In February 2020 entrepreneur Jessica Manins thought the company she co-founded had cracked the United States.
Beyond Studio's virtual reality game Oddball had been picked up by amusement park firm Two Bit Circus.
The press release went out on February 29. One day earlier New Zealand reported its first case of Covid-19.
The firm had raised money, it had received a research and development grant from Callaghan Innovation, Beyond had done the research and development and netted the ultimate first client, "selling it into the biggest place you can sell into in the US", which Manins expected would lead to a flood of interest.
Which it did. Manins says celebrities played Oddball and loved it, the Wellington-based company had approaches about making exclusive content for other arcade chains. Beyond seemed to be on a roll.
But then, pandemic.
"It was like, 'oh my god, this is happening'," Manins says. "We literally got on the plane after flying over [to the US] with my co-founder, Anton. We got back into New Zealand, and we had seen the signs. If you come from China, you need to not go through the gates. And we're thinking, 'what's going on?' Something about this Covid thing, whatevs. And then two weeks later the whole world just shut down. I had a phone call from my first investor, and he just said, 'it's over.'"
Manins says she didn't believe it was over. But the investor pointed out Beyond's game needed to be played in entertainment centres, and its physical market was gone — while potential customers were being told to stay home.
The next phone call Manins fielded was the cancellation of a contract. The call after that was to cancel a sponsorship deal Beyond had to tour its game around the country.
Then Manins was the one making calls. She says she called everyone she knew trying to find money, trying to keep going, trying to just extend the funding runway a little bit longer. For even one month.
"If I could get through Covid, and the lockdown, maybe we could make it," she says. "But I couldn't. So I had to make the decision to let all of the team go. I had to bring them all up on Zooms, because we're at home, and just say, we were out of cash. It's over ... At that time, there were just six of us, but as an early stage start-up they were with us from day one on this ride. It's pretty gutting."
From there it was a scramble to try and find some kind of deal. Manins says she remembered that Weta Workshop's Richard Taylor had played Beyond's game and loved it. Beyond approached Weta and managed to wrangle a deal to build a game people could play while they were stuck at home, called Combonauts.
"And with that, I managed to raise some more money and then I had to build a whole new team up again."
The former team had moved on and found new jobs. But Beyond was back from the brink.
In addition to inking a deal with Weta, Beyond turned its commercial space in central Wellington into a gaming space where people could play Oddball. Manins worked every weekend with her son at her side taking thousands of people through the game to keep much-needed cash coming in.
She said you quickly learn in challenging times who is really rising with you as a founder, who will stick with you through the tough times, and who will fade into the background.
"That was a pivotal point in my my journey, where I realised I needed to find the right people. Surround yourself with brilliant, kind, people."
Manins was one of the speakers at Electrify Aotearoa, a founders conference for women and non-binary people which was held in Auckland on August 1.
Run by Christchurch start-up booster Ministry of Awesome, Electrify says it is New Zealand's must-attend conference for aspiring women entrepreneurs, founders, and the many people helping build a strong wahine start-up community.
More start-ups please
Ministry of Awesome chief executive Marian Johnson said New Zealand needed to more than double the number of high-growth start-ups.
The fastest way to achieve that was to ensure “our most talented women innovators receive the support and capital investment they deserve”, she said.
“All around the world, the numbers of women founders are rising and their level of success is growing but we are still only a tiny minority swimming in a sea of dudes in hoodies and hamstrung by weak recognition of our capability and potential economic impact.”
Johnson said women’s under-representation as start-up founders was shaving $22b off New Zealand's potential economic growth, based on 2019 research by the Boston Consulting Group which estimated a 3%-to-6% uplift in national GDP when start-up gender parity was achieved.
A report released in June authored by Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network calculated the value of New Zealand’s start-up ecosystem at $9.13 billion. This number was reached by working out the value of exits and start-up valuations from July 1 2020 to December 31, 2022.
