 Welcome to all those that have just joined us. Welcome to this Edmund Hillary or EHF investor live session. We run these sessions once a month and it's so that the New Zealand ecosystem can get to meet our investor fellows and understand what it is that they are plan on doing in the New Zealand ecosystem. And so this month we have got Mark Bregman interviewing Ryan McIntyre and they're going to talk a little bit about what Ryan has been doing and is going to do in the New Zealand market, but then also some similarities at the two of them and differences that they notice between US and New Zealand tech seeing because they have both spent quite a bit of time in New Zealand over the years. And just a reminder this session is recorded so it will be there on the website for you to have a look at afterwards and feel free to ask questions in the chat or you'll be able to put your hand up and ask the questions directly or you can just direct message me or Mark. And because it's a nice small group we'll be able to get a good conversation going. So I'll hand it over to you, Mark. Thanks, Michelle. Welcome everyone. As Michelle mentioned, at least I'll tell you a little bit of my background and then I'll pass it over to Ryan. I've had a long connection in New Zealand I've invested in property in the South Island in 1999. And I've been traveling back and forth longer than that. Starting in early 2018 I decided at the end of a kind of corporate CTO career to focus on early stage investment in New Zealand specifically New Zealand. And I started spending about a third of my time in New Zealand and the remainder of it in the US. That was great until COVID hit and now I'm stuck on the US side of the wall and spending generally several hours a day on zoom calls with people in New Zealand. Ryan you want to spend a second and introduce your connection in New Zealand. Yeah, sure. Hi everyone. Good to good to be here virtually anyway. Let's see I first came to New Zealand just on holiday with my wife back in 1998. We did a cycling trip from Nelson to Queenstown down the down the West Coast. And, you know, fell in love with New Zealand then we came back in 2003 my wife did the Iron Man, like Topo. Also, our son is 17. And if you do the math that probably means he was conceived New Zealand, although as a 17 year old we wouldn't tell him that he would be, you know, squirming in his chair right now. If you were if you were listening in. But, and so I've always, you know, always loved New Zealand got more serious about spending time in New Zealand in starting in 2016. Following the disastrous outcome of the 2016 election in the US, I decided it would be prudent to have a backup country as it were and New Zealand was the obvious choice and gotten investor visa. So, you know, despite the fact that I'm a EHF cohort seven fellow, I actually applied the EHF sort of long after I had an investor visa and residency visa simply to build a network of build a network of people, you know, who I've been fortunate to to meet. And so, following the sort of three year process of the investor visa. You know, we were back and forth for sort of 4560 days in 2017 or 2018 and 19. We did hit. Happily, we already had the investor residence class visa and escaped the US to New Zealand in last July. And we spent nine months. So I'm in New Zealand, all over all over the country. I'm now back in Boulder, Colorado, which is, you know, which is home mainly because our son was getting homesick and wants to finish his sort of final year of high school university back back in the States and you know the vaccine is rolling out here so I'm one dose in on Pfizer and looking forward to getting my second on on Monday. But, you know, have had, feel really thankful that sort of New Zealand was, you know, this amazing welcoming place really are, you know, important the storm during, you know, the craziness of COVID. So I just feel very blessed to have been able to spend, you know, those nine months there are playing all along have been to spend a season or two a year in New Zealand. And I'm looking forward and so we packed in sort of three consecutive seasons for our, you know, our first long stay and, you know, look forward to getting back. I hope there's a way to do it without another two weeks of MITU, because I don't want to repeat that any more than is any more than is necessary. That's great Ryan I guess we have sign in common I actually am signed up and my partner is signed up for the Taupo Ironman next March. Awesome. That might be another connection. So, so you and I both have had connections with New Zealand before we really thought heavily about investing there I guess. And I'd be interested in, in what brought you around. You know, working in venture in the US but what brought you around to the idea of actually investing in New Zealand rather than just it's a great place to live. Yeah. Well, there's a couple threads that I could tie together about that so you know, I've been working in the tech industry, you know, in the states first in Silicon Valley and now now back in Colorado since. Basically, since I moved out there in in 89 to, to, for university and then, you know, sort of live full time there for 17 years in the Bay Area and then moved to Boulder, Colorado in 2006. And, you know, while I was in the Bay Area, I was a software engineer I was an entrepreneur, you know, started a company, sort of did the proverbial office in a Palo Alto garage through IPO thing. And then got into venture capital in 2000. And then in 2006, you know, decided to move to, to Boulder, there's really sort of a lifestyle and family move and sort of felt like the Bay Area had run its course and I was looking for something new to do. The venture capital firm I was with Mobius venture capital was was not going to it was like a vintage 2000 bubble your first bubble era fund, you know, billion dollar fund which was huge at the time. And it was clear that that fund was not going to sort of continue in that configuration. I was looking for something new to do, and also was getting the entrepreneurial itch again and sort of the way I decided to satisfy that was, I wanted but I also wanted to stay in venture was to start a venture capital firm and that's that's foundry group which is the firm. I'm with now. And, you know, when I told people in the Bay Area in 2006 that I was moving away from the Bay Area to Boulder, Colorado to start an early stage technology venture capital firm. People looked at me like I was crazy right people cycle, you're leaving the center of the universe to go do this that's nuts and you know, despite the fact that the Bay Area is this incredible sort of hotbed of, you know, technology entrepreneurship, it had its own sort of brand of provincialism because it couldn't