Research and Financial Analyst needed

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
We’re hiring.
MOVAC has a role for an experienced Research and Financial Analyst to support the MOVAC Partners in the assessment and management of investments.  Package will be commensurate with experience but is expected to be within $80,000 – $100,000 per annum.  The role will be based in Wellington.  The ideal candidate will exhibit the following characteristics:
  • Solid knowledge of financial statement analysis
  • Financial modelling
  • Market research
  • Commercial Acumen
  • Information Gathering
  • Strategic Thinking
  • Analysis and judgement
  • Excellent communication skills – verbal and written
  • Relationship Management – networking, influencing, collaborating
The ideal candidate will be a high energy self-starter capable of working with limited direction while managing multiple projects.  Meticulous attention to detail and a sense of humour are essential traits!
A copy of the Job Description can be found here - MOVAC Analyst
To apply for this role please contact Mark Stuart at  mark.stuart@movac.co.nz
Filed Under: Fund 3

PowerByProxi’s wireless battery recharging world first

May 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

PowerbyProxi has recently announced a world first in wirelessly recharging.  The video demonstrates a rechargeable AA battery in conjunction with a 3 dimensional wireless power transmitter that allows for the recharging of batteries while they remain in the device.  For more information see www.powerbyproxi.com.

Filed Under: Fund 3, News, Our investments, Technology

Little Monkeys take on the world

April 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

April 1, 2012

Just one year after coming out of beta, and six months since its UK launch, MiniMonos (it means Little Monkeys in Spanish) is taking off in the UK.  The company has raised sufficient capital to grow a team in England and focus on that market.  User numbers have grown to over 800,000, and revenue is now more than the cost of acquiring cutomers.

With an average month-on-month revenue growth of 30% over the last year, and members from over 150 countries, MiniMonos is clearly appealing to the target audience of 8-12-year-old boys and girls.

MiniMonos has raised over NZD$3.5m from NZ and European Angels over the last 2 years, after the company was seeded with money from the founder, Melissa Clark-Reynolds, and a Christchurch Angel investor.

Says Clark-Reynolds:

“We are now poised to open a UK office and grow even more quickly.  90% of our revenue now comes from the UK, with 10% from the US and Canada.  Launching pre-paid gift cards in Sainsbury’s in time for Christmas was a winner for us”.

Kids also get in-world rewards by completing real-world eco-projects through the MiniMonos EcoMonkey program. Through their projects, players have established recycling programmes in their schools, up-cycled old clothes to make toys, planted gardens, and cleaned rivers and lakes. 50 children took part in the pilot project in 2011.  Over 700 projects have now been approved.  National Geographic Kids Managzine in the UK picked up on the initiative and showcased it in their March magazine.

“These kids are learning to equate positive actions with positive feelings: fun, delight and accomplishment,”

“Our aim is to have a million children taking real-world eco-action as a result of playing on MiniMonos.”

With strong growth in sales, new investors and a European presence, MiniMonos’ goal is getting even closer.

“It feels like just a matter of time, now”.

MOVAC Fund 2 is an investor in MiniMonos.

Filed Under: Angel investment, Our investments

Another $7m raised for high growth New Zealand businesses

February 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We’re pleased to report that at the end of last year we were successful in raising an additional NZ$7 million for Fund 3.  This takes the overall fund size from NZ$31 million to NZ$38 million. This is an excellent result, and provides us with the headroom to consider an additional investment in the portfolio as well as raising the maximum amount that we can allocate to any one deal.

The make-up of this additional investment is significant as it includes two US based expat kiwis who remain active in their respective industries, a number of local private investors active in the early stage eco-system and professional investment group Rangatira Limited.

Rangatira’s investment commitment is strategic and a material contribution to the Fund. Rangatira is an experienced Wellington based private investor with assets of over NZ$150 million. Established in 1937, Rangatira has pursued a policy of private equity investment in small to medium-sized New Zealand companies, complemented by holdings in a range of publicly listed New Zealand and Australian companies. The Rangatira board and management team bring significant complimentary skills to the MOVAC team.

