just three years!

This significant milestone is hot on the heels of our recent announcements that Elevate underlying funds have invested in over 100 Kiwi tech start-ups, and that Elevate has made its ninth investment; into Movac Emerge Fund 4.

Hitting the billion-dollar mark is a promising sign for New Zealand’s venture capital industry and for the Kiwi technology start-ups looking to scale and grow from Aotearoa. Much [A sizeable piece] of this capital remains undeployed which means there are plenty of opportunities for investments to help grow our most promising start-ups, contribute to the wider economy, whilst hopefully solving some of the world’s biggest challenges through technology innovation.

Our Chief Investment Officer James Pinner says “Whilst the fund-raising environment is getting more difficult both domestically and globally, we see this as an important milestone, demonstrating how quickly the market is developing here and, as the breadth and depth of institutional capability increases over time, laying important foundations for continued growth. It is also great to see increasing diversity of VC investors as well as a number of new institutional investors come into this space - we hope that these trends continue as this will really move the needle on the dial in the sector”.

“New Zealand is seeing some incredible talent in the technology start-up space, with stand-out companies including Dawn Aerospace, Mint Innovation, Ask Nicely, Partly, Halter, Foundry Lab, Quantifi Photonics, Alimetry and Zenno Aeronautics. And its with thanks to the many venture capital funds, private and Angel investors that we are seeing this progression”.

The Government established Elevate in 2020 as a $300 million fund-of-funds programme to fill the capital gap for high-growth businesses at the Series A and B fund raising stages.  It is managed by NZGCP with oversight from the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation.

Once its latest investment is completed, Elevate will have committed $223 million into nine venture capital funds. Each of these nine funds has raised significant amounts of private capital alongside the Crown investment and, the total amount raised by these funds from sources other than Elevate is expected to exceed $750 million.

Elevate underlying funds:

Blackbird Ventures NZ - Fund 2019 and Fund 2022

Pacific Channel - Fund 2

Movac - Fund 5 and Emerge Fund 4

Finistere Ventures - Finistere Aotearoa Fund

Global From Day 1 (GD1) - Fund 3

Nuance Connected Capital - Nuance Fund

Hillfarrance - Hillfarrance Fund