sort of imagine that there was a world outside of that. Moving to moving to Boulder was, you know, a really interesting experience and mark this is a very long way for me to get around to the New Zealand piece but I think it sets the table well, which is, you know, when I when I arrived in Boulder, it was, you know, maybe let's call it a, you know, a tier three sort of venture ecosystem in the US, you know, it's a small town it's 100, some 1000 people, but it's part of the greater Denver metro area, which is almost 4 million people. And it had a, you know, a nascent entrepreneurial ecosystem, and it had a lot of those sort of like raw materials that are necessary for an entrepreneurial ecosystem to thrive I mean there was a lot of technology talent, it was Denver, Colorado and that very strong background in, in like telecom and the cable TV business and interestingly even sort of early days of data science because that's where all these direct mail companies were based and so, you know, it was much sort of lower tech, much smaller data back and, you know, there was a sort of this core entrepreneurial community there was they were strong in storage, like storage tech and a number of disk drive companies were created out there. And so it, so it had a lot of technology talent, there was, you know, a small number of venture firms, and, you know, sort of an entrepreneurial cycle that sort of really got started in the sort of mid to late 90s. And there's, you know, a sort of a wave of, you know, kind of first time entrepreneurs who were funded then had success, and we're, you know, starting to do venture number two or venture number three, you know, in the early 2000s. You know, but it was, it was a much more nascent ecosystem. You know, many of you have probably heard of my, you know, much more famous partner founder group Brad Feld who's written a number of books startup community startup community way. And that really sort of focus on sort of his and our experience in in growing the boulder ecosystem. And I think there's a lot of parallels there to what I see in New Zealand. And you know this is, and it's a funny coincidence right but the state of Colorado in the US is basically the exact same square mileage square kilometers rich as New Zealand is right it's pretty much the same population. It's a lot less coastline. Yeah, six me yeah exactly and it's way it's way more compact right it's a rectangle and not not this long shaped set of islands but you know so there's just some interesting parallels in terms of sort of scale of population scale of land. And then also, you know, I think scale of, you know, there's obviously New Zealand, you know when I got to Colorado and it was already true, even when Brad got to Colorado in the, in the mid 90s right there had been entrepreneurial success stories there. And, you know, New Zealand sort of, you know, obviously has had had, you know, several billion dollar exits. But still, you know, sort of not as you know robust an ecosystem as I was kind of used to compared to coming from, you know, coming from Silicon Valley and you know people wondered back then when we were actively trying to recruit people from the coasts to come join Colorado startups like well. Okay, if I move my family out here like is there going to be another startup for me to join if the one I'm working with doesn't work out, you know, and is there was all these questions about like, Okay, well if I, you know burn the boats and come to this community like is there is there going to be sort of opportunity for me beyond sort of the one opportunity I might be looking at right now as a decision to, you know, move to Colorado or whatever. But, you know, in terms of like raw talent, you know, good, good schools great technical talent, you know, a series of entrepreneurs who have, you know, been through the cycle more than one time, all those kind of things that's again like the numbers aren't huge but those all exist in New Zealand right and so that's, to me, very parallel to what I saw, you know, when I arrived at Boulder in 2006 and so I find it sort of very encouraging and very, very exciting. And that, you know, there's just feels like there's, you know, so much headroom and room for New Zealand to run, you know, going forward and so that's, you know, one of the reasons I got pretty excited after I started spending more time in New Zealand. You know, I should mention also that at Foundry Group, one of our strategies that's a little bit different and has evolved over time than a lot of venture capital funds is that when we started, you know, we were early stage investors we would, you know, invest in the C round or series a round of a company. And, and then, but my partners and I were active with personal money we would invest in other venture capital funds. So, and we did a lot of that. Oftentimes it was with, you know, funds that we co invested with the Foundry Group or just friends and colleagues that we respected. And we found that to be a very sort of powerful way to get a broader view on an ecosystem and understand what was going on. And, you know, it also just cemented relationships among, you know, other other venture investors. So, starting in 2016, when we kind of looked at our track record of sort of personal investing and other venture capital funds we looked at hey well that's, you know, those are all really good investments, you know, in aggregate, and the value of sort of furthering a network and the information flow that we would see convinced us that we wanted to give it a try to do that same thing but at an institutional scale and so we raised a fund in 2016 called Foundry Group next where there was a $500 million U.S. fund where we were going to where we allocated sort of 25 to 30% of that fund into investing in other venture capital firms. And we were, in that case, investing in firms that played earlier in the cycle than Foundry Group did so more sort of seed stage and A stage investors because sort of as time has gone on, we've tended more, you know, away from seed and more to, you know, to be rounds and have been actively using our relationships with these funds that we've invested in as sort of our proxy for the very earliest stage investing and then, you know, actively looking at their portfolios to find opportunities for us to then make direct investments in. But so coming to, coming to New Zealand, I sort of took a page from that playbook and started, you know, sort of my time in the in the New Zealand entrepreneurial ecosystem by investing in a number of New Zealand capital funds as a good way to get a sort of broad broad lay of the land because I didn't feel like I'd spent enough time there yet to make really informed sort of direct direct investments so that you know that's still