Back in 2018, Y-Combinator (YC) updated their core investment instrument and launched what is now known as the post-money SAFE. We analysed the post-money SAFE back in 2020 – see…
Below you’ll find a checklist of 10 questions that you should be asking, if you are raising capital from NZ investors and are intending to rely on the eligible investor…
The global economic downturn has inevitably hit the startup and venture capital ecosystem. Investors in startups, like everyone else, are impacted by falling stock prices and fund valuations, distracted from…
This is the second in a Kindrik Partners series on company admin to be thinking about when 1 April comes around each year. In this blog, we’ll introduce the default financial reporting requirements that apply to many companies under the NZ Companies Act 1993, and help you navigate opting out of them if you wish to.
This is the first in a small series that Kindrik Partners is working on, pulling together company admin to be thinking about when 1 April comes around each year.
We’re delighted to have advised Singapore-based Appboxo on its US$7 million series A funding round led by RTP Global. Existing investors, Antler and 500 Global, together with new investors SciFi VC, Gradient Ventures also participated.
We’re pleased to have advised Blackbird Ventures on its recent investment into First AML, an Auckland-based digital ID authentication and anti-money laundering startup.
We’re pleased to have advised Hectre, a New Zealand-based orchard management and fruit sizing software company, on its recent $3.5 million capital raise.
We’re pleased to have advised StarNow, a New Zealand-based talent platform for actors, models, influencers and musicians, on its sale to US-based talent broker Backstage.
Like every business, we had fears that COVID would slow both us and our clients down. But putting aside the amount of time we spent on Zoom and Teams meetings, that’s not what the stats suggest.
The new Privacy Act introduces a new privacy principle requiring NZ businesses to ensure privacy protections apply to personal information sent overseas.
We’re speaking to accelerators to find out more about them and what they’re looking for in kiwi companies. This week we’re speaking with Michael Batko from Startmate.
If you are a director of a company having financial difficulties, the expiry of the safe harbour is a good time to take stock of the company’s prospects, and your own appetite for risk.
Typically, NZ tech company investment transactions would not have triggered OIO requirements. Now under new rules investors must notify the OIO before the transaction can go ahead.
Kiwi startups are unsurprisingly feeling the strain of the Covid-19 impacts but are continuing to soldier on, according to our recent Kindrik Partners survey.
Are you a kiwi startup? Click here to take part in the survey. We want to know more about how the kiwi startup ecosystem is being impacted by the Covid-19…
Update as at 24 July 2020: Since this blog first went up in April 2020, legislation has been passed confirming (among other things) that parties to security agreements containing power…
Many of New Zealand’s startups have an investor director on their boards. We’ve looked at areas
for investor directors to think about in respect of portfolio companies experiencing financial difficulties.
We’ve been fielding calls from several businesses who are worried they are breaching a commercial contract, including major supply contracts on which their business relies. Here's a few things to think about if that's you.
If you're in the middle of a fundraising round, you might be left wondering what the Covid-19 situation means for your startup. We've done a quick round-up of things to consider.
Kindrik Partners operates in the cloud and will continue to fully function through the COVID-19 crisis. Our staff are now working remotely. This is to ensure our staff and local…
Small cash-poor companies with over 50 shareholders rejoice. New changes to the Takeovers Code mean that it’s now easier for smaller companies to manage their shareholdings without significant administrative and regulatory burdens.
It has been another incredible year of deal activity for the team at Kindrik Partners. For the first time, we closed more than 100 deals in a calendar year - 116 deals to be exact across our New Zealand and Southeast Asia offices, up from 92 in 2018.
We’re about to kick off the application process for our techlaw intern programme in 2020 and we’re looking for Auckland-based technology companies who would like to participate.
We helped Soul Machines complete its US$40million series B financing round. As far as we’re aware, this is the largest VC round completed by a NZ company.
We’re speaking to funds to find out their thoughts the startup and venture ecosystem. This week we’re speaking to Karthi Sepulohniam at Partners For Growth.
The techlaw internship programme places law students with fast-growing tech companies. We caught up with Nick Goldstein to talk about his techlaw internship experience.
If you provide SaaS products or services to your clients as part of your business, this guide is for you. We’ll cover what you need to know if you handle…
This year’s Budget announced $300m of new Government funding for NZ’s fledging venture capital industry, and Minister Parker wasted no time introducing a Bill to set up a new fund…
We are delighted to have advised Surgical Design Studio on its recent capital raise of $4,300,000. Icehouse Ventures led the round, followed by investors including UniServices, Eden Ventures, NZVIF and…
A couple of weeks ago we caught up with our 2019 techlaw interns at our Auckland office. It was a great chance for the interns to share their experiences so…
The UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office announced earlier this month that it intends to fine British Airways £183.39 million following a cyberattack against its systems last year. The…
Traditionally the vast majority of NZ startup investment deals have been structured as share (equity) investments. NZ angel investor groups, the most active investors in the NZ startups, were wary…
We are excited to announce the launch of Kindrik Partners’s newly-designed website for Southeast Asian tech companies and startups. We believe in empowering entrepreneurs and tech companies by giving them…
Our venture capital lawyers in New Zealand and Singapore have been extremely busy for the first six months of 2019, helping clients close 50 capital raising deals by the end…
Atlassian made a splash in the tech M&A world recently by publishing their term sheet for strategic acquisitions. So why has Atlassian gone public with its terms, when acquisition terms…
Last Thursday’s budget included $300m of funding for the NZ tech sector, targeting the country’s venture capital gap. $240 million of the new funding will come from contributions earmarked for the New…
We’ve recently staffed our first booth at Echelon, one of Southeast Asia's largest technology and startup events. It was exciting to chat with hundreds of startups, founders, investors, and venture builders over two jam-packed days.
