Posts Tagged ‘The Icehouse’

Self-help tool for Kiwi businesses launched online

Thursday, April 17th, 2014
Photo credit; Laughlin Elkind on Flickr

Photo credit; Laughlin Elkind on Flickr

New Zealand’s business growth centre The Icehouse has unveiled an online tool meant to help small businesses better gauge their performance.

The impetus behind creating the tool was to answer the question of what it means to be a Business of International Quality (BIQ), says Dr Lisbeth Jacobs, Icehouse’s director of strategy and development.

“What we’ve found is that success is not just about operating internationally, it’s about being of a certain quality,” Jacobs said.

The Icehouse worked with Professor Darl Kolb at The University of Auckland to create the online BIQ Barometer tool.

In less than an hour, businesses can have a personalised report detailing how they perform in six key areas as well as highlighting areas for further development.

The six key areas are:
  • Leadership,
  • Offering,
  • Market,
  • Processes,
  • Governance, and
  • Capital.
According to Jacobs, these are the six areas which contribute most to the success of Kiwi organisations.

By answering the simple questions across each of the areas, businesses have instant access to a tailored and personalised report.

The Icehouse expects more than 500 New Zealand small and medium sized businesses will complete the self-assessment tool this year.

The full BIQ barometer tool costs $249 or a one dimension analysis can be obtained at no charge.

To use the BIQ barometer, click here.

To read more about this story, click here.

Ice Angels doubled investment in Kiwi startups for 2013

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

 

Photo credit; Elliott Brown on Flickr

Photo credit; Elliott Brown on Flickr

The Icehouse, a business growth centre, and its angel investment network known as the Ice Angels have announced a record year, investing more than $7.8 million into 26 New Zealand companies in 2013.

More than half of the 39 companies that pitched their ideas at Ice Angels investment events successfully attracted investment.

The Angels include more than 200 global CEOs, entrepreneurs, and professional investors.

The director of the Ice Angels Ken Erskine says there are a number of reasons behind last year’s success.

“To begin with, greater coordination with other investment groups around New Zealand has worked well to enable more startups to raise more money.”

The Ice Angels’ collective investment of $7,890,819 in 2013, is almost double the amount invested in the previous two years.

“Last year, Ice Angel’s portfolio companies including Booktrack, Stolen Rum, and Nexus6 secured significant amounts of venture capital, launched new products, and successfully broke into overseas markets,” said Erskine.

To read more about this story, click here.

OnSport co-founder gets new investors, ready to launch site in February

Thursday, December 19th, 2013
Photo credit; Barry Skeates on Flickr

Photo credit; Barry Skeates on Flickr

Pat MacFie, co-founder of OnSport and a partner at Socialize Group, recently snagged two investors for his startup social media platform at the NZ Angel Investment Showcase at the Icehouse.

MacFie sat down with the New Zealand Herald last month to talk about his vision for OnSport, saying the company’s goal was to build a sports media business of global significance.

“Our goal is provide our customers with a way to make money from every tweet or post and every member of their community,” he told the newspaper.

MacFie said investors liked the scalability of the business model and the fact that they’re solving a really big problem that’s particularly relevant to the current era of the social web.

The OnSport co-founder said the company plans to spend the new investment money on business development, signing up athletes, teams and ad partners.

The OnSport site launches in February.

To read more about this story, click here.