A taxpayer-funded investment company will be able to take a more hands-on approach to investing $50 million in smaller high-growth start-ups in the hope of getting in early on “the next Rocket Lab or Trade Me”.
The New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF) was set up by the Labour government in 2002 to help plug a perceived gap in the market by investing alongside private investors in young, cash-starved high-tech businesses.
Finance Minister Steven Joyce signalled last year that the Government didn’t want to put more government money into the agency and instead wanted it to become self-sustaining.
But Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges said NZVIF would be allowed to take a more “active” approach investing the $50m that had previously been allocated to its Seed Co-investment Fund, which is the smaller of two funds NZVIF operates, targeting earlier-stage investments.
READ MORE:
* Government would seek ‘commercial return’ if NZVIF reinvented
* Venture capitalists could be crowded out by Crown company
* Government to wean venture capital industry off taxpayer support
Rather than having to only invest…