Students from 10 pakihi (business) graduated from Ringa Rautia, a 10-week business development programme for Ngāti Whakaue-owned businesses. Photo / Akoni Pakinga
The entrepreneurial skills of Ngāti Whakaue people are being nurtured to create new businesses, which help not only new enterprises but the entire iwi and community.
Ngāti Whakaue Assets Trust (NWAT) partnered with Toi Ohomai and Ngāti Whakaue Education Endowment Trust to run its second Ringa Rautia, a 10-week business development programme specifically for Ngāti Whakaue-owned businesses.
The graduation ceremony for the second cohort of 10 Ringa Rautia pakihi (business) took place on June 7 in Rotorua.
The free programme is designed to strengthen and grow Ngāti Whakaue startups, with a focus on helping each pakihi develop a comprehensive business plan. Weekly workshops focus on different areas of the business plan, followed by weekly one-on-one sessions with a dedicated business coach, Linda Bradbrook, and an opportunity to gain a grant of up to $5000 upon completion.
NWAT chairman Hemi Rolleston said the programme had allowed pakihi to level up their business ideas alongside other like-minded Ngāti Whakaue uri (descendants).
“We’re thrilled to support another group of Ngāti Whakaue entrepreneurs to set strong foundations for their pakihi. When we invest to further develop their skills and expertise, we create opportunities so our people can build their own capability,” he said.
Maurice Stone (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pūkeko) has been building for 16 years and was looking at going into business for himself.
Stone said when he saw the programme being offered to Ngāti Whakaue startups for free, he could not pass up the opportunity.
“I wanted a little bit more knowledge on aspects that can pop up when working for yourself. I was pretty excited to learn more things before heading out on my own business venture,” he said.
His business aspirations were twofold. The first was to start a small building company of his own. The second was to go into partnership with a friend – a building inspector with a similar desire to work for himself – to carry out building reports.
He believed the two ventures work hand-in-hand.
“The one-on-one coaching sessions with Linda have helped me write a business plan and shown where I can be a little more clever in utilising my money. While I knew some of it, it has given me a little more confidence in going out on my own and confirming whether I was on the right track,” he said.
“It has been awesome learning the different aspects of starting a company and seeing other Ngāti Whakaue businesses that could potentially come out of the programme.”
Utilising whānau land to operate a sustainable business was also a stone’s throw away for Waretini and Kaea Walters. The father and son duo from Maketū look forward to establishing Toia Construction, a cabin-building business to help whānau who need extra living space.
Waretini Walters (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Pūkenga) said the pair decided to do the Ringa Rautia programme to ensure they had all their bases covered when starting up their business.
“I just wanted to make sure we were doing all the little things right because there were a lot of gaps we didn’t know about, such as tax, companies register, and marketing.
“The programme has been excellent and the people from Toi Ohomai who have come on board to teach us have done their job really well. They’re passionate about what they do, and that always makes a difference. For anything that we haven’t fully understood, they’ve given us material so we can go back over it.
“It has been great to do Ringa Rautia with my son as well. It has given us the chance to access tools and resources we didn’t know were out there. It’s about me and my son working together to work for ourselves eventually.”
Enterprise Angels, an angel investment group based in Tauranga, has launched its fourth fund targeting $5 million to invest in the next generation of innovative startups that aim to become iconic New Zealand companies.
The fund’s focus is angel/seed stage high-growth private companies from a broad sector range. It aims to leverage the diverse expertise within Enterprise Angels membership base, the team’s learnings from 15 years of investment in this sector and the ability to cherry-pick from the group’s current portfolio.
The company’s chief executive officer, Nina Le Lievre, leads the angel investment group with a six-strong team and 200-plus members who predominantly reside in Tauranga and Hamilton, although members were spread throughout New Zealand with a handful overseas.
The group has invested more than $60m in 100-plus New Zealand startups and this year was celebrating 15 years of angel investing.
Combined, Enterprise Angels’ previous three side-car funds have invested in almost 60 early-stage companies and realised some notable exits including software companies: Volpara, Merlot Aero, SwipedOn and Moxion.
Other portfolio companies include Fuel50, Foundry Lab, Parrot Analytics, Rockit Global, Spoke, UBCO, Mint Innovation and Fileinvite. The portfolio has supported more than 1200 jobs and combined portfolio revenue for the year ending March 2023 exceeds $180m.
EA Fund 4 will be like previous Enterprise Angels funds in many ways, but the key differentiator was it will not be a ‘side-car fund’, meaning it can invest independently of the angel group, undertaking due diligence and accessing deals from a broader range of sources providing greater diversification for investors and a more streamlined process for startups.
The fund’s managers were aiming to raise $5m with a maximum of $10m.
Le Lievre has designed the fund to leverage the organisation’s years of experience in investing and to support the need for quality deals for the numerous VC funds that have formed in recent years subsequent to the Government’s $300m Fund of Funds programme to invest in high growth New Zealand companies as they grow to Series A and beyond.
“We’ve received strong support from those who know us best, members and existing limited partners, having achieved our ‘first close’ exceeding $2m. Almost a quarter of this investment has come from the EA GP Board and Investment Committee showing their strong belief and commitment in the new fund model,” Le Lievre said.
Despite the current economic uncertainty, Le Lievre said she was confident now was a good time to be investing in startups.
“We are seeing good value investment opportunities into well-performing companies at valuations that could only be dreamed of 12 months ago.”
Dissecting undigested prey may sound a bit gruesome, but a Rotorua charity is using this method to advance our understanding of the diet and health of New Zealand’s birds of prey – including one relatively new arrival to our shores.
The carnivorous birds, which include the New Zealand falcon (kārearea), morepork (ruru) and swamp harrier (kāhu), are unable to digest all parts of their prey, so expel the remains as pellets.
Wingspan National Bird of Prey Centre administration manager Shannon Campion said the benefit of studying these pellets was that they can dissect them, look at the remains and identify what the birds have been eating.
“This is much more reliable than trying to observe the birds in the wild to see what they eat.”
In March this year, Wingspan ran its first-ever pellet dissection workshop focused on the diet of barn owls - a fairly new species in New Zealand.
“They’ve been flying across the Tasman from Australia for a long time now, with the first reported sighting in 1947, but they weren’t recorded breeding here until 2008,” Campion said.
“So there’s more to learn about what their impact will be, whether they will affect the populations of the prey they eat, and whether they compete with other native species - so far we consider their presence to be fairly benign.”
The workshop was funded by a $6580 grant from the ANZ New Zealand Staff Foundation and included attendees from the Department of Conservation, private conservation and restoration groups, students, and people working in bird rehabilitation.
Campion said the grant covered staff salaries and equipment, as well as allowing them to offer the workshop free of charge.
“We generally don’t receive government funding, or through local bodies, but we do have a member base who contribute donations, and we rely a lot on volunteers to help us do the work we do.”
After the success of the pellet dissection workshop, Wingspan was now looking to run a series of similar events in future, with the hope that skills and knowledge in this area can be passed on, and research and conservation of our birds of prey can continue.
The Business Digest is compiled from press releases.
The Bay of Plenty maritime team will be checking for rule compliance.