Bridgewest Ventures NZ - 2020 Annual Report

Our 2020 Annual Report is now available to download.

What a first year; when we set off on this great adventure to establish the New Zealand arm of Bridgewest Ventures it was just in time for the world to turn on its head. We had expected to be fully operating by April 2020 but the pandemic delayed with contract negotiations with Callaghan Innovation, meaning delays to investment. We used this time to work closely with our colleagues from Brandon Capital, WNT Ventures, and Sprout to help refine the Deep Tech Incubator Programme goals and our individual parts in it.

Lockdown posed some other challenges as we worked to build relationships across the New Zealand Deep Tech Innovation Ecosystem with key partners and supporters. We saw a lot of home offices, and got to know some amazing people in that time. Contracts were signed in June leading into our first venture investments into New Zealand.

The deep tech ecosystem in New Zealand is very healthy, and the support from the New Zealand Government is exceptional. The programmes managed and supported by MBIE and Callaghan Innovation in particular provide a tremendous amount of velocity to the sector, and the ecosystem energy and drive provided by KiwiNet, the Angel Association, Return on Science and other supporters and investors has been impressive. We have been overwhelmed by the professionalism and openness of the various university technology transfer teams and Crown Research Institutes commercial arms across the country.