something that I'll do maybe down the road in terms of making direct investments where I've started by investing in, you know, a variety of New Zealand venture funds, many of whom have EHF connections so you know I've been an investor in I've got five, so for instance, put in a marks fund and have made commitments to a total of eight venture firms now in in New Zealand, you know, over and really did that sort of over my nine months while I was there. I'm very much still at the sort of beginning of my journey as an investor in, you know, in the New Zealand tech ecosystem, but and that was sort of, but part of my strategy to get started was to, you know, just become an LP in a bunch of different funds because I figure, you know, the people who are on the ground are going to be the experts here. Great, you've been very busy in a short time in New Zealand. And I have indeed, you know, it's funny, I tell myself that I'm a, and it is true like in terms of personality type. I am, I'm an introvert, you know, I'm somebody who went like, I spend a lot of time out at conferences or meeting people like then I need to go to my, you know, quiet room and sort of recharge. You know, sort of during my time in New Zealand, my wife kept saying to me, she's like, you know, I really, I think you tell yourself a lie when you say you're an introvert, because I like I spent so much time meeting with people and connecting with people but so the jury's still out, but, you know, on the introvert versus extrovert battle but yeah I was busy and just, you know, excited to sort of further establish your network but also really excited about what I, you know, the opportunity I saw in New Zealand and, you know, one of the sort of critical things to establish a, you know, sort of a self perpetuating and growing startup ecosystem is to have more, you know, more and more funding sources right I mean obviously without great entrepreneurs and great talent, and people who are actually willing to do the much work of starting a company as opposed to investing in companies, you know, you don't have anything and so certainly that prerequisite I was pretty satisfied, you know, I was totally satisfied was already there but then, you know, one of the big accelerants that we saw in Colorado, and in Colorado was, you know, sort of as time went on, you know, more funds got established in Boulder but also then sort of more funds from outside of Boulder, you know, from the coasts or whatever, or excited about investing in Colorado companies and again that sort of that just helps get the flywheel going and so, you know, I'm sort of happy to be part of, you know, helping, helping that sort of part of the funding part of the ecosystem accelerate as well because in my conversations with various, you know, VCs and whatnot in New Zealand, you know, everyone was talking about their, you know, funding gaps and whether there could be more opportunities, you know, all the way through from seed stage, you know, all the way to later stage investing but that it definitely felt to me like there's a real opportunity for, you know, to really accelerate the entrepreneurial ecosystem by, you know, helping more funds get, you know, contributing more funds getting established. Well I must say I'm very jealous of you having been in New Zealand because I'm more of an extrovert and I've been locked in this room for 14 months. So, except for the little window in front of me that I could see people. You know, one of the things, I mean, I really resonated with what you're saying because I when I started really focusing on building a fund about three years ago. There was a real shortage of capital there were very, very few firms and now there are a lot more as you pointed out and there's more every day. But the other question I wanted to ask you about is, because you've been watching the scene for a while. Have you seen an evolution in the, not just the funding scene but the actual startup scene. And in particular, are there particular sectors that you see as perhaps uniquely strong for New Zealand or have grown significantly in focus within New Zealand over say the last three to five years. So, again, and I want to be, you know, clear that I am, I'm a newbie in the New Zealand venture, you know, seen and startup scene so you know this is all sort of somebody who's relatively new to the country in the ecosystem. And so, you know, sort of take these observations with with the grain of salt right. But, you know, one of the things I noticed was, you know, there's, we're seeing a lot of companies and you know, in the downstream portfolios of the funds I've invested in you know I think there's a pretty unique sort of agriculture tech type blend of things or that that I saw, you know, a number of companies in in New Zealand and again those are those kind of things that are, you know, unique to the place in some sense right and that's always something that that can be powerful for you know, when you ask yourself well what, you know, what's unique about couldn't it could an investment be done anywhere or is there something specific, you know, about the place that's sort of helping it. So I was intrigued by those I was, you know, obviously, you know, rocket labs, you know, great sort of high profile example but but, you know, seeing sort of nascent, you know, different sort of space related plays developing and I think, again, and you know you know why New Zealand and again, at least from what I understand about and I'm not a, I'm not a space investor, you know, in terms of doing direct venture investments much more of a software guy but, you know, there was an advantage to rocket lab to launch locations in New Zealand for you know the kinds of orbits that they were trying to reach and whatnot so, you know, I like seeing things that are sort of tied to, you know, okay there's something unique or specialist in New Zealand, and you know that's why sort of the space and agriculture tech. And then obviously there's just, I mean, you can do, you can do SAS payment text, you know, sort of from anywhere, but you know there's obviously with, again, picking a high profile company companies like zero or whatever, you know, a lot of sort of people who have been through a lot of building, you know enterprise SAS with market SAS type type plays and so you know I think there's also just plenty of talent in the ecosystem and experience in the ecosystem to do those kind of, you know, those kind of investments as well. So, caveat all of this with you know my, I have blinders on because I'm generally speaking like a software infrastructure, and to a certain degree a consumer electronics investor but those are most of the things I focused on back in the US so I'm also just not as much of a student of you know sort of