Icehouse Ventures

Last updated

Icehouse Ventures
Company type Private
Industry Venture capital
Founded2019;5 years ago (2019)
Headquarters
Auckland
,
New Zealand
Area served
New Zealand
Products Investments
Website www.icehouseventures.co.nz

Icehouse Ventures is a New Zealand-based venture capital firm. [1] The firm is headquartered in Auckland and mainly focuses on the technology industry and has backed 200 companies. [2] The firm also operates a variety of angel groups networks such as Ice Angels and Arc Angels. [3] Icehouse Ventures was formally founded in 2019 as a separate company but had operated as part of the Icehouse group since 2001. [4] In 2019, the founding CEO of the Icehouse stepped down as CEO and joined the board of directors of Icehouse Ventures. [5]

Contents

Icehouse Ventures receives funding from government agency Callaghan Innovation to provide a founder incubator service to the founders of new startup businesses in New Zealand. [6]

History

The Icehouse was founded in 2001 with a mandate to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in New Zealand. [7] The organisation was a joint venture between Auckland University and private sector partners. [8] To also support innovation and entrepreneurship by connecting existing SME businesses with new startups the group also added a coworking space, business incubator, [9] and angel network. [10] The group hosted and operated the first Lightning Lab cohorts in Auckland in 2015 and 2016. [11]

The organisation has managed and operated the Ice Angels angel network since 2001. [12] In 2015, the organisation added an internship programme for young students interested in angel investing and venture capital. [13] In 2016, the student programme was expanded into a student-led venture capital fund called Firstcut Ventures, that is managed by Icehouse Ventures in partnership with a group of university students. [14] The fund invests in founders under 30.

Icehouse Ventures was spun out of the Icehouse in 2019 and received external investment into the operating company from 44 investors including KiwiSaver operator Simplicity. [15] Venture capital funds were also added such as the Tuhua Fund and Eden Fund. [16]

In April 2020, Stuff published an article critical of support that the Eden Fund investor network (operated by Icehouse Ventures) had provided to communities in China impacted by COVID-19. [17] The article was found by the Media Council to be inaccurate and unfair. [18]

In September 2020, Icehouse Ventures acquired a stake in the research and development incubator Level Two which works with deep-tech and Clean technology companies. [19] Icehouse Ventures operates the Level Two fund and provides nominee, investment operations and funds management to Level Two. [20]

In 2022, Icehouse Ventures created a special fund to invest in female-founded and led ventures. [21]

Investments

Icehouse Ventures invests in early-stage private companies. [22] It specialises in incubation, seed stage, startup stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies. [23] The firm also operates funds that invest in later stage companies by using the pro rata rights gained during earlier investments. [24]

Related Research Articles

A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential, such as unicorns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital</span> Form of private-equity financing

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.

Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.

A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services, starting with management training and office space, and ending with venture capital financing. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) defines business incubators as a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. NBIA categorizes its members' incubators by the following five incubator types: academic institutions; non-profit development corporations; for-profit property development ventures; venture capital firms, and a combination of the above.

Social venture capital is a form of investment funding that is usually funded by a group of social venture capitalists or an impact investor to provide seed-funding investment, usually in a for-profit social enterprise, in return to achieve an outsized gain in financial return while delivering social impact to the world. There are various organizations, such as Venture Philanthropy (VP) companies and nonprofit organizations, that deploy a simple venture capital strategy model to fund nonprofit events, social enterprises, or activities that deliver a high social impact or a strong social causes for their existence. There are also regionally focused organizations that target a specific region of the world, to help build and support the local community in a social cause.

An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.

The Icehouse is a business growth centre that establishes learning environments for New Zealand SME business owners, entrepreneurs and founders. The Icehouse provides training and development workshops for New Zealand-based SME owner managed companies to develop business skills. The current Group CEO of The Icehouse is Gavin Lennox.

Super angel was a term used in the early 2010s to describe venture capital investors who had once been angel investors and subsequently raised small venture capital funds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave McClure</span> Entrepreneur and angel investor

David "Dave" McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded the business accelerator 500 Startups and served as its CEO until his resignation in 2017. He founded Practical Venture Capital soon after, a new venture capital fund that would continue to work with companies he previously funded through 500 Startups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">500 Global</span> U.S. startup accelerator

500 Global is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.

Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components, and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often government-funded, generally take no equity, and rarely provide funding, accelerators can be either privately or publicly funded and cover a wide range of industries. Unlike business incubators, the application process for seed accelerators is open to anyone, but is highly competitive. There are specific accelerators, such as corporate accelerators, which are often subsidiaries or programs of larger corporations that act like seed accelerators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

OurCrowd is an online global venture investing platform that empowers institutions and individual accredited investors to invest and engage in emerging technology companies at an early stage while still privately held. Based in Jerusalem, the company launched in February 2013, and has since opened overseas branches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, Singapore, Brazil, and the UAE.

