The Dominion Post

Investors may soon get the chance to invest in a publicly listed company that will invest in small, privately owned technology companies.

Brett O’Riley, chief executive of technology industry association NZICT, said he was in discussions with a range of parties to encourage the creation of one or more such funds, which was one of the association’s top priorities for next year.

One of New Zealand’s leading venture capitalists, Endeavour Capital chairman Neville Jordan, said the idea “had a lot of merit” as investors were looking for liquidity.

Mr O’Riley envisaged listed technology funds might invest in businesses with an annual turnover of up to about $50 million, which he said was the point at which private businesses tended to stall due to a lack of capital.

“Because so many of our companies are private, they just don’t have a lot of visibility. I don’t know if the average investor would have any sense of the diversity of investment [opportunities] available.”

NZICT, which has 300 corporate members, may rebrand next year, ditching its acronym and positioning itself as a body that represents the broader technology sector.

Mr O’Riley said he saw the potential to double the country’s annual technology-related exports from their current level of $5 billion and eliminate youth unemployment.

Matching people with job opportunities would be a big focus for the association next year, he said. “We have got 20 per cent youth unemployment and, I think, at least 1000 incremental jobs in the sector on top of the usual 2000 shortage – so about 3000 jobs to fill next year.”

In some sectors, such as animation, 60 to 100 hours training could get someone an entry-level role, he said. “When you look at how quickly this industry should grow, we shouldn’t have unemployment in New Zealand.”

The association hopes to finalise details in February or March of an “applications store” for government agencies that would provide a forum for software business to showcase their wares to the public sector.

“We want a situation where New Zealand software developers have the opportunity to get their applications in front of government agencies without having to go through an expensive and complicated procurement process and there is some enthusiasm from within government on that.

“It is one of the most significant things we could achieve for the industry.”

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