Te Waka Hourua - NZ's Private Capital Ecosystem in San Francisco

Day 1 : Scaling in the US: Seedlings to Sequoias.

We began with the dynamic Chris Hutchins, whose impressive background includes two acquisitions by Wealthfront and Google. As the host of the “All the Hacks” podcast, he delivered honest and transparent insights that captivated the audience.

Next, we welcomed Rick Klau, CEO of cleantech company Onsemble. Rick’s experience at Google Ventures, YouTube, and working for the state of California led to a fascinating discussion, with a focus on the utilization of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) in startups.

Eros Resmini, Co-Founder and Former CMO of Discord, shared the highs and lows of co-founding a company with a $15 billion valuation and 200 million monthly users. His experience scaling Discord translated into valuable guidance in his new role as founder of the mini fund.

Our final session featured Hamish McKenzie, kiwi co-founder of Substack. Substack’s commitment to delivering for their user base, with strategic decisions centered around their users, resonated strongly.

Day 2: Unleashing the Power of US VC Insights

We started the day with Randy Komisar the best-selling author, venture capitalist, and technology attorney. Randy is a masterful storyteller; his deep understanding of the New Zealand innovation ecosystem, coupled with his extensive Silicon Valley experience provided us with candid and actionable insights and advice.

Next, we were privileged to hear from two prominent VC players and true friends of New Zealand Robert Coneybeer from Shasta Ventures and Anthony Lee from Altos Ventures. Their significant impact on New Zealand through investments, relationships, and active engagement within our ecosystem is truly inspiring. We explored their firms’ investment strategies, delved into emerging technologies, shared success stories, and discussed their active support for founders.

In our last stop before lunch, we had the pleasure of hearing from Mike Smith of Footwork Ventures Mike's journey from COO of Walmart.com to playing a pivotal role in Stitch Fix’s IPO, and now investing in Tracksuit through FootWork, is nothing short of extraordinary.

We spent the afternoon with Bowen Pan, an exceptional Kiwi and the VP of Product at Common Room (formerly Facebook). Bowen graciously hosted us at his home, where we were all inspired by this unassuming individual. His intelligence, ambition, and passion played a pivotal role in creating the Facebook Marketplace that we use today.

Day 3: Kiwi Mavericks – from Aotearoa to Silicon Valley

First up we were warmly welcomed by Microsoft’s VP of Azure AI Futures, Marco Casalaina, who demonstrated yet to-be-seen AI tools being developed by the Azure AI team, including AI agents that will take non-deterministic actions for users.

We then heard from the excellent kiwi founder, Victoria Ransom, who grew her start-up Wildfire from $0 to $100m in ARR over two years which was later sold to Google for $450m. Proving growing up on an asparagus farm in Bulls is no barrier to shouldering it with the best in Silicon Valley, Victoria gave us deep insights into her entrepreneurial journey.

Next, we were joined by two all-star kiwi entrepreneurs - Tim Brown, co-founder of Allbirds, and Dave Ferguson, co-founder of Nuro - for a panel Q&A session touching on themes including how kiwi companies can win in Silicon Valley. In a world of hubris, we learnt kiwi’s natural humility can be an asset in the Valley when combined with confident articulation.

Making our way back to San Francisco we were met by serial entrepreneur and Rhodes Scholar, Sean Gourley, who founded AI company’s Quid and Primer and spoke at length about the importance of forming and nurturing relationships in the US and how NZs strong hardware engineering culture can be an asset for early deep-tech start-ups.

Yoav Lurie, founder of Simple Energy, then took us on his roller-coaster entrepreneurial journey which at one point had him combining five companies into one in a highly complicated M&A transaction that ultimately proved very valuable.

In the closing session, Campbell Brown, the dynamic entrepreneur behind start-up PredictHQ, shared insights on demand intelligence. He highlighted the successful coexistence of teams across the US and New Zealand, emphasizing his pride in retaining the company’s headquarters in NZ, a significant decision for him as a kiwi.

Day 4: Wahine toa in venture capital

We heard from Tess Hatch of Bessemer Venture Partners, a local VC fund (which has invested in NZ Companies Halter and RocketLab). Tess took us through her amazing career having done a Masters in aerospace engineering at Stanford and working at Boeing and SpaceX. Her insights into space and other frontier technology (including the role and importance of co-investors) were appreciated by the group and she was impressed with the number of VC funds in New Zealand with a deep-tech focus.

Next we heard from Alice Brooks of Khosla Ventures, another local VC fund (also an investor in RocketLab as well as Leaft Foods and LanzaTech). Alice has had a fascinating career to date, which included founding Roominate and pitching and securing investment from Mark Cuban on ‘Shark Tank’. She emphasized the importance of narrowing focus to 3 key diligence questions in deciding whether to invest in a start-up (often “how big could it be?”, “how differentiated is it?” and “does it have the right team?”).

Third was Shuo Yang from Lowercarbon Capital, whose motto is “backing kickass companies that make real money slashing CO2 emissions and sucking carbon out of the sky". Shuo gave a wonderful talk on his personal journey, his thoughts on climate-tech and New Zealand. Encouragingly Shuo said on a per capital basis he sees more exciting climate-tech companies coming out of New Zealand than our competitors.

Finally Loren Straub from Bowery Capital joined us, a VC with offices in both San Francisco and New York (and whose investments into SailThru and Solve have had strong New Zealand connections). She offered some great insights into the B2B start-up world and fund raising in the US, particularly the importance of DPI (Distributed to Paid-In capital) as a performance metric for LPs.

Thoughts and insights from those that joined us:

Fundraising both for funds and companies is still difficult

NZ founders can be humble and confident at the same time, just makes sure you respond back quickly!

Get realistic and do the mahi - You can’t be a successful tourist

Founder traits and culture are key

One team, one dream: our ecosystem is too small to be acting alone

There is a lot of money to be made with AI, but a lot more will be lost

A big thank you to all those that supported this programme – from our guest speakers, partners, friends and those who joined us on this journey. New Zealand is primed, more than ever to offer access to world-class investments.

Icehouse Ventures, Outset Ventures, InvestSOUTH, WNT Ventures, NZ Growth Capital Partners, Bridgewest Ventures NZ, Movac, Nuance Connected Capital, Punakaiki Fund, GD1 (Global From Day One), Pacific Channel, GreenMount, Tuia Group, Angel Association New Zealand, Motion Capital, Malcolm Pacific Immigration, Dentons, Forsyth Barr Limited, Bank of New Zealand, Alvarium, The Advisory Group, Migrant Investor & Entrepreneur Association (MIEA), Lane Neave, Private Capital Group, Pathways to New Zealand, Mobile Relocation, JBWere New Zealand.