The ICEHOUSE 2009 FAST Pitch Event Series is a real life “Dragon’s Den” business pitch competition. The process is focused on honing your sales and presentation skills, while giving you access to the knowledge, tools and connections that have made The ICEHOUSE such a sought after place to grow businesses.
Last year’s winner Todd Wackrow says: “Even if I hadn’t been lucky enough to win, it was still incredible value. There was just so much expertise available. You get to tap into the Angel investor network, have your shot and get fantastic feedback. I went hard on the pre-work in the presentations and workshops. I was already doing reasonably well in sales, this really took me up a notch in my presentation skills and gave me connections and strategies I didn’t know about before. I would really encourage people to enter and get the most out of it you can.”
Tuesday 27 October (6:00pm - 8:30pm) – 10 finalists present their pitch in front of a panel of judges, angel investors, venture capitalists and businesspeople. There are 4 category awards: Best Intellectual Property Idea, Best Funding Opportunity for Investors, Best Presentation Skills and the People’s Choice Award. The overall winner will be selected from the winners of those categories.
The grand prize is valued at over $15,000 and includes 3 months in The ICEHOUSE’s leading incubator ICE Accelerator to develop their business dream, and the opportunity to pitch directly to any of the participating investors. The total prize pool is valued at over $30,000 and is supported by ICEHOUSE founder The University of Auckland Business School and corporate partners BNZ, BCG, Ernst & Young, HP, Gen-i, Microsoft, and Telecom.
Business mentors:
Ken Erskine
Ken Erskine, has extensive sales and marketing experience working with a spectrum of organisations ranging from local start up’s to global multinationals. With over fifteen years IT sales and marketing experience in NZ and Europe Ken has held senior management/leadership roles at Hewlett Packard and Compaq where he was also involved in the initial sponsorship of The ICEHOUSE.
More recently Ken has been working with local technology companies including IPFX (NZ based Unified Communications software developer) where he was responsible for worldwide marketing, channels and vendor partnerships for the past three years. He is also an active member of the Ice Angels network investing in Nexus 6, Biomatters and Optima Corporation.
Melanie Beattie
She joined in 2006, having previously owned and help start two businesses (utilities and technology respectively) in the UK. She was also CEO of a startup, First Rate, funded by angel investment, and has a background in online strategy consulting.
Simon Brown
Simon has extensive experience in the IT&T, Commercialisation and Venture Capital industries in Australia, NZ, and the UK. He has managed both private and public businesses ranging from start up to Nasdaq listed, and also helped launch the first publicly listed Venture Capital company in NZ.
Prior to his current Sales Management role at gen-i, Simon was CEO Kea (a global network of Kiwi Expats), leading commercialisation strategies for several early stage businesses, MD Cardax (a NZ based global exporter of IT and Electronic solutions), GM Peak Technologies UK, and held management roles at UBix, Advantage Group and Walker Datavision.
Will Charles
Will Charles is the General Manager of the Technology Development at UniServices. Prior to his appointment at Uniservices he worked at Novartis Korea as their Business Unit Head, Primary Care. Will has had extensive commercial experience in life science businesses in Europe, Asia and New Zealand where he has held executive positions at GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Celltech.
Perry Cornish
Perry’s career started in advertising in NZ. He then went on to spend nearly 10 years in the UK and Europe working with brands like Saab and Fedex across Europe. After moving from client side and into financial services, Perry then returned to NZ where he joined Elders Finance. Ten years on Perry has been a senior executive for one of NZ ‘s largest and fastest growing Financial services groups, developing household brand names in investments and managing over a billion dollars of investor funds. He is an experienced executive who focuses on strategy and growth. Also a strong advocate of service, Perry’s contact centres have been dominated the NZ CRM awards for almost 5 years. Perry has led teams in business restructures and in several successful start-up’s both in NZ and Australia.
Richard Ede
Since graduating with a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Massey University in 1990, this banking and finance major has worked for major banks and was appointed Managing Partner of BNZ Partners, North Shore last Octobers.
The Financial Services Institute of Australasia [FINSIA] awarded Richard Ede the prestigious honour of Fellowship in 2005.
Duncan Ledwith
A highly experienced international business leader and entrepreneur, Duncan specialises in all facets of business strategy, notably market validation, entry strategies and international growth. He started his first company at the age of 21, forming 3 more since then based in Europe and the U.S.A and now resides on numerous NZ Company Boards and Advisory Groups. “I can help companies grow, through my experience in local/national, pan European and global business strategy, marketing, sales and team management.”
James Madelin
James Madelin founded his company enlight photo in 2006, to bring his innovative photographic accessory, the orbis(tm) ring flash, to market. Launched in December 2008, the orbis(tm) is now on sale around the world, at orbisflash.com and through an international dealer & distributor network. James worked for two years in the ICEHOUSE Accelerator programme and continues to be based in the ICEHOUSE offices.
Duncan Shand
With 15 years corporate experience across a number of industries, a career highlight for Duncan remains his rebranding of Air NZ and development of their long-haul market offering. Duncan has also managed the re-launch of one of New Zealand’s pioneering biotech exporting successes, before being asked to rejuvenate ihug’s market profile and business. In 2004 Duncan founded InsideOut – a company focused on developing breakthrough business growth by applying specialist expertise. “I believe that to succeed you need real passion, a real crusade and you need to ensure that your business has real advantages over what’s currently in the market. If there’s no need for your product or services, then there’s no business.”