more, some more of the broad opportunities that are going on in the ecosystem. One of the things that has impressed me and somewhat surprised me over the last few years as the startup ecosystem itself has become more mature is the breadth of activity across sectors. And the fact that there are areas of deep tech where New Zealand, sometimes because of the university just happens to have world class expertise. One of the other areas as you said like aerospace, where it started, perhaps with one company and some things to do with the regulatory environment geography, but now there's a whole ecosystem around aerospace, particularly now developing in Christchurch. And I think we'll see more of that as somebody coming from the outside you and I are in the same boat here. And also I think, maybe because of our association with the HF. I don't know if that's a selection or if that's cause or the effect but I think we both have a desire to have a positive impact on that ecosystem of startups and funding and all of that. When you come in from the outside. Where do you see the biggest leverage for people that come from the tech world, maybe the venture world, come into a place like New Zealand which is relatively small market. How can we help the most. I think, you know, first of all, I'm mindful of, you know, having having spent time in New Zealand to, you know, there are. There's subtle cultural differences I think between sort of, you know, US ways to do business in New Zealand ways doing business and you know first of all, I, the last thing I want to be is the, you know, know it all American coming in and sort of prescribing like well here's how you know you could be so much better because I don't think that that's. That's not sort of productive or constructive and I think you know every ecosystem, you know, takes time to sort of learn what's unique about, you know, its own unique strengths right like one of the. One of the things that you know Brad would always say it was like, especially in his first your startup communities book right which is like, there was this meme, or this idea for a long time of like, okay, you know, we're going to become the Silicon Valley of whatever of New York or of, you know, Silicon Prairie and or you know what in down in in Austin everything and you know it's like, can we stop saying we want to be the Silicon Valley of something right like every ecosystem should have its own sort of sense of place and unique aspects to it where the goal isn't like necessarily to be to be that right and and and to sort of lean into your own unique attributes. You know, I think one of the, you know, there's great technical talent in New Zealand there's great, you know, I was actually impressed by the number of sort of deep tech things that I saw. Go, you know, in my time in New Zealand as well and again not an area that I've done a ton of a ton of investing in but but really kind of the breadth of things that are happening in New Zealand I think you know some of the sort of learnings from sort of the tech industry in the US and the venture industry in the US. There's going to be things. Well, first of all, you know, the great thing about I think New Zealand startups is they know from day one that they can't necessarily rely solely on the domestic market to reach a real scale right like you know, the market's great but you know you sort of exhaust yourself at five million at the team of five million and then you need to you know you need to be looking across oceans whether it's you know the Tasman or you know or the Pacific. And so I think first of all being. Being from you know the US right being conduits to help both bring in capital from outside of the US but also then help help companies make that jump, you know across into the Pacific, you know into into markets in the US is is something we should absolutely be able to be able to help with, and then also just encourage that sort of cross border investing right I mean it's interesting when I think back to sort of what Silicon Valley and Santa road was. Although like when I was at Moby's venture capital in 2000 we actually were never on Santa road but you were close enough right but like, you know that there was people were sort of the season general. We're happy to invest, you know as long as it was in like a 50 mile radius right you know or like an easy drive right and I think. And that's completely changed in the US over time where you have, you know, East and West Coast VCs, you know investing on both coasts and in the middle of the country right I mean when we started. Foundry, we made it very clear from day one that we were not a regional firm we were, you know we happen to be based in Colorado but because of our connections and network we were going to invest through across North America and it still meant that maybe 25 30% of our portfolio wound up in in the Colorado area but we the rest was spread across spread across North America, but we spent a lot of time focused on helping to bring, you know, entrepreneurs and venture investors from out of state to into focus on the ecosystem. In Colorado and you know there was a huge increase over the last 20 years in Colorado, you know funding from out of state venture funds. And so I think also for those of us who are sort of straddling New Zealand in the US I think helping sort of lead the way to get other sources of capital also and then other entrepreneurs right comfortable with making that investment in the New Zealand company or, you know, realizing, hey, maybe you want to move to New Zealand and work there there's a vibrant ecosystem, you know within New Zealand that you can be part of, but one thing we've also all learned as we sit here staring at each other and zoom right is that you can also. You can kind of work from wherever you want I spent, you know I spent nine months attending my Monday partner meetings and, and my board meetings with my North American companies from New Zealand and it worked great right. But, you know, but one of the things we really liked doing at Foundry group and still do to this day was, you know, inviting, you know when somebody was coming in from out of town it was coming in from the west coast or the east coast right like sort of putting them on a tour of you know the sort of the local going that's on local entrepreneurial ecosystem and really helping you know entrepreneurs, you know executives bigger companies, etc. Sort of get comfortable that there was a critical mass in the place and that there was plenty of opportunity and so, you know I think those of us who are on straddling can help can help with that right in particular and I think that that's a good thing to focus on and certainly, you know New Zealand stars never been brighter, sort of on the, on the