Latest / Best of Business / Robbie Paul: Icehouse Ventures CEO on the number of young Kiwi start-ups and investors

Transcript

Robbie Paul: Icehouse Ventures CEO on the number of young Kiwi start-ups and investors · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed Be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Now. This time yesterday, we were talking about the comments
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: made by a pick of Picks peanut butter, and it
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: was in an interview, a wide ranging interview and probably
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: a but unfair to single them out, but he said,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I despair the number of kids who dream of nothing
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: other than going to university and studying marketing and selling
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: more crap to people. I just did it without knowing
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: what I was meant to be doing. I think it
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: worked just by taking a chance. He's worried that he
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: we's no longer young, key, we's no longer have that
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: number eight wire mentality the future entrepreneurs where all they
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: come from. So he was musing a lot about that,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: and I was defending younger people, saying they're doing all
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: sorts of amazing things from startup companies and science fairs,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: and there's all sorts of right ideas. And then I
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: saw a story this morning about a showcase last week
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: where one thousand investors gathered for a banquet at Spark
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Arena where businesses presented to them. Startup business is presented
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: to them. It's from ice House Ventures. It's a venture
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: capital company that backs Kiwi's launching startups by investing in
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: their ideas and futures. And last Thursday was their fifteenth
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: annual showcase. Nine key we founders presented to more than
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: fifteen hundred investors at Spark Arena and across the country.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Ice House Ventures Chief executive Robbie Pool joins me, Now,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: a very good morning to you.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Great to be here. Thanks.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Are you batting off bright? Young Kei? We entrepreneurs with
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: a bat You know, basically you've got more startup companies
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: approaching you than you can manage.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: There's a stunning group of companies up and coming, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: young founders in particular are coming and drove. So we're
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: really bullish. You know, I share your view on that
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: that it's it's sort of an unstoppable force. At this point,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: companies tend to come from other companies or founders tend
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: to be inspired to start companies looking at other success stories,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: and there's just more of those, which is creating more
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: new startups.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: What makes a good entrepreneur?
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's so many factors, right, and I think, first off,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: a good entrepreneur isn't made at a single moment. A
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: good entrepreneurs made by successive failures and mistakes and overcoming
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: hurdles and many years right. And so there were plenty
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: of other founders out there the same day that Sir
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Peter beck was starting Rocket Lab that had other ideas,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: and not all of them are standing in the same
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: form as Pete today. So what made him great was
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: is being persistent, picking a huge opportunity and going after
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: it and winning.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And it's amazing what people see, Like I'm always amazed
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: at the at the way that science and far has
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: been cheek by Jarl in this country ever since refrigerated
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: shipping transformed our history. Really because they like Halter, I
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: think is one of those amazing companies as well.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Halter's just an exemplary example. So they were at the
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: twenty fifteen showcase. Craig actually was an intern for Sir
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Peter Beckett Rocket Lab and grew up on a dairy farm,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: and Pete introduced me to Craig when he was working
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: on a different idea that was not quite as compelling,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: and then Craig went away with his co founders and
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: observed something on the dairy farm which is that you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: animals need to be cajoled even though they're relatively intelligent
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: to move or stay. And so we had a hypothesis
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: that he could do that using sound and vibration on
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: a geolocated collar. And that was a hypothesis, and half
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: a million cows later, that's a very well proven opportunity.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Do you get a real kitching moment when some of
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: these young people come to you pitching their ideas?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: It's so exciting. Yeah. And you know, the one stat
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: that I love the most is that if you look
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: at the one hundred and fifty six companies at the
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: showcase events over the last fourteen years, right, and we
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: invested in one hundred and twenty of them, if you
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: were to segment those by age, just by decades, so
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: did you start in your twenties, thirty forties and so on.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Most people wouldn't believe this, but the highest performing group
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: are the twenty year old founders, right, And I think
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: there's some good reasons for that.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Young founders are closer to innovation. There's certainly more capital efficient, right.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: They don't have kids and mortgages and private schools and
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: the like, and so rather than having to take home
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: large salaries, they can spend that on advancing their business, right,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: and if they can do that, they can achieve more
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: with less, and thus the investors benefit, right, And they're
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: also more more prone I think, to sort of swing
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: for the fences, right, they have nothing in us, they
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: might as well build something huge and go for it.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: And it's not just Halter, right, it's Crimson and partly
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: in Chersias and don Aerospace and Ethnic and more and
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: more young founders that have really proved themselves.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And are they getting the investment they need from New
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Zealand because for too long we had so many bright
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: ideas that couldn't get the capital they needed to take
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: it to the next step, so they had to sell
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: to overseas companies. Correct.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: That was a problem, and I don't believe it's a
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: problem anymore. Right. There's an abundant amount of capital that's
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: come into this market. It notably over the last decade,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: about thirty new venture funds I've established, and all of
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: the venture funds are raised by my account, one point
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: nine billion dollars, right, So that's another one point nine
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: billion sitting there to invest in ambitious young entrepreneurs and
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: capital scarcity I don't believe is a limiting factor. I
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: think the good news is the great entrepreneurs can raise
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: as much as they want, and the best part of
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: the news is that if they do so, they can
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: raise from Kiwis and thus the sort of virtuous cycle
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: can go on.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I think that when you talk about
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the young people who take the swing and aren't afraid
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: to go for it, they don't see New Zealand as
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the end of their dreams. They don't see a batch
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: and a BMW and you know, whatever it was that
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: used to be the ultimate for kiwis that stopped them
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: from going further. They had enough, so they stopped. Whereas
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: these kids want global domination, don't they some of them?
