National network to help start-ups

Mark Stuart

Homegrown technology start-ups are to get a boost from a new $8 million angel investment network.

AngelLink brings together early-stage investors from around the country with particular expertise in life sciences, engineering and information technology.

Its members include leading tech investors such as Movac, an early investor in Trade Me, and Stephen Tindall's K1W1 fund.

It has partnered with the Government-backed New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF), which will contribute half of the initial $8 million pool.

AngelLink was the idea of WaikatoLink, the commercial arm of the University of Waikato.

WaikatoLink chief executive Mark Stuart said the sector required a certain type of investor who understood the challenges of getting a research-driven start-up to market.

He said until now such investors had been scattered around the country among regional angel networks, which tended to look for local projects to invest in.

"Putting together a start-up company that's come out of 10 years of publicly funded research that might have occurred across several institutions, that's quite different from just helping an entrepreneur put together a small opportunity," he said.

The timing of a national network such as AngelLink was "spot on", with WaikatoLink and other research institutions having deals waiting to come through.

One of the first ventures WaikatoLink will put into the new network is OBodies, a company using proteins engineered to have advantages over the antibodies available on the market.

OBodies can be used where antibodies would perform poorly, such as when non-refrigerated storage is important.

They can also be used in the detection of infectious diseases in rapid diagnostics test kits.

NZVIF is involved in AngelLink through its $40 million Seed Co-Investment Fund, its direct investment vehicle aimed at early-stage businesses with potential for high growth.