Brisbane was closest in terms of ecosystem valuation of our Oceania peers, with a start-up ecosystem valued at $8.87b with Sydney and Melbourne well ahead, valued at $77.76b and $24.82b respectively.
The Startup Genome report, released in partnership with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, found the rate of female founders in New Zealand at 26% was one of the higher rates globally, and had increased from 16% since its previous survey in 2017.
“Female founders have credited an evolving culture and the emergence of informal meetups with other female founders as factors in this growth. As more start-ups led by women succeed — such as Thematic, a Y Combinator-backed SaaS company, or Sharesies, an investment platform that has raised more than $50 million — female start-up participation in New Zealand should continue to rise,” the report said.
The 2023 Global Startup Ecosystem Report ranked the top 30 global start-up ecosystems, with the US’s Silicon Valley ranked number one and New York and London sharing second.
New Zealand doesn’t make that list, but rather appears on a list of “emerging ecosystems” where it holds the number 20 spot. This improved ranking was attributed to an increase in business exits valued at more than $50 million “and a new unicorn, Lodestone Energy, valued at $1.3b”.
Between 2020 and 2022 the report found early-stage funding raised by New Zealand start-ups almost doubled compared to the previous 36-month period.
Another report, released on August 1 by the Government-appointed Startup Advisory Council, called Upstart Nation, found New Zealand’s start-up density was half that of our global peers.
The Start-up Advisory Council report made a number of recommendations to “transform New Zealand into a thriving hub for innovative upstarts”.
These included removing tax from unrealised gains from employee share option programmes, introducing tax incentives to promote investment and the Government spending an additional $500m venture funding through its New Zealand Growth Capital Partners’ Elevate investment fund.
Minister for Research, Science and Innovation, Ayesha Verrall, says the report identified challenges and opportunities facing many start-up businesses across the country.
“A thriving start-up ecosystem will make a significant contribution to the shift to a high-wage, low-emissions economy and we are committed to continuing to fostering growth, innovation and job creation,” Verrall says.
Verrall says the Government will take time to carefully consider the Council’s report and their recommendations to support and strengthen the environment for New Zealand start-ups.
29 Comments
Thematic, a Y Combinator-backed SaaS company, or Sharesies, an investment platform that has raised more than $50 million
I know Alyona from Thematic and was engaging with her from the early days of Thematic. Fantastic solution even though these solutions are somewhat of a dime a dozen these days. Unfortunately the real value is in the data collection, regardless if you have to best tools available.
And don't forget the mandatory Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer who will insist that any funding is contingent on hiring Maori, transgender and non-binary people to improve their business performance. Being a woman is simply not enough to tick all the boxes these days.
I got a survey from Business NZ recently about the state of construction and how to improve it. Multi choice, most of the questions were about inclusivity, sustainability, etc.
Even if those things are important, factoring them into construction work will have the inverse effect of the core task for construction; building stuff.
Yes, the DEI rep who will insist on this, and then disappear when it is time to be accountable for performance of the team they 'help' to assemble.
What is badly needed is HR/DEI reps to be held accountable (along with the leaders) for the outcomes. We will immediately see a drop in DEI officers at many workplaces.
WTF are you talking about KW? Show me a Maori or Non-Binary executive at one of the major banks or any NZX50 company for that matter. Maybe a couple but nowhere close to proportion.
Let's be clear about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion - a better term is white women.
Karna Luke (Nga Ruahine Iwi, Taranaki)
Executive, Customer, Products & Services
https://www.bnz.co.nz/about-us/governance
Merewaakana (Mere) Kingi
Future Directors Programme
Probably because they are all employed on $300,000 a year salaries in the Labour Party and all its Govt departments.
Like the Reserve Bank - check out the qualifications of the people appointed to run monetary policy in NZ
Rawinia Higgins is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Māori of Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. Her research expertise is Māori language revitalisation and, more specifically, language planning and policy and she was instrumental in shaping the current Māori language legislation and policy framework. Rawinia holds a Diploma in Māoritanga / Tohu Māoritanga and a Bachelor of Arts from Te Herenga Waka.
Hinerangi Raumati-Tu’ua is the Chair of Tainui Group Holdings Limited and Te Pou Herenga Pakihi Limited. Previous governance roles include Te Kiwai Maui o Ngaruahine Limited (as Chair) Aotearoa Fisheries Limited (Moana NZ) (as Chair), Sealord Group Limited, Parininihi Ki Waitotara Incorporation (as Chair), Venture Taranaki Trust, Port Nicholson Fisheries Limited, Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Limited, Auckland Council Investments Limited, Public Trust, and Waikato Community Trust. Hinerangi has focused on the development of post settlement commercial entities and commercial frameworks with a Te Ao Māori view. She has served as CFO of Tainui Group Holdings and Executive Director Operations at Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
Agreed. I went to a particular construction profession conference this year, and sat in on the diversity and inclusion seminar. There were 3 white women and one Indian man on the panel. And the agenda had clearly been hijacked by feminist ideology. The poor Indian lad was practically cowering while he spoke "cap in hand" and even he only spoke about getting an equal number of women in the profession. It's crazy how the most privileged group of people on the planet have hijacked a victimhood movement.
Except Maori have 20 x better employment rates than disabled people and there are literally no disabled people in any banks management roles, and Maori have even more than better representation in government roles in parliament and monetary policy. Contrast the higher Maori representation than population numbers whereas disabled people number 25% of the population and less than 1% of employment numbers. You are deliberately ignoring the most discriminated group with the poorest wellbeing in an extreme example of ableism as you consider them not existing and not deserving of the basic rights and access to the community & work as other humans.
funding should (and tends to) follow the probability of success and scale of a start up... we shouldnt be trying to bias that toward sex (or race for that matter) as it will only lessen the probability of success in NZ.
A simpler way to improve the number and success rates of start ups would be to dampen the enthusiasm for investment in property in NZ so investment money needs to find a new home. Job done.
whether its a male or female founder, vertical market, reliance of closeness to its market - whatever the profile of a business the simple thing for the founder is proving growth is possible and more likely than investing elsewhere.
NZ Govt spends way to much time worrying about (and funding) ways to achieve equality and trying to lead the market in socialist directions - instead of letting darwinism/capitalism chart its natural course. And simply creating a business environment where business leaders choose to site themselves because they can can prosper, get investment and make more money than in other countries.
Not job done. Investing in start ups is high risk and high stakes.
Agreed. Now involved in one and I was invited to be a seed investor / involved in business early on and I declined because I didn't believe in the business viability (crowded mkt In thought). 4 yrs later the business is now at USD1.6 mio on a roughly 50% cost of sales. Profits being ploughed back in to the business.
it is. however in NZ traditionally the return on property is significant enough that peoples money doesnt end up in productive businesses or start ups.
we should have an investment model where say 25% is in property, 25% business, 5% in start ups (high risk), 5% in cash funds ... etc etc - instead one gets the feeling people pile 90% of their wealth into an investment property as they pay no capGains and the governments focus on forcing property prices up via immigration. Kids thus get gjobs in trades/real estate etc.. and our economy weakens as we have no skils or investment in start ups let alone growing traditional productive manufacturing or similar businesses
it is. however in NZ traditionally the return on property is significant enough that peoples money doesnt end up in productive businesses or start ups.
Sure. It depends what you're trying to achieve. If it's purely the domestic market, very hard to be scalable. The start-up Thematics doesn't really have any future in NZ, which is why they've been focused on North America. The start-up I'm connected with is data-related and we can work from Africa to Asia to South America to Europe. Anywhere.
Quite frankly if you had a great idea for a business you would move to Australia to start it. NZ is far too small a market, the costs you would incur to achieve a fraction of the revenue in the NZ market means you are unlikely to really get ahead. A friend of mine has a side hustle in Australia dropshipping goods from China, if she did that here it wouldn't be worth her time. Most businesses need to go local before going global, and that's too hard to do in NZ.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/designer-tamzyn-adding-moves-miss-lolo-bu…
If Tamzyn had started in Australia, she'd probably have a multi-million dollar business by now.
If having women CEOs in business was the way to wealth, many companies could get rid of their pale, male and stale founders and replace them with diversity hires. Instant wealth! /s
There's much more to the situation than the sex of the founder. Stupid click bait statements are so *yawn*
Electrify Aotearoa : a discrimantory inaccessible event that is designed to exclude the poorest and most discriminated female populations by being so ableist they deny access to the building to certain groups of women. Yes NZ society is highly segregated, most visible in cities like Wellington and Auckland where your birth determines whether you will ever be allowed access into buildings to get education and employment. Events like this only show by advertising themselves as "inclusive" just how little they consider the most disadvantaged group to even deserve to exist at any level of society and exclude them at every level of the design process. They certainly seek to discriminate and deny them as customers so the chances they will ever employ or support a business run by a disabled person is even less than zlich.
I really hate the complete and abject failure at inclusion these events hold. The more I see of them the more I see people who have literally next to no real deprivation or discrimination in their lives as they protest the most about minor trivialities while those experiencing real deprivation have to consider regular homelessness, being denied education access, denied GP access leading to sepsis, home surgery, lack of hospital and ER access, lack of enough nutritional food, not having an income or work opportunities for a home or power and not having transport to even go to a park and being denied access to 90%+ of their community and denied access to over 98% of websites (including these abusive designer government funded ventures which strip funding away from those who need it the most). Less than half of disabled people will ever have a chance at employment and minimum wage income in their lifetime. If even one of the orgs at Electrify Aotearoa ever experienced real deprivation they would picket and protest the event from the outset for being so discriminatory.
Sadly since the event is at a location where there is zero transport accessibility for disabled women they have little to no chance to even protest. Way to go. Deny access from the outset and make it clear that only some of the most able bodied women are ever allowed work and support. Making clear Electrify Aotearoa's message is disabled women and LGBTQI+ do not deserve to exist in society, let alone seek employment or self employment.
Ironically as a entrepreneur in business who classifies as female and LGBTQI lead we were denied physical access to many events like this, all these programs literally do deny access and openly discriminate against disabled people so much so that the golden rule "disabled people are only considered by other disabled people or those with close family who are disabled" is only more proven. It is the high degree of open denial of access and bias from these events that sicken me. As the ableism present in the words of every single one of the designers and marketers that attend remind me of the trends that lead to open acceptance of abuse towards disabled people. We have open beneficiary bashing widely accepted as if it was a national sport, we have denial of education, denial of basic living needs for disabled people, for those lucky 1% able to get education and fight to get employment or startups they are denied access and support funding at every turn by these elitist, ableist initiatives. Yet there are cries if ever a woman's kiwisaver is slightly below a man's... except disabled women, they don't deserve an income to live on (let alone a bank or kiwisaver account in their lives). Cries of women & Maori not being over represented in funding or CEOs, except disabled women do not even deserve access as customers let alone ever have a chance of work or investment.
This is the true issue. In diversity and inclusion not once do they consider disabled people to exist. They are excluded from the outset not only by policy, but also physically and by design.
I literally want to throw up when I read this article it is enough to make any LGBTQI+ & female disabled entrepreneur business team suicidal. Of our team all are non binary, highly skilled in engineering, tech and medicine, & most experienced discrimination being identified as women (sometimes wrongly) but it literally pales in comparison to the severe abuse of disabled people in this country. This abuse is clearly continued by the "inclusive" discriminatory initiative Electrify Aotearoa. If ever they received one iota of NZ funding they should return it in shame.
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