We are continuing to raise money for Fund 3 and will complete a final close of the fund on the 31st of March 2012.  If you’d like to discuss investing please contact mark.vivian@movac.co.nz

Filed Under: Fund 3

PowerByProxi and Minimonos in top 10 for BNZ Virgin Business Challenge

December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The BNZ Virgin Business Challenge awards dinner was held last Thursday night. 260 companies entered this challenge with 10 going through to the final judging phase on Wednesday and Thursday.  The finalists were competing for a $100k cash prize, international travel and time with one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs Richard Branson. MOVAC investee companies PowerByProxi (Fund 2 and 3) and Minimonos (Fund 2) made the short list.

FaceMe, an online video conferencing solution for businesses took out the award, but all 10 companies were outstanding. The NZ innovation sector is in great shape!

The interviews conducted with Greg Cross from PowerByProxi and Milessa Clark-Reynolds from MiniMonos can be seen below.  The full list of finalists can be found on the BNZ website.

 

Filed Under: Angel investment, Entrepreneur resources, News

St Thomas of Canterbury College win MOVAC High Growth Award

December 14, 2011 By 1 Comment
St Thomas students with Movac Partner Mark Vivian

St Thomas students with Movac Partner Mark Vivian

I recently had the pleasure of sharing a table with the winners of the Young Enterprise Trust (“YET”) High Growth Award along with MOVAC Partners Sharon Weaver and Mark Vivian.  MOVAC has been a proud sponsor of the programme for the past 5 years.  YET run an outstanding programme in secondary schools throughout New Zealand that exposes students to the possibility of creating and running a business.  Something that MOVAC and our investors are pretty passionate about.

Young Enterprise Trust is a charitable trust whose vision is to grow a more prosperous New Zealand through enterprise.  We see our purpose as a not for profit is to inspire, educate and transformstudents through enterprise experience.

Testing the Lion

Testing the Lion

This years winners of our award were from St Thomas of Canterbury College who founded a venture called A.C.E. – Advanced Clean Energies.  I was floored by the imagination, creativity and execution of this group of 16 and 17 year olds and what they’d managed to achieve in under 9 months.  Their inspiration came from the Christchurch earthquakes and a need to generate electricity when the power went down.  The product they created they call Lion.  Lion is a recharger that generates electricity from the heat differential between two plates.  Essentially it’s a pot lid that generates electricity from boiling water!  It generates enough to put a partial charge back on your cell phone.  Brilliant!

They have sold a number of these throughout New Zealand and have also commenced discussions to trial a modified version of the product with a village in Arusha, Tanzania, working through Edmund Rice School.  You can read more about ACE here:

MOVAC is indebted to its Fund 2 investment group who have underwritten our sponsorship of YET over the last 4 years.

Filed Under: Philanthropy, Young Enterprise

Fund 3 Open for investment

November 17, 2011 By 3 Comments

It’s taken me a while to get this post up, but Fund 3 is now formerly open for investment.  Fund 3 is an early expansion stage fund.  This means that invest in technology companies that have established a degree of market proof (started earning revenue) for what they do.

Fund 3 completed a first close at NZ$31m in July 2011 and is expected to complete a final close on 30 November 2011.  A close at this level is good news for MOVAC and its investors but even better news for New Zealand technology companies looking to source capital to expand their business activities.  Fund 3 will typically we invest between NZ$1m and NZ$5m or more when syndicating with our investment partners.

In assessing opportunities the key factors we look at are:

  • Market proof – you have products in market and customers are paying for it.
  • Scalable business model with dominant characteristics – your business can scale to tens of millions in revenue and there something about what you do that makes it difficult for others to compete against.
  • Exceptional and experienced team – your team represents a balanced set of capabilities across sales and marketing, product development, financial management, strategy and leadership.  Supported by a demonstrable track-record.
  • Capital requirements consistent with our and our partners ability to fund – we need to be confident that you can achieve your financial goals within the capital that we can source.  We’re not prepared to take significant follow-on funding risk.
  • Return potential commensurate with risk – the returns you are projecting for investors are commensurate with the risk for the stage of business development that you’re currently at.
  • You’re predominantly a New Zealand based company today, starting to sell internationally.

We don’t invest in property, retail or reseller businesses.  In general terms, the companies we invest in are underpinned by strong intellectual property that is unique to its target markets.  As an investment team we have significant experience in ICT, Life Sciences / Medical devices, Niche manufacturing / engineering and general IP commercialisation.

We occasionally post entires in our blog that go into more details on what we look for.  Please review these entries which can be found under the “Criteria” category.

Filed Under: Our criteria
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