ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

In 2011, members of our team helped launch Startup Weekend, a global not-for-profit throughout New Zealand. Startup Weekend is a fast-paced, short form, experiential innovation programme allowing first-time founders in many regions and centres of New Zealand to connect to local and national mentorship at the earliest stages of their journey.

In 2013, members of our team designed and led Lightning Lab, New Zealand’s first and leading investment accelerator, leading a national vision to speed up globally scalable technology ventures from NZ and connect founders from around New Zealand to investment capital, mentor networks, and international expertise to help their ventures grow.

In 2015, we launched ZeroPoint Ventures, NZ’s first virtual evidence-based founder incubator and accelerator programme, based on ‘proof-not-hope’ as described by Silicon Valley heavyweight, Bill Reichert. These programmes collectively provided a clear and transparent pathway to connect founders in remote regions with centralised networks and resources. These programmes, helped founders align their ventures to entrepreneurship playbooks that are right for New Zealanders.

In 2020, we launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to put focus on creating more geographic concentration and nationally connected startup ecosystems across New Zealand, specifically through Goal 01.

We're in early-stage discussions with MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, and NZTE on the recommendations related to these goals.

ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

In 2020, we launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to put a focus on driving conversation at senior levels of Government to influence creation of a coordinated national entrepreneurship plan and identification of a 'startup sector', specifically through Goal 02.

We're currently talking to senior Government policy makers, and pitching both a startup-focussed agency and looking for someone to 'own' entrepreneurship inside Government. There's a number of data and longitudinal studies that ZeroPoint Ventures has been invited to be part of. Further updates to follow.

ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

In 2013, members of our team designed and led Lightning Lab, New Zealand’s first and leading investment accelerator, leading a national vision to speed up globally scalable technology ventures from NZ and connect founders from around New Zealand to investment capital, mentor networks, and international expertise to help their ventures grow.

In 2020, we launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to put focus on creating access to- and preservation of- capital at earlier stages of a startup's lifecycle, specifically through Goal 03.

We're in early-stage discussions with MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, and NZTE on the recommendations related to these goals.

ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

In 2013, members of our team designed and led Lightning Lab, New Zealand’s first and leading investment accelerator, leading a national vision to speed up globally scalable technology ventures from NZ and connect founders from around New Zealand to investment capital, mentor networks, and international expertise to help their ventures grow.

Through our local and international networks, we continue to connect founders and corporate entrepreneurs we work with to world-class expertise through accelerators, and direct advisory and mentor relationships.

Members of our team, have been involved at the earliest and most recent stages of selecting world-class investors and entrepreneurs to come to New Zealand and share their resources back into the community through the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, a global programme designed to bring world class entrepreneurs and investors together in New Zealand to catalyse positive change for the world.

In 2020, we launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to drive change in immigration and digital citizenship models for international startup talent, and to position New Zealand globally as an incubation nation, specifically through Goal 04.

Through our team member's early efforts to launch acceleration into NZ, we now have a new structural support system embedded into both Government funding/policy, and programme for early-stage venture acceleration throughout New Zealand. This is starting to attract international attention and competition through programmes like StartMate which recently opened up in New Zealand.

Whilst the programmes themselves continue to run and host 2-3 such accelerator programmes a year, through our direct efforts, we've incubated over 60 new founders, and helped them raise over $60M of public and private capital for those ventures. At least one of those ventures has resulted in a trade sale and early-exit for investors and founder, with many more still creating jobs, revenues in excess of $1M ARR, and continue to scale into high growth.

Alongside that, we're in early-stage discussions with MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, and NZTE on the recommendations related to these goals to further develop new channels to bring people in and connect people up.

ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

As part of our community-support activity, our team have continued to mentor, share their experiences, host events, and upskill students and budding entrepreneurs on the need for more tech-savvy talent, through speaking engagements with internship programmes like Summer Of Tech, future-education skills programme, Tech Futures Lab; through university entrepreneurship clubs at Victoria University of Wellington, AUT; and through many events like NZ Tech Week, technology meetups and more.

We've consulted digital and innovation strategy into university programmes and enterprise programmes that work with the majority of high schools in New Zealand on how to create more capable and tech-savvy individuals.

Most recently, we launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to create more tech-savvy talent through teaching computer science throughout all school ages, and to provide better options for remote tech talent to come to New Zealand through enhanced immigration programmes, specifically through Goal 05.

We're in early-stage discussions with MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, and NZTE on the recommendations related to these goals.

ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

In 2011, members of our team launched Startup Weekend, a global not-for-profit throughout New Zealand. Startup Weekend is a fast-paced, short form, experiential innovation programme allowing first-time founders across New Zealand to consider entrepreneurship as a career path.

In 2013, members of our team designed and led Lightning Lab, New Zealand’s first and leading investment accelerator, leading a national vision to speed up globally scalable technology ventures from NZ helping seed a generation of entrepreneurs who hadn't considered entrepreneurship before.

In 2015, we continued developing new models of entrepreneurship to inspire entrepreneurs who wanted to create 'zebras' rather than 'unicorns' by developing entrepreneurship programmes more aligned with reaching revenue sustainability from day one rather than a high-growth exit-focussed model which relies more on venture-capital to fuel growth. These programmes, helped founders align their ventures to entrepreneurship playbooks that are right for New Zealanders.

Members of our team, continue to be involved at the earliest and most recent stages of selecting world-class investors and entrepreneurs to come to New Zealand and share their resources back into the community through the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, a global programme designed to bring world class entrepreneurs and investors together in New Zealand to catalyse positive change for the world.

In 2020, we launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to specifically to drive change at Government level to invest more in people and entrepreneurial capability, specifically through Goal 06.

Startup Weekend is firmly embedded as a grassroot/volunteer-led event throughout New Zealand, hosting at least 3 or more events across the country in the year. During the Covid-19 lockdown, this culminated in a national virtual programme, attracting over 220 participants, and 20 mentors. Since there's no longer a single entity managing Startup Weekend operations locally, it's hard to state the exact impact, but over 4,000 people have participated in a Startup Weekend since its inception, and easily over 500 mentors have helped them start new ideas. Whilst many of those ideas often never end up being commercialised, the impact is primarily on the entrepreneurial capability of participants when they go back into their regular jobs.

Alongside that, we're in early-stage discussions with MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, and NZTE on the recommendations related to these goals.

ZeroPoint Ventures is a local and international network of entrepreneurs, accelerator managers, and investors who partner with startups and growing companies to re-engineer their organisations for long-term, sustainable growth, and impact.

In 2013, members of our team designed and led Lightning Lab, New Zealand’s first and leading investment accelerator, leading a national vision to speed up globally scalable technology ventures from NZ. This programme brought hundreds of significant international mentor networks into the reach of New Zealand entrepreneurs without them needing to make those networks themselves.

Our team has consulted to Government agencies on the creation of startup-friendly 'soft-landing-pads' in other countries, and worked together with the Global accelerator networks to bring entrepreneurs from New Zealand into new countries and introduced into their networks, both through formal and informal programmes.

In 2020, ZeroPoint Ventures launched the Start NZ Up initiative, a top-down effort to affect proactive policy-change and support for entrepreneurs, specifically to specifically to drive change at Government level to look at ways to combat the built-in competitive disadvantage our entrepreneurs have in being so far from scalable markets, specifically through Goal 07.

We're in early-stage discussions with MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, and NZTE on the recommendations related to these goals.