international stage and sort of and, and obviously EHF has a lot of, you know, American tech folks who are part of it as well. So, it's a bit of self selection there but. I think that realization that like people from outside of New Zealand are intensely interested in New Zealand, whether for whether and that should be able to leverage that forward right it's just great opportunity. So, first of all, do we have any questions and we've been talking for half an hour without anyone interrupting us which is not uncommon when right when right and I are talking to one as a chance to but any questions from the audience. If you have questions either jump in or you can put up your electronic hand somehow, or you can just put them in the, in the comments section. The, the other question I guess I would ask you is, in fact, you planted a great seed, while it was where you're talking I think that there is such a thing. There's terroir for venture, you know I actually my, my first business involvement in New Zealand was in the wine and arena, and we talk about terroir all the time and you know, you know, Marlboro wine is different from a Martin burrow wine is different and I think what you were talking about when you were comparing Silicon Valley and in Boulder and the idea that we don't go and recreate Silicon Valley in somewhere else is a that is an aspect of that. And yet I still hear people say, oh we should make name the city in in New Zealand, the next Silicon Valley. And it makes me cringe, because I think that there are some unique attributes. That give New Zealand startups and potentially also New Zealand investors a different perspective and therefore a unique opportunity in the world stage I wonder if you have that feeling and if so can you maybe articulate just your own observations and what are some of those attributes. I mean I have my own point of view but I want to hear what yours are. Well I think, I mean, first of all there's a, I do think there, to me there's a sort of a self reliance and ingenuity that's come to, you know, to, you know, when you, when you sort of live on a remote island nation, you know, first of all there's been a lot of, you know, historically right you kind of had to sort of figure out figure things out for yourself right that kind of. And I think that's a sort of inherent part of the culture which is like not being afraid of sort of attacking a problem and also not being worried about maybe if it's a sort of quirky or idiosyncratic approach to solving a problem because actually, in many ways it turned out to be sort of the most creative and interesting, interesting solutions. Also, you know, generally speaking, most, you know, Kiwis I've met tend to have actually a very global and international perspective, you know, which again I think is almost mandatory if you're going to sort of be in business and also just, you know, this, you know, culture of going and leaving the country for a while coming back, studying internationally, working internationally. It's, it's a, you know, much more, you know, certainly then sort of the, you know, a much more globally oriented, sort of, I think, average citizen than you would find say in the US right I think that that's, that's a power to a power to leverage as well. And, you know, I mean, again, and back to this just this notion also of maybe the fearlessness but also the breadth market that you talked about right. So I was I was at a dinner with with Mo back sort of early in my in my time in Auckland. And this is a sort of a funny example that, you know, intersected with my own direct experience which is, I wound up sitting next to the founder of power by proxy, you know, again was a sort of good, good outcome, great success in the New Zealand ecosystem right this wireless charging cheese sets, such technology that was acquired by Apple. And it just so happened that I had been an investor in a company in the US that would that it built out some some wireless charging technology and products that wound up failing like you know again ventures ventures do. And power by proxy had actually just hired the founder of the company that I had invested into Apple. And you know it's just as a total small world thing but, and again but it was an example of like, here's you know, putting putting this sort of provincial Silicon Valley hat on I'm like okay so somehow I invested in this company in the US that you know sort of had was probably, it was was certainly better funded, you know had in theory sort of, sort of better connections into the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Playing with a similar set of technologies, and you know that investment didn't work out and then yet here's this, you know, this company, you know, in New Zealand that winds up, you know, sort of having a ton of intellectual property built around this very hard wireless charging that then winds up being, you know the one acquired by Apple is probably the, the most notable exit in that sort of wireless charging domain. But, but again, to me that was just a, you know, just a funny outcome that, you know, and that might one of my very first first dinners mixing with the, you know, BC community in the US I, you know, find, find, I'm sitting next to the winner of, you know, of a race that was, you know, that one of the companies found a good investment and didn't, you know, didn't wind up succeeding at but here was this Kiwi company that did, right and again that's, you know, I would say, you know, the other thing that I've really grown to like about sort of the Kiwi mindset is, you know, there's, I'm a fan of sort of humility and business and as and, and, you know, I think Kiwis tend to have that and maybe sometimes to a fault like there could be a little more, you know, you know, chest pounding going on to sort of tell the story to the world but actually really, you know, I really like and get the most satisfaction when we invest in companies that are just they kind of fly under the radar and execute day after day after day. Don't, don't spend a bunch of time sort of touting, you know, their, their, you know, their achievements but just continue to execute, and then you wake up one day and we're like, oh, okay, this, this company that I've never heard of is a huge huge success right and, and I like those to me are kind of among the most satisfying outcomes adventure, and I like that I think that the, you know, New Zealand culture I think is probably more likely to produce those kind of companies over over time just given sort of the cultural norms. I think I would agree with that. I think, you know, being you start off talking about being far away on an island. And I think some of the value of that is you don't know what you don't know. And I don't know how many, you know, conversations