The Seed Co-Investment Fund was established to help develop New Zealand’s angel equity market and, in doing so, catalyse angel investment into New Zealand seed and start-up companies that would not occur otherwise. There are two programme mechanisms:
- market development initiatives, i.e. education and market collaboration (for which there is an annual budget of $100,000) and;
- passive investment by the Crown in seed and start-up investments (of up to $8 million per annum) alongside pre-qualified angel investment partners.
Policy documents underpinning the programme specify that the Crown can invest $250,000 for any new private investment proposed by investment partners and a further $250,000 in follow-on co-investment per investment, provided certain provisions are met. Crown investment must be: matched 1:1 by investment partners, limited to a total of $4 million per single investment partner over 12 years, and subject to ownership rules.
The programme commenced operations in July 2006. Four co-investment partnerships were announced in September 2006. NZVIF Ltd, the Crown owned entity responsible for managing the programme, is currently seeking more co-investment partners. This report is a baseline review of the angel investment market. The purpose of the baseline review is to describe the current state of New Zealand’s angel investment market and analyse performance expectations of the Seed Co-Investment Fund to use as a basis for subsequent evaluation.