Scheme enables US entry

By RICHARD WOOD

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise has set up a "beachhead" programme to help local high-technology firms enter the United States market through a deal with British serviced office space company Regus.

Trade and Enterprise's Silicon Valley-based business development manager, David Mayes, says the initial focus of the programme is on enterprise software, telecommunications, health and biotech.

He said the cost to companies was $23,500 but the estimated value, which included assistance from an advisory board, was $125,000.

Regus could provide space throughout the US, as it does around the globe.

The scheme also allowed for creating a virtual office to connect phones back to New Zealand. A similar British programme was also under way.

Auckland-based software company Descisys was the first of four initial clients to enter the programme.

Mayes has 30 years' experience in new technology and entrepreneurial activity, including 10 years with Intel in Western Europe, and has worked with venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

The US advisory board includes expat New Zealanders David Teece and Andy Lark. Teece is chairman and chief executive of Oakland-based Law and Economic Consultancy Group and Lark is chief marketing officer for Sun Microsystems.

"These people do this off their own backs to assist Kiwi companies in coming into the US marketplace," Mayes said.

Firms signing up will go through a process of preparatory work which might take from 12 to 18 months but Trade and Enterprise was also mindful of the need to be timely.

"It's the quick and the dead in high technology."