I've had in Silicon Valley about some exciting new technology. And they're naysaying it because they said well so and so tried that and so and so tried that and so and so tried that. And that discourages people whereas in New Zealand they just try it, and often break through. I think that's one advantage. What would you, what would you say to a startup in New Zealand, a company that's looking to raise funds. There are many choices there's a very as you know, pretty deep and pretty broad angel community for very early stage investment. And it increasingly funds like, like mine and Hill France and others that can invest in the seed in series A. When you get beyond that to bigger investments it gets a little more challenging by then there, most of those companies have to look offshore. But frequently they start to look offshore even earlier. So why is an entrepreneur a founder who's going through that funding journey with respect to how to think about the portfolio funding opportunities and, and how to manage that maze as they go through their journey. Well, I think, you know, again, it's what I would say is, you know, that having to look sort of offshore, like to use the parallel for companies in Boulder back years ago, you know, having to look out of state for, you know, new funding rounds is, you know, first of all, plan your capital formation strategy from day one to recognize that that's that that may be something that you that you need to do, depending on sort of the scale you're looking to, you know, the scale you're looking to achieve and I think, you know, by looking for, you know, angels and then funds sort of earlier in the investment cycle, who have experience and connections with upstream sources of capital be it, you know, in, in, you know, New Zealand, whatever, and that and try to, you know, get some investors on your cap table who have strong connections. You know, they're both in terms of, you know, sort of business connections for, you know, whether it's sort of sales and marketing for market entry purposes but then also obviously for, you know, equity financing sources as well. So you can sort of strategize to have folks, you know, on your cap table or we're going to have those kind of connections who might be helpful in, you know, bringing offshore funding sources in over time I think that's, that'd be a good way to, a good way to start anyway. But again, it's all going to be about networking to get access to those if you decide is the right thing I mean obviously there's examples of exits and companies that have grown up that you know haven't needed to do that within New Zealand. I do think there will be more capital coming in as evidenced by the fund formation that's happening that hopefully will allow for, you know, New Zealand to have more, more psychological funding within the country itself but, but also just being realistic, like it would be, it would be a desirable thing actually if there's lots of sources of capital from outside of New Zealand, also, you know, looking for opportunities within, within New Zealand right that just to the benefit of everyone in the ecosystem. I'm conscious of the fact that we haven't had any questions from the audience, I hope they're still awake. Any questions from. Okay, Jessica I see raising your hand. Hello, Mark. Hi Ryan, how's it going. Yeah, I was curious about your last point you made Ryan. Are you seeing many, you know, big venture capital maybe later stage funds from Silicon Valley or other parts of the US or even Europe in the UK who are maybe setting up small outposts in New Zealand or actively doing scouting like, is there anything like that going on at the moment. I mean, I don't, I'm not aware off the top my head of anyone sort of establishing, you know, an outpost or, you know, or a scouting program but you know certainly I mean, you know, directly aware of it again it's sort of attached to some of the, sort of bigger more high profile, you know, companies in New Zealand over time but you know it's like Bessemer coastal ventures founders funds I mean if you know founders fund there are, you know, US based venture firms who have already, you know, invested in New Zealand companies and continue to, and I believe there will be more and more of those over time. Right, I mean right right now just, you know, foundry groups mandate is to invest in North American companies so I don't, I don't anticipate like foundry making direct investment yet, you know, or anytime soon in a New Zealand company. But there are certainly, you know, those that already have and I think more, more on the way. I would ask you on the ones I mentioned Mark maybe you know some. Well no I was going to, I was going to tilt it slightly different way I've had conversations with quite a few relatively early stage funds here in the US who are interested to hear about New Zealand companies, when they come to the US and need to invest in and so I've made a lot of introductions well prior to COVID lockdown, as, as New Zealand entrepreneurs were in the US to venture funds, not for the current round that the New Zealand company is raising, but to sort of be, you know, start for a future round when they need money that probably is not going to be supplied just from a New Zealand investment base. And the funds that I've talked to here are quite interested in that because they see the opportunity but they don't have the where with all, to do a justice, Jessica was suggesting to put an outpost in New Zealand, so they can use some of funds like mine or like Rob's and others as a bit of that remote outpost without having to physically do it themselves. Yeah, I'm just curious about that because there are quite a few. I work with Robert Hill-Farance and, you know, things like that, but I have some, you know, other startups I'm working with on the side as well and are looking to, you know, go straight to the US and raise venture capital and I lived in the US for years. I'm half American and trying to create more of a pipeline between the two countries has always been something that I've always wanted to do. And, you know, bulk with it out a bit more and I feel like there could be something really interesting. Yeah, obviously, it does so much work for that. But it's almost like the startup founders need to know more about what those resources are. Yeah, yeah, and we're at a moment in time, I think where that could be. We could really see that accelerate because again, certainly the amount of interest I get from, you know, colleagues of mine in North America, you know, just interested in New Zealand, you know, in general, but then also specifically hearing about my experiences with, you know, with the ecosystem. And so certainly I think there's, you know, there's never been a more opportune