The Icehouse touts itself as providing entrepreneurs and business owners with the knowledge, tools and contacts to grow whether they be start-up or established businesses. Icehouse start-up and Ice Angels director Ken Erskine shares the purpose of the organisation, the motivation behind it and the success stories of SMEs who sought their assistance.
We are a hub for Kiwis in business. We support the entrepreneurs and business people who are likely to shape the future of New Zealand’s economy. We offer a range of business growth programmes for SMEs, a business incubator for start-ups, and access to New Zealand’s largest group of Angel Investors, the ICE Angels.
One of our biggest strengths is our network – if you need to get connected, we can find the right person locally or internationally with only a few conversations. We’re taking three Kiwi companies to Silicon Valley to the USA Angel Capital Association’s International Angel Investment Showcase in April. This will be huge for these guys, not only do they get to present their ideas to a range of Angel backers, we’re going to work with them to organise one on one meetings and facilitate quality introductions. That’s just an example of how we leverage our network to help Kiwi businesses.
The Icehouse was founded in 2001 in recognition of the importance of SMEs to the New Zealand economy. The founders wanted to create a place to assist entrepreneurial companies to be successful, both domestically and overseas, with the goal of helping New Zealand’s economy grow.
The Icehouse was founded by David Irving, Bridget Liddell, Barry Spicer and Geoff Whitcher with the financial support and expertise of BNZ, HP, Microsoft, Telecom, Boston Consulting Group, Chapman Tripp, Carter Holt Harvey and Deloitte.
A wide range of NZ businesses and entrepreneurs come to The Icehouse . We work with early stage start-ups, developing new business ideas and later stage start-ups, looking at the next stages of growth and funding. For businesses that have been going for a while, we offer a range of development programmes for owners and senior leaders who want to grow their business and take it to the next level.
The people we work with say the real difference in our programmes is they’re tangible, actionable, and link directly to results. It’s more like practical learning rather than “book” learning and we work alongside them to get from A to B.
The unique offering in many of our business programmes is the opportunity to be in the room learning with other owners who share the same challenges. The reality is we’re entrepreneurs working with entrepreneurs – our real focus is on delivering measurable programmes that benefit businesses. We’re all about growth, and that could be in people, capabilities or profit.
We offer them mentoring by experienced business people plus learning and development courses around strategy, leadership, market validation, business planning, financials, change management and technology adoption.
Start-ups and SMEs also get access to our huge network of entrepreneurs, investors, advisors, corporates, and government institutions locally and internationally. These connections offer advice and support and open doors for our companies.
We are working with all SMEs and start-ups that want to take their business to