Marian Johnson, chief awesome officer at the Ministry of Awesome (MOA), has been invited to be a Hillfarrance Scout on behalf of MoA. This means that high growth startups coming through the MoA and Te Ōhaka pipelines could have access to highly focused small seed investments from the Hillfarrance Scout Fund. In the event of any of these investments becoming successful, any investment gain will be re-invested into a seed capital fund tied directly to the Te Ōhaka and Ministry of Awesome startup pipeline.
Ministry of Awesome, one of New Zealand’s leading startup hubs, is a force for the NZ startup and innovation community. Their focus is on identifying promising high growth startups at the earliest part of their journey when they are at their most vulnerable and providing the support, capability training, profile, and network they need to succeed. MOA is headquartered at their Christchurch startup hub Te Ōhaka which is a partnership with Ara Institute of Canterbury and ChristchurchNZ, the local economic development agency.
“We are delighted to have been selected by Hillfarrance as part of their Scout programme. There are a number of talented startup founders working through our incubation programme at Te Ōhaka and having the ability to strategically fund where required will help some of these founders focus – at least for a short time – on building their ventures,” says Ms. Johnson.
Rob Vickery, founder and managing partner of Hillfarrance Ventures, says, “Hillfarrance thrives on the people that we invest in and the people we partner with. Marian is one of the most driven and passionate tech ecosystem architects that I have met and I am really glad and excited that she has joined our Scout community.”
While scout programmes are common in the California venture capital market, Hillfarrance’s scout programme is the first of its kind in New Zealand. Scout programmes give exceptional individuals money to invest on behalf of the scout programme.
Marian also notes that the Scout relationship with Hillfarrance does not preclude activity from other investors. “We’ve been a pipeline for all investors in the startup ecosystem and will continue to connect talented startups with any investor offering them value and opportunity for growth.”
To find out more about the fund, contact Ministry of Awesome at [email protected]