time to I think cultivate that interest. Yeah. I think that's true. Any other questions? Our audience. So, Rob, Ryan, you're back in the States now. And I've talked about this, I think, neither one of us are in a situation where we're likely to be 100% of the time in New Zealand, for the next several years anyway. So as you look at the evolution of what you're doing, your involvement in New Zealand, how do you, how are you seeing the way to manage that with a kind of a foot on both in both countries? Yeah. Well, so first of all, I mean, you know, I'm already, you know, I very much miss New Zealand already, and I've only been away for three weeks now. But, you know, so I'm plotting, you know, plotting my return, although again, it will hopefully happen when I don't have to do my queue. And, you know, first of all, I mean, the good news is right, my nine month experiment of sort of living in New Zealand, getting sort of my toe in the ecosystem there, but then also, you know, but then also obviously continuing my work with founder group and portfolio, you know, really kept my full time job while, you know, while living in New Zealand, right? It's like, first of all, now knowing that that sort of, you know, this great experiment that was forced on us by a global pandemic, you know, it makes me more confident than ever that I could sort of straddle the two locations. And, you know, so, you know, I think that sort of the connectivity afforded by everything going virtual is going to make that is going to make that a lot easier. And then, you know, I think more of it is just, for me, more, more runtime and more time back in New Zealand getting into more of a cycle of, you know, figuring out, okay, is it a season a year or two seasons a year. And sort of getting a rhythm, you know, getting a rhythm going. And certainly, you know, just the start of the first, you know, nine months that I spent here and become part of EHF and everything was just like a fantastic way to sort of pack it all in early on. And I feel like I'm still so energized from that and kind of we'll see, you know, we'll see going forward but I, you know, hopefully the friction of moving between the places will, you know, be reduced as hopefully the pandemic recedes and I can do more of that. I mean, I feel somewhat the same way, which is all, I think there's actually value, particularly given what we're doing, trying to help these New Zealand startups make it into the bridge to the US market, the real value in being a little bit anchored in both places because it does make for a bridge a better bridge. I'm going to put you on the spot now and this is kind of like, I guess if you're on CNBC in the morning and you're a financial analyst at the end of the session they always ask you, what are your top three picks? So if you were, what are the companies you've seen, I'm not suggesting you're invested in them or not, but the ones that get you excited, either because they're radically different and they're kind of cool or because maybe you think they're going to be fantastically successful. Or maybe they're ones that you are invested in, you don't have to toss. So again, I'll get the caveat that my, you know, I haven't made any direct investments yet in New Zealand companies, right? I've made investments and commitments in these venture capital firms. So, you know, I think there's a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of a TBD there. But, you know, certainly, you know, a couple of ones that just sort of fascinated me, it's not even necessarily related to sort of stage or scale, or even traction that the companies are having, but you know, I spent some time over at, you know, the level two incubator, and, you know, just, you know, there was a company, I'm forgetting the name of it right now, that was basically doing a sort of electromagnetic propulsion to move satellites between, you know, between orbits and whatever, you know, halter, which is the company that allows you to sort of remotely control, you know, herds of cattle and things like that, right? And that, you know, that one strikes me as like a, you know, great example of terroir, right? You know, in particular just, you know, fun companies that have sort of stuck in my, you know, stuck in my head after having had some interactions with them, you know, those were fun ones. Again, I'm not directly invested in any of those. Certainly, Mint, super cool. And, you know, that's, in a couple, you know, a couple venture portfolios, you know, that one's exciting. But again, you know, I feel like I would, to be more, more than just flipping off the cuff, like I just did to be more warm, that'll take some more time. But I guess the bottom line is, from what you've said, and I've certainly felt this myself, there are a lot of exciting companies in New Zealand. When I first told my friends on Sand Hill Road that I was looking at doing an venture fund in New Zealand, their first reaction was, why would you go to New Zealand? There are no good companies there. The entrepreneurs are not aggressive. And the reason they're not aggressive is there are no natural predators. You should go to Israel. Everyone's trying to kill those guys. They're very aggressive. I run Israeli companies and I know what they mean and it's not where I want to spend my time. But then my first question then was, oh, so there are no good companies in New Zealand. Have you been to New Zealand? And the answer was universally no. Right. So I think what you were just reflecting is exactly what I discovered, which is there are some very interesting companies in New Zealand. They've been very much under that, sort of under the bushel, no one's seen them, because they've been so far away and remote. And I think now we're starting to see that change. I think over the next three to five years, we'll see a change a lot as more of these companies get into the bigger global markets. And I think the last 12 months, I'll be interested is in understanding your perspective because you were in New Zealand for this. But my perspective was, you know, things here in March through about July of last year in the US. The companies just hunkered down, put their heads down. A lot of the VCs told their portfolio companies, save cash. We don't know how long it's going to last. Just, you know, hibernate. And that didn't happen in New Zealand in the same way. And then even as things came back in the US, they didn't come back at the same in the same manner in the same way that they have in New Zealand. So there's a, there's been a period of a year now where New Zealand's continued to move ahead while the rest of the world is really slowed down pretty dramatically. Did you feel that being when you were in New Zealand. Yeah, I mean, it's, well, one thing I'll