Andrew Turnbull
Andrew has spent the last ten years working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the UK and has extensive experience in most aspects of these businesses, including compliance, manufacturing, research and development and licensing. He spent from 2002 to 2006 as a Board Director of AIM listed company Allergy Therapeutics plc which he helped to take to market.
Todd Wackrow
Todd Wackrow is the founder and managing director of POCKETvouchers and was the winner of the inaugural FAST Pitch event in 2008. POCKETvouchers is a mobile marketing company which uses trackable mobile vouchers verified through the EFTPOS network to drive foot-traffic and sales for companies such as Heineken, Coca-Cola & Sanitarium. Todd is an experienced marketer specialising in mobile and new media and POCKETvouchers is delivering exceptional results for major brands using their innovative mobile voucher platform.
Brian Watt
Brian Watt is Managing Partner, BNZ Partners - Auckland Central. Brian has worked in The Banking and Financial Markets for over 25 Years.
He has extensive experience in the international financial markets having worked in Asia for over 7 years along with his time in New Zealand. In recent years Brian has worked in the Private Banking area where he has engaged in client advisory, investment management and Private equity. His current role sees him managing diverse group of partners covering the Business,Property and Private Banking markets.
Darren White
Darren is a tax partner at Ernst & Young specialising in the SME market. He has over fifteen years experience with the firm including five years in our London office. Darren has particular expertise in assisting companies and their owners manage their tax affairs efficiently and minimize effective tax rates."
Judges:
Warwick Grey
Warwick has worked in IT sales and marketing for over 20 years. He started at specialist IT distributor Renaissance in 1989 and since then has worked for Corel Corporation, Microsoft and now Hewlett Packard in a variety of roles.
In 2008 the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation awarded him the title of ‘Most Significant Contribution to Business Support by an Individual’ as part of the Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards.
David Beard
David is a business angel, entrepreneur and management consultant; he enjoys working with all types of high growth businesses that have the potential to be world beating. He strongly beliefs “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” (Winston Churchill) and that entrepreneurs and businesses that solve “pain” are businesses that will go on to achieve greatness.
Melanie Beattie
She joined in 2006, having previously owned and help start two businesses (utilities and technology respectively) in the UK. She was also CEO of a startup, First Rate, funded by angel investment, and has a background in online strategy consulting.
Richard Ede
Since graduating with a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Massey University in 1990, this banking and finance major has worked for major banks and was appointed Managing Partner of BNZ Partners, North Shore last Octobers.
The Financial Services Institute of Australasia [FINSIA] awarded Richard Ede the prestigious honour of Fellowship in 2005.
William Graham
William is the Westpac Client Executive at Gen-i, responsible for delivering the Westpac account financial result.
William joined Gen-i in October 2006. Prior to Gen-i, William worked within the Auckland New Business Team at Telecom NZ Ltd, originally joining in 2000 as a National Account Manager.
Vincent Heeringa
Vincent won many awards as a journalist with Metro magazine and The Independent Business Weekly and was twice named Editor of the Year by the Magazine Publishers’ Association for his role in founding Unlimited magazine. In 2004 he co-founded HB Media and is a publisher at AUT Media, the publishing division of AUT University.
Jared Pedersen
Jared Pedersen, SMB Sales & Marketing Manager for Microsoft New Zealand, has worked at Microsoft for nine years in various functions, including finance, business operations, anti-piracy, and sales and marketing, in roles at the Seattle headquarters as well as in the Asia Pacific regional team based in Singapore.
Prizes:
Semi-finalists will receive the following prizes:
- Each Semi-Finalist will receive a 1 GB HP USB Memory Stick and a copy of “Fuel For Your Business”
Finalists
- Finalists will receive 6 month subscriptions to Idealog & NZ Business Magazines
Four Categories to compete for:
- Ernst & Young - Best Funding Opportunity
- BNZ - Best Intellectual Property
- Gen-i - Best Presentation
- Microsoft - People’s Choice
Each of the four category winners will receive a prize package consists of:
- BNZ: Cash Prize $1000 plus an opportunity to open a BNZ bank account*
- Microsoft: A Microsoft Software package that includes a copy of Microsoft Office and Windows 7
- Gen-i: 1 Telecom T Stick (MF636) Mobile Broadband USB
- NZTE: Escalator Investment Ready Consultation
- The ICEHOUSE: An opportunity to pitch to The ICEHOUSE associated investors
- NZ Business Magazine: 12 month subscription
- Ideolog Magazine: 12 month subscription
Winners will be awarded with an ICEHOUSE certificate in recognition of their achievement.
Category winner of Ernst & Young Best Funding Opportunity will receive the category prizes plus:
- Ernst & Young: Two hour ‘Exceptional Enterprise’ consulting session on your business with Melanie Beattie, Executive Director, Ernst & Young.
The NZTE Overall FAST Pitch Winner (to be selected from the four category winners) will be receive the category prizes plus:
- The ICEHOUSE: 3 months residency at the ICEHOUSE’s leading incubator ICE Accelerator to develop your business dream
- Microsoft: Microsoft Small Business Server 2008
- Telecom: Blackberry Bold plus a 6 month call plan*
* Terms & Conditions Apply