Lightning Lab is a startup accelerator in New Zealand, which has been operating since 2013. Lightning Lab is owned and managed by Creative HQ, a startup incubator in Wellington. Lightning Lab programmes have been delivered in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Lightning Lab operates various different programmes that each have a separate focus. Lightning Lab Digital is the accelerator catered towards software companies and has been run in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Lightning Lab Manufacturing caters towards hardware startups, and there has been a single programme, run in Lower Hutt, Wellington. Additionally, in 2016 Lightning Lab XX was held in Wellington with a focus on women-led companies with at least one woman on the founding team.

Harry Tomi Davies is a Nigerian British investor, speaker, author, entrepreneur, philanthropist and advisor to technology companies. He is the chief executive officer of TVCLabs, a technology business accelerator based in Lagos, and the founding president of the African Business Angel Network (ABAN), a network of individuals and organisations who invest in and mentor African startups. He has a wealth of experience in IT, consulting, and innovation, and has worked with global brands such as IBM, Marks & Spencer, Ernst & Young, and Sapient. He is also a public speaker who inspires audiences with his insights, stories, and strategies for driving business success in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital in Poland</span> Overview of venture capital in Poland

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The information and communications technology industry in New Zealand is a rapidly growing sector. The technology sector overall employs over 120,000 people, and technology is New Zealand's third largest export sector, accounting for $8.7 billion of exports, with information technology creating 50,000 full time jobs, and about $1 billion in IT services exports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator</span> NYC technology startup seed accelerator

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">CIIE.CO</span> Indian startup accelerator

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Crimson Education is a for-profit college-prep company headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.

References

  1. ↑ Paul, Robbie (14 April 2019). "$100m into New Zealand startups: Top tips for founders, investors". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  2. ↑ "Icehouse Ventures a huge leap forward for entrepreneurs". Scoop (Press release). 15 April 2019. Archived from the original on 22 June 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  3. ↑ Michelle, Coursey (30 May 2014). "An angel at the board table". The New Zealand Herald .
  4. ↑ Henry, Burrell (18 December 2020). "From intern to partner at Icehouse Ventures". Business Desk. Archived from the original on 22 February 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  5. ↑ O'Neill, Rob (26 July 2019). "The Icehouse prepares to lose its founding leader of 18 years". Reseller News. IDG. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  6. ↑ "Founder Incubators". Callaghan Innovation. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  7. ↑ "Business growth hub The Icehouse launches new programme for small business owners". Stuff. 7 July 2020. Archived from the original on 8 July 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  8. ↑ Spicer, Barry; Dunn, Wendell; Whitcher, Geoff (4 November 2016). "Transforming Knowledge into Wealth in a New Zealand Research University". Industry and Higher Education. 20 (4): 243. doi:10.5367/000000006778175856. S2CID   168160517 . Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  9. ↑ Fiona, Rotherham (11 May 2014). "Incubator to delve deeper with founders". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  10. ↑ Matthews, Jana (2005). "Learning to Grow a Business" (PDF). University of Auckland Business Review. 7 (1): 84–89. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 February 2016.
  11. ↑ Lin, Tao (17 December 2015). "Lightning Lab accelerator programme increasing investment in 2016". Sunday Star Business Times.
  12. ↑ Lesley, Springall (10 August 2012). "Angel investors: Backing start-ups for fun, satisfaction – maybe even profit". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  13. ↑ "Angel network paving path for interns". The New Zealand Herald . 30 July 2015.
  14. ↑ Fiona, Rotherham (11 October 2016). "Student-led fund raises $500,000 to invest in young Kiwi entrepreneurs". National Business Review. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  15. ↑ "New investment entity creates $100m in startup capital". National Business Review. 14 April 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  16. ↑ Chris, Keall (20 November 2020). "New Icehouse Ventures fund wants to be the Sharesies of venture capital". The New Zealand Herald . Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  17. ↑ Susan, Edmunds (10 April 2020). "New Zealanders 'caught short after masks sent to China'". Stuff. Archived from the original on 4 October 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  18. ↑ "Jason Wang vs Stuff". Media Council New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  19. ↑ Paul, Spain (29 September 2020). "LevelTwo and Icehouse Ventures join forces". NZ Tech Podcast. No. 508. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  20. ↑ "New Zealand's Deep Tech Sector Gets Massive Boost As Icehouse Ventures & LevelTwo Join Forces". Scoop. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  21. ↑ "New Zealand's Icehouse Ventures is raising a $20 million to back female founders". Startup Daily. 6 April 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  22. ↑ John, Anthony. "How to pick a 'unicorn' and what it takes for a startup to become one". Stuff. Archived from the original on 18 September 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  23. ↑ "Now is the time to look for investment funding". Stuff. 21 May 2020. Archived from the original on 16 July 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  24. ↑ "Icehouse nabs a fresh $26m for its Tuhua fund". National Business Review. 28 November 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
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