By ROB O'NEILL
Venture capital firm No 8 Ventures has paid $1.5 million for a 25 per cent stake in organic waste processing technology company Willson Brown Associates, its first move outside the software and internet spheres.
Jenny Morel, of Wellington's Morel Ventures which manages No 8 Ventures, said the firm had always been interested in biotech and electronics as well as information technology ventures.
"We very deliberately specified we were interested in technology - and that's a reasonably broad span," she said. "Apart from our interests going wider than information technology, it also seemed a good idea for our investors to go wider than that."
As part of the deal Ms Morel and Hugh Fletcher, a member of the Morel investment committee, will become Willson Brown directors.
The company has developed vertical composting units which use a biomechanical process to quickly break down and recycle organic waste. The units have low energy requirements and low operational costs, needing to be tended for only a couple of hours a day.
In addition to a high-profile reference site on Lord Howe Island to deal with human and other organic waste in the tourist season, the units are in use in Sydney, at Unitec in Auckland, in Sheffield, England, and elsewhere. Another unit in Sydney was ready to be installed to process poultry industry waste, said Willson Brown chief executive Paul Brown.
"It's being assessed by the Department of Agriculture in New South Wales to see if it can break the cycle of the Newcastle Disease," he said. Yet another was going into the Waikato to be used alongside another treatment technology.
Mr Brown paid tribute to the role Trade New Zealand played in providing key introductions that had led to international distribution agreements in markets including Finland, Sri Lanka, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
The $1.5 million funding, he said, would be used to develop the business structure of the company and to expand marketing.
"We are going to appoint an experienced general manager and restructure the whole company to give it structures and systems to consolidate into its market," he said. As part of that process Mr Brown will take on the role of executive director responsible for international marketing.
However, do not expect a public listing soon from Willson Brown or No 8 Ventures' other investments.
"We are not in a hurry to list," said Ms Morel. "Our goal, with all the companies we invest in, is that they should list one day. We are reasonably patient and look at a three-to-five-year time-frame."
Ms Morel said she was more interested in supporting the companies to grow. A listing could be a distraction from that.
"Our money means they don't have to list so quickly."
No 8 Ventures' first investment in July last year was in Tacit Group, which supplies software for financial institutions. It has grown from 70 to 155 staff since then.
Its other investment, in December 1999, was in TimeMaster Systems, which provides human resource and payroll services across the internet. It has grown from 35 to around 70 staff.
No 8 Ventures raised $27 million in investment funds from "high net worth individuals" last year.
No 8 looks to biotech firm's waste venture
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