Maker Partners: Rod Snodgrass, Jonathan Reid, Marko Bogoievski and Hemant Walter-Rao. Photo / Included
New venture capital firm Maker Partners has raised $15 million in its latest fund to build a diversified portfolio of high-growth companies.
Maker, which bills itself as a purpose-driven venture capital firm
Her focus is on young founders in early start-ups that drive global social and sustainable change.
The VC was founded in February by former Spark Ventures CEO Rod Snodgrass, former Infratil CEO Marko Bogoievski, serial entrepreneur Jonathon Reid and tech genius Hemant Walter-Reo, who helped build India’s first e-commerce website should have helped.
Since Maker was founded, the group has made three investments.
The company has invested $1.5 million in on-demand home services company NexDo, which books lawn mowing, cleaning and trash removal through its app.
It has also invested $1 million in conscious womenswear brand Paris Georgia and $1.6 million in non-synthetic fragrance company Abel Odor, founded by former winemaker Frances Shoemack.
The founders of all three companies – Frances Shoemack, Sakshin Niranjan and Paris Mitchell Temple and Georgia Cherrie, late 20s and early 30s.
Rod Snodgrass, head of Maker Partners, said Maker has exceeded its $15 million fund goal and will close it before Christmas with more than $18 million for its first fund.
Maker had invested 20 percent of his $3 million goal.
The funds raised would be used for four to six investments per year over the next two to three years.
“Other funds write a lot of small checks – they invest in a lot of companies on the basis that one of them will make it big. We’re a little different,” Snodgrass told the Herald.
“We invest in a small number that write big checks based on a higher belief.”
As active investors, Maker’s partners have often sat on the boards of investment firms, providing assistance with hiring of key individuals, networking and ongoing support and mentoring.
At this point, Maker was only interested in investing in New Zealand companies.
Snodgrass is on the board of NexDo and had invested in the company prior to Maker’s involvement. He is also on the Board of Directors of Paris Georgia and pursues his personal interests and experience in global apparel through Kiwi outdoor apparel company Ilabb.
“We look for New Zealand companies that are purpose driven and have disruptive products or platforms that address an existing problem in the global marketplace.”
Maker has little interest in “deep tech” companies or government-style startups, but is interested in technology-enabled businesses.
Snodgrass said he, like the other founders, is motivated to help build “great Kiwi companies”.
He said Maker wasn’t just focused on chasing the next unicorn.
“We are in very disruptive times, with many of the big traditional companies in decline.
“They are being attacked by small disruptive companies and I worry that New Zealand will not have enough new businesses and new growth and where the jobs will come from,” he added.
“So for me, a lot is about building a large number of great Kiwi companies over the next decade.”
Investment in the first three companies was on the higher end of the checks and typically started with small investments in pre-seed and seed-stage companies ranging from $250,000 to $2 million.
“We want all of these companies to be at least tens of millions of dollars if not hundreds of millions of dollars worth of businesses,” Snodgrass said.
“Personally, we don’t care that much about unicorns — the billion-dollar companies like Xero — we’re pretty lucky to have ten $100 million companies than we are chasing after one billion-dollar company.” We are focused on building many great companies.”
He said unicorns are rare, especially in New Zealand.
“We want to make founders rich and create great, valuable companies that do great things for the world and create jobs.”