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean mission driven entrepreneurs is sort of what
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: we look for, right, And a mission of sort of
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: buying a batch is not something that's going to inspire
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: most investors to jump in, right. And again, you know,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: I love that sort of expression. You cannot be what
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: you cannot see, and you can understand why a decade ago,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: most entrepreneurs you're not able to see global success stories
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: and thus, you know, struggle to sort of visualize how
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: they could become one right fast forward and you can
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: see not just you know, Sir Peter Beck and Rod
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: at zero, but you can actually see young founders not
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: that much older than you, like Jamie Beaton of Crimson
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: and Craig of Halter, having built really consequential businesses. And
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I think that inspires a lot of engagement and hope.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So there's no entrepreneurs entrepreneurs school, is there? How do
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: young go getters go and get it?
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. I think the goodness is there's
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: you know, open doors across this country and frankly around
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: the world with kiwi's and folks that have had some
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: success and learned and had tribulations are more often than
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: not excited to share those with future generations. And so that, Yeah,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: my core guidance is just get on the phone, go
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: on LinkedIn, and within ten minutes you can pretty much
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: connect anybody anywhere and learn from them, you know. And
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: then second is that some of the best group to
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: learn from are not the entrepreneurs who builds a multi
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: billion dollar company, but ones that are just slightly ahead
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: of you. They've raised one more around the capital, they've
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: hired somebody, they've dealt with directors, they've redomiciled their company
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: offshore and those types of things. And the best thing
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: about entrepreneurs is when they're speaking to other entrepreneurs, they
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: have no agenda except to help those founders succeed.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And how did you choose who who was going to
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: present to the investors on the night? That must have
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: been tricky.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: It's a very difficult exercise.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: And to showcase a variety of businesses, wouldn't you correct? Right?
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I like to say to software companies, you're not competing
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: for one of ten slots. You're competing for really one
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: of one, because you can't have ten. Early stage can't
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: have ten, late stage, can't have ten software, hardware, medtech,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: you know, young founder, old founder, and so on. But
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the other thing is that you know, the capital raises
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: of great companies, don't you know? They don't take place
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: on a sort of a predictable timeline, right, Great companies
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: can raise quickly, and so having a fixed time to
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: you know, to present means that we have to sort
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: of work within those constraints, and and often that you know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: requires quite a bit of sort of cajoling and and
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: hustling to make sure that they show up.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And was it a success? Again, it was a great success.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all nine companies did phenomenally.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: They all attracted a lot of interest and you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: time will tell. The hard work begins after this event.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: But generally the ideas is, you know, uh, you sell
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: your vision and attract support and then from there through
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: the heavy lifting to convince people to jump on board.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we've convinced people that the entrepreneurs brou
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It is alive and well. Robbie, thank you very much
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: for your time, Robbie Pool from my sales bench as CEO.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: It is amazing. Honestly when you look at those who presented,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: and they're just the ones who presented to the investors,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what they do. The descriptions are
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: so specific and amazing. I have no idea what it
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: is that they do, but apparently it's very very good
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: and we'll go on to be enormously successful. Like Holter,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I think is my favorite one.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talks b listen live on air
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: or online and keep our shows with you wherever you
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio