New Year Honours: Jenny Morel playing a long game with bright ideas

Jenny Morel

Wellington-based venture capitalist Jenny Morel, who heads pioneering venture capital fund No. 8, was "totally surprised" to learn she had made companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year's Honours.

Morel, on holiday with her husband, Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard, and US-based sons Albert and Lewis, said what was surprising was that she and the No. 8 fund had been recognised relatively quickly.

"Venture capital is a long-term game. We started with our first fund in 1999, we're now investing our second fund. Out of that, we've got half-a-dozen companies that are going really well and are pretty exciting."

No. 8 was "well aware that this does take time and that it's hard work, so we're looking to have success further down the road".

Morel, an economist whose career has included a stint with the OECD in Paris, believed she and the fund were being recognised for their ground-breaking approach to developing high-tech businesses from good ideas.

"I think we were pioneering in venture capital in New Zealand. There had been little bits and pieces before, but we were probably the first US-style venture capital fund."

Starting out, Morel was inspired and guided by seasoned US venture capitalist Franklin "Pitch" Johnson, who 30 years ago formed Asset Management Co (AMC), one of the longest-established Silicon Valley venture firms.

No. 8 has invested in businesses including Argent Networks, which supplies telco billing systems, early-stage cancer therapeutics company Proacta, industrial-scale composting company VCU Technology and 3D graphics outfit Right Hemisphere.

Morel clearly enjoys her work with No. 8. "We get this role of helping people who are passionate about what they are doing, who've got fantastic ideas and then really trying to turn those into great businesses.

"It's bringing the business skills to what these people are doing. You take things like creative software, or the science behind Proacta, or the great ideas behind VCU and help to shape that into a business as opposed to just a technology.

"It's really exciting when you see that beginning to work and you see teams pulling together. It'll be even more exciting when one of them is really successful."