The Government's Seed Co-investment Fund will today put the call out for angel investors who want to take advantage of $40 million it plans to spend in the next five years.
Angel investors are typically wealthy entrepreneurs prepared to take the risk of backing innovative companies in the start-up phase.
The fund, which is looking to partner private investors, can offer up to $4 million to each partner it commits to. It has a limit of $250,000 to put into any one deal, but is ideally looking for just 10 private investors to partner.
New Zealand Venture Investment Fund chief executive Franceska Banga said it would be up to the angel investors to bring strong start-up companies into the partnerships. Investors will be required to match the seed fund's level of investment.
"We'll pre-approve our investment partners and they'll go out and look for the deals," she said.
"They're the ones with the entrepreneurial nous. But we'd expect to see things coming out of incubators and technology parks and from the agriculture sector."
The time frame for these kind of Venture capital investments was typically expected to be between 10 and 12 years.
The $40 million for the seed fund was announced by the Government in July as part of a wider strategy to increase investment in the innovative sector.
New Zealand Venture Investment Fund is the Crown-owned company responsible for implementing that strategy.
