Seventh annual NZVCA conference

Media Release

29 October 2008

Seventh annual NZVCA conference

The venture capital industry’s upcoming annual conference will look at the responses and adjustments New Zealand investors can make in the current international financial crisis, says New Zealand Private Equity and Venture Capital Association executive director Colin McKinnon.

The seventh annual NZVCA conference is being held in Auckland on 6 November.  The conference draws together New Zealand’s private capital investment professionals, institutions, and advisors.

Colin McKinnon said the opening session of this year’s conference will focus on the changing environment for private capital.

“It is timely to consider the responses and adjustments we – as an industry – can make.  What is clear, however, is that, despite the upheavals, many good opportunities exist for investment in the New Zealand venture capital and private equity markets.

“The New Zealand venture capital and private equity markets have undergone good growth over the last five years.  A focus of this year’s conference is how to continue and build on that progress, albeit in an extremely challenging environment.

“A number of Australian industry figures will be attending.  The conference will hear from Professor Gordon Murray, a UK expert on the performance of new technology companies and the international development of the formal and informal venture capital industry, and Joe Platnick, a director of Pasadena Angels, a large Southern California angel investment group.

“Given the international breadth of the financial crisis, it will be instructive to hear European and American perspectives and the impact the international situation is having on early stage investment in the major economies.”

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