The Government’s Seed Co-investment Fund is being refocused to achieve greater commercial returns and provide better support to new start-up companies, Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges has announced.

The $50 million fund partners with angel investor groups to provide early stage capital into young start-ups.

“The fund has been a vital part of helping start-ups thrive, and is an effective tool in linking with angel investors to fund innovative new enterprises, partnering with 17 angel groups to date,” Mr Bridges says.

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A taxpayer-funded investment company will be able to take a more hands-on approach to investing $50 million in smaller high-growth start-ups in the hope of getting in early on “the next Rocket Lab or Trade Me”.

The New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF) was set up by the Labour government in 2002 to help plug a perceived gap in the market by investing alongside private investors in young, cash-starved high-tech businesses.

Finance Minister Steven Joyce signalled last year that the Government didn’t want to put more government money into the agency and instead wanted it to become self-sustaining.

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NZ officially joined the global ‘impact investing’ trend last week with the launch of the country’s first home-grown fund looking to back businesses “delivering tangible societal and environmental outcomes”.

And, as reported here last month, the Ākina Foundation is also targeting “market-rate financial returns” for the up to $15 million it raise for the wholesale Impact Enterprise Fund (IEF).

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An Australian private equity consortium has bought Queenstown-based tour agency Active Adventures, with two of the former owners staying on the board.

The consortium, led by fund manager Blue Sky Alternative Investments, closed the deal on Tuesday, it said in a statement. It also includes Australian businessman Brett Godfrey, co-founder and former chief executive of Virgin Blue and current deputy chairman of Tourism Australia and Auckland International Airport, and Sydney-based investment banker Scott Malcolm, who founded independent corporate advisory firm Greenstone Partners in 2003.

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Following the revelation yesterday by the Ticker that Australia’s Blue Sky has spent millions on a stake in Queenstown’s Active Adventures, Bridget O’Connell takes a look at the role private equity is playing in Australian tourism and what that may mean for the industry here.

Tourism has become a sector of interest to some private equity players in Australia following the end of the resources boom.

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