Fintech start-ups pitch for funds

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Three of the financial technology start-ups in the Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator programme pitched their ideas to investors before the public demonstration day event in Wellington last week.

Creative HQ's Lightning Lab separated out the investment pitches from the main event which attracted more than 500 people at last Friday's demo day, saying the single presentation of the past programmes had been confusing for both the audience and the start-ups. A Creative HQ spokeswoman said Flatfish, Sharesies and AccountingPod sought financial backers in a separate briefing, although she declined on their behalf to say how much money each was seeking.

The fintech programme was the first of its kind, allowing participants to develop and validate their business ideas so they could be pitched to the start-up and investment community. State-owned lender Kiwibank sponsored the accelerator, which was co-funded by Callaghan Innovation and software developer Xero.

At the public event, Flatfish chief executive Tal Meser said the start-up was already generating monthly recurring revenue of $1,000, with 1,000 rental properties listed on a platform where property managers and/or landlords can communicate with their tenants to deal with maintenance issues.

It expects to generate $100,000 of annual recurring revenue by the end of the year, which would include expanding into Australia, and would look to raise more capital to gauge entering the UK, underpinning a goal of achieving $1 million of annual recurring revenue, something Meser described as "pretty ambitious".

"Flatfish has a global opportunity," Meser said. "We all know the timing's perfect with the rising demand in rental properties all around the world."

AccountingPod had more than 200 registered users of its accounting simulation education product, and co-founder XingDong Yan said the start-up projected 5,000 students would be using its platform within 12 months to generate annual revenue of $1m. The platform gives students real-world simulations to try to overcome the oft-used reason for rejecting a graduate because they lack experience.

"We have redesigned financial education for today's business students," Yan said. "AccountingPod to them is like a flight simulator to pilots."

Sharesies wants to create an investment platform to let people make regular small investments in a broad range of funds, giving them access to opportunities which typically have a minimum investment. The platform has 2,200 people waiting to join the beta site when it's launched in the next few weeks, and chief executive Brooke Anderson said it hopes to branch into Australia within 12-to-18 months.

"Kiwis want the ability to be investing, but they can't" with three main hurdles to overcome: the sector's jargon; minimum investments pricing them out of the market; and because the majority of financial institutions "only target the wealthy few," Anderson said. "At Sharesies we're going to change that - we're annihilating those barriers that stop the majority of New Zealanders from becoming investors today."

Of the seven start-ups to go through the programme, two were Kiwibank teams and not seeking external backers. One of the five independent start-ups, Teddy, wasn't raising money at the moment, although co-founder Calum MacLeod said it may do in the months ahead, while Liberac ditched its plan to reduce the cost of remittances to the Pacific Islands after finding there was no problem that needed fixing and is now looking at how the convergence of education and fintech products can benefit those communities.