Following a consultation with law firms working with startups (with Kindrik Partners representing founders' perspective), the NZ Angel Association (AANZ) have released new template cap raising documents.
We’re super excited to announce the line-up of international VCs who’ll be attending the Kindrik Partners, Balgarnie van Rooyen and ATEED meet the VC’s event on Wednesday, 22 May at…
In January we asked tech companies interested in participating in our 2019 techlaw intern programme to contact us. There was lots of interest, and we’re happy to announce this year’s…
Last year, New Zealand saw a big increase in direct foreign investment into our early-stage companies. Some exciting international funding rounds were completed by the likes of Rocket Lab, Soul…
The R&D tax credit bill (introduced to Parliament in October of 2018) will replace the existing system of Callaghan Innovation R&D grants with a tax credit system. Under the Callaghan…
We’ve crunched the numbers and confirmed that 2018 was by far our busiest year for capital raising activity. In total we helped clients close 92 deals. This is a big…
Our 2019 techlaw intern programme is getting underway, and we’re looking for Auckland based tech companies who would like to participate. A quick recap on how the scheme works: we…
Earlier this year, our intrepid commercial lawyers were inundated with increasingly panicked enquiries from Kiwi tech companies about GDPR compliance. This got us thinking that there had to be a…
Our Auckland team, led by Julie Fowler, has advised the shareholders of SwipedOn Limited on the sale of their shares to Smartspace Software Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Smartspace Software Plc, for $11m in cash and shares.
We launched the techlaw intern programme this year, which paired law students from the University of Auckland with NZ tech companies for some hands-on work experience. Jude, UniServices, Endace, and 9 Spokes were our hosts.
Our Kindrik Partners Southeast Asia team is thrilled to have advised fintech leader, C88 Financial Technologies, on its $28 million series C investment round led by Experian. The deal represents one of the largest fintech investments ever in the region.
Our lawyers Chris Wilson and Sarah Yen recently advised Singapore-based fintech Bambu on its S$3 million series A round, which closed earlier this month. The round was led by Franklin Templeton Investments, a US…
We’re excited to release eight new, free legal templates for Southeast Asian startups: a startup shareholders’ agreement a SAFE a KISS term sheet an advisor share agreement an m&a term…
In NZ there is pretty much just private equity between venture capital investment and bank financing. And securing meaningful bank financing is extremely hard for most NZ tech companies - until now.
Julie Fowler, assisted by Sarah Yen and Sam Kaelin, has advised the shareholders of New Zealand’s largest game development studio, Grinding Gear Games, on the sale of a majority interest to Tencent, the world’s largest online games company.
Companies will no longer be able to structure share purchase schemes to have the economic effect of options, while treating increases in the value of shares issued under those schemes as tax free capital gains.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on 25 May 2018 and represents a big change to current EU data protection laws. The GDPR expands the…
Slingshot, an Australian accelerator program that connects large corporates with startups via tailored accelerator programmes, recently announced the Caltex Spark 12 week accelerator. The accelerator will run from May 7 to August 1 in Sydney.
We’re delighted to have been appointed to the Gen 2 All of Government external legal providers panel to advise public sector agencies on their IT projects and related issues. In…
We are receiving a lot of enquiries from NZ startups, and more established tech companies, about the legalities of NZ companies raising investment via an ICO.
We’re happy to report that 2017, while not quite reaching the heights of the previous year, was still a great year for our corporate lawyers advising on capital raising deals.
Late in October New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA) released guidance on the regulation of initial coin offerings (ICOs) under NZ securities law.
We’ve been super busy upgrading the Kindrik Partners website to make our doc makers more awesome. There are two main changes: users can now access the doc makers (and Word…
NZ’s Financial Market’s Authority recently released guidance on the regulation of ICOs under NZ securities laws – in particular under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 (FMCA).
Howls of outrage in the @techlawnz office generally mean one thing – the other side to a negotiation has not properly marked up the contract. Of course, we follow the…
Kindrik Partners has inspired an Angel Association working group that is aiming to produce a new set of template investment documents for use in NZ angel deals.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has just issued a report warning that Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) may be deemed to be securities, making them subject to United States' securities laws. But what does this mean?
Slingshot are running the recently announced LION Unleased 12 week accelerator, and are seeking applications from Australian and New Zealand tech startups and scale-ups.