say is, you know, again, it was sort of magical to be in a place that sort of felt like the world used to be. And obviously, and it's not to say that, you know, obviously closing the borders and everything. New Zealand was hit hard as well, right. And, you know, it shined a light on sort of the dependence of, you know, the tourism industry and whatnot, which I think is, you know, and I think motivated a lot of people to say, Well, what can we do to have to help, you know, again, build, build the tech industry build startup industries build, you know, and build, build out an economy that's, it's not going to be as dependent on tourism dollars. So I think that got a really good start in New Zealand. Again, I think it's all part of one of the reasons why, you know, I sort of bullish on the region and so I think that, you know, I think that's, I think that's one of the things that was both a combination of there was sort of relatively less impact because people weren't like forced into endless recurring lockdowns and, you know, the country was relatively unscathed from, you know, the ravages of infection and whatnot. But, you know, coming back here right for the last three weeks right I mean my sort of my feeling of sort of personal freedom and mobility as like taking a big step back right because I, you know, went from not thinking about, you know, walking down the street grabbing a coffee or a beer to think I now have a good plan like well, okay, do I really want to go out and, you know, wear a mask what's open, you know, I'd be fully vaccinated, whatever so, you know, it's, I'm, I, for me, having spent the sort of fourth first months of the pandemic and locked out in US like I'm glad I experienced that because I had sort of empathy for you know all my fellow, you know, North Americans, the citizens but it also made me really appreciate sort of what an amazing place to be, you know, during COVID times and even really was because I, you know, just saw such a sort of stark difference between the two, and now even, you know, on what's happening where hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel with the pandemic in the US, and you know, I'm vaccinated on May 31, like they're yet even so where we're at this sort of point where we're hopefully coming out of it, you know, I still feel like my restrictions on my life, you know, are very different even now being back in the US and they were, then they were in the ceiling so it's been interesting to sort of bookend my time during the pandemic with, you know, sort of nine months in the middle of sort of relative freedom with with some restrictions on the on the other sides of it. Great, we have a question from Elizabeth Jennings, and we're almost almost out of time but this is a good question says from the outside of New Zealand, what do you feel is the single most important element that can be added to the Kiwi innovation ecosystem. What can be added that will have the biggest impact in accelerating global market entry and connection to foreign investor investors and opportunities. Yeah, so I mean I wish there was. I wish I could come up with a single thing right I mean you know the problem is is that you know entrepreneurial ecosystems are our ecosystems right there. I mean, it's adaptive systems and so you know it's and the things you need to get to sort of get the flywheel turning faster because it's already going in New Zealand right there's plenty of entrepreneurial successes and already you know the other. I forgot to mention that I feel like this New Zealand terroir, you know, was this, you know, sequence, which would you know in Christchurch bought for you know, billion dollars raised like, I've never heard of that company, you know, doing this like very specialized, you know, geotechnical you know modeling software or whatever and like. I think that's a great example of, you know, they hear that they're Christchurch doing something better than anybody else in the world, partially because why not right you know, and, and, and so I think that really what you know, I think New Zealand just needs the terms of the wheel right part of sort of growing growing entrepreneurial ecosystems is sort of a long term commitment to multiple cycles of formation and exits and, and then you know a culture of the entrepreneurs who are successful. You know, starting, you know, starting another company or, or investing their, you know, their earnings if you will back into the ecosystem and more examples of that. And I guess in terms of higher profile exits and whatnot just add to sort of the, the realization that, Hey, there's, you know, here's this market in New Zealand, we can already point to several sort of multi billion dollar, you know, billion dollar plus exits, many hundred million dollar plus exits and, you know, growing availability of venture funding more funds being formed right again, there's there's not really one thing like we need more of all of those things and the good news is, to me, it appears that more of all of those things are happening. Right. You know, it's not a silver bullet but the one thing I would say, and it's sort of what it sort of builds on what you just said is, it's more the connectivity. One thing that is a little bit surprising has been a little bit surprising to me is that New Zealand, despite its small size and its tight network is still relatively siloed in certain areas. It's within the universities, within certain disciplines. And so the connection between the different investors between the different disciplines etc. I think would really be an amplifier for what New Zealand is already really good at. And yeah, increasing connectivity obviously sort of across across countries and markets as well is important, is important to but again I think all the sort of raw, all the raw ingredients are already there. You know, and it's exciting time for New Zealand. Now we need to make soup. I just need to figure out you know when to come back. Nice. It could be a while without isolation. If you can solve that problem I'll be there on the next flight. Yeah, we just need our vaccinations right as a country. Yeah. And vaccine passports right so people can come who have been vaccinated and maybe three days of MIQ about 14 or something like that. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you, Ryan. I love hearing your story more comes out each time and thanks Mark for interviewing. It was great to have someone with insights during the interviewing and adding the flavor to it was good. So, next month team we have Aaron Bird. And then we've got Dave Insel who is sitting here is going to do one in July. And then we're also going to have Andy Sat come and do a session as well. So it's great. Thank you for your time. It was good. It was good to.