A strong and growing start-up community is an essential element in building a resilient, high-value economy.  Priority One is a strategic partner of local angel investment entity, Enterprise Angels, and recently hosted one of their regular pitch nights and AGM.  Established by Bill Murphy in 2008, Enterprise Angels is a membership-based investment network who’s objective is to connect experienced early stage investors with entrepreneurs and innovators.  The organisation is now one of the largest, most active and best resourced Angel groups in the country with over 200 members and a portfolio of over $70m invested in 110+ companies. 

The purpose of a pitch night is to introduce investment ready businesses to Enterprise Angel members.  Prior to a pitch night the Enterprise Angels team conduct a screening process on all prospective companies to ensure they have a viable offering for investors, as well as providing advice and coaching to the entrepreneurs to ensure pitches are succinct and on-point for the investment community.  Each start-up is given five minutes to pitch followed by five minutes Q&A from the audience.  Written feedback is also provided by the audience to indicate their interest in each pitching company.  If there’s sufficient interest shown in a company, the Enterprise Angels team will initiate due diligence.

This pitch night and AGM was particularly special as Founder and Executive Chair Bill Murphy stepped down from the Enterprise Angels board to focus on growing the impact investment fund, Purpose Capital, which he founded in 2019.  Bill’s contribution to the local and national start-up eco-system can’t be understated and we look forward to watching the growth of New Zealand’s social and environmentally-driven enterprise sector with Bill at the helm of Purpose Capital. And welcomed Carolyn Culliney, Special Counsel at Cooney Lees Morgan, as the new incoming Chair.