As part of this year’s changes to the tax treatment of employee share purchase schemes, the IRD has introduced new obligations on employers to report benefits received by employees under…
After our bumper year of capital raising in 2016, we’ve been keeping an eye on the level of capital raising activity amongst our clients as 2017 progresses.
We are stoked to have completed the automation of our template tech company constitution, using the SaaS platform of Aussie doc automation company ZumeForms.
The IRD has released its much-anticipated issues paper on taxation of employee share schemes for startups. This is the third part of a substantial review undertaken by the IRD of…
Each year, while our corporate team releases its stats on capital raising deals and sums involved, the wallflowers of Kindrik Partners (aka the commercial team) simply do what they always…
Last week saw the introduction to Parliament of an IRD Bill that will overhaul the tax treatment of employee share purchase schemes. The aim of the IRD’s new rules is to…
Our 2016 capital raising numbers are in and we’re pleased to report a big increase in activity over 2015. In total, we helped our clients complete 83 capital raising transactions, up from 43 in 2015.
Three years ago, we released a suite of 20 free legal templates for download by NZ tech companies. This was a first for a NZ law firm. Since the launch of this free service we have been overwhelmed by the positive response from the tech and wider business community.
We’ve been crunching the numbers on our capital raising activity this year. So far, we’ve completed 50 transactions with another 25 in train, the majority of which will be done…
Kindrik Partners is delighted to be appointed as the legal partner to the newly launched Kiwibank FinTech Accelerator, powered by Lightning Lab and run through Creative HQ.
Check out our new interactive tool to help companies better understand the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 (FMCA), and demystify one of the more technical aspects of cap raising in New Zealand.
I was lucky enough to attend the Morgo conference in Queenstown last week. The speakers were great – mostly Kiwi entrepreneurs talking about the tribulations and trials of building high growth companies…
We’ve enjoyed the great discussion over the last few days about the proposals arising from the Simon Moutter led tour of the Israeli startup ecosystem. One of the issues that…
Every year the New Zealand Software Association holds its annual Angel At My Table event – one of the most popular nights on the NZSA calendar. The event sees four…
As a tech focused law firm, we’re always looking for ways to engage with NZ’s awesome startup and entrepreneur community. As a result, we partnered with BizDojo Wellington earlier this…
We are pleased to have advised Wellington based Volpara on the NZ law aspects of its IPO on ASX. Volpara, which provides digital solutions to improve clinical decision making for…
We are pleased to have advised New Zealand’s cloud video production company, 90 Seconds, on their $11 million series A round led by global venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital. The…
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Victoria Stewart as chief executive officer of the firm, effective from 1 April 2016. Victoria also re-joins the firm as a partner…
At the start of each year, we like to spend some time analysing data on the transactions which we worked on in the previous year. The numbers are now in…
In the midst of crawling through 50+ page contracts we do get odd moments of humour. Yesterday’s one was courtesy of Word’s find/replace feature. Find/replace is a pretty useful tool for…
The first time I heard Paul Cameron speak was at Lightning Lab Wellington for a fireside chat about his journey with Booktrack. We had many impressive speakers and experts talk to…
In our third blog on capital raising in the USA, I chat with John Holt, co-founder and Chairman of the Kiwi Landing Pad. A serial entrepreneur in his own right,…
The Kindrik Partners team continues to grow this year, and we are delighted to welcome Averill Dickson to our Auckland office. Averill joins us from Simpson Grierson, where she was a…
This is part of our blog series to help New Zealand tech companies who are thinking about raising capital in the USA. In our first interview with Kiwi companies who have…
From 1 May 2015, new compliance requirements for all companies registered in New Zealand will come into effect. These new compliance requirements and associated key dates are set out below.…
We are very excited to welcome English qualified corporate technology lawyer Lee Bagshaw to the Kindrik Partners team. Lee will work as a consultant at the firm until he has completed…
The Takeovers Panel is consulting on the cost of legal compliance for small companies that are caught by the Takeovers Code (making them Code Companies). The Panel is interested in…
On Tuesday 17 June a number of important changes to NZ’s consumer law regime will come into effect. This blog discusses a change to the Fair Trading Act 1986(the FTA)…
The Financial Markets Conduct Act exemption for employee share schemes comes into force on 1 April 2014. This is a watershed event for the New Zealand tech sector – finally…
For years, NZ tech companies and their employees have been held back by NZ’s securities laws governing private company employee share schemes. Overseas high growth technology hubs are fueled by…
A recent European Court of Justice ruling allowing the re-sale of perpetual software licences has been widely reported, and a number of our clients have asked questions about its impact…
We work with a lot of early stage and high growth tech companies that have a capital raise in their short to medium term business plans, and we are often…
2010 has seen a big uplift in ICT procurement activity in and around Wellington, particularly from the Government sector. A feature of many of the larger procurements has been the…
The dramas keep coming for Telecom with the collapse of a small software provider who owns the source code on which the XT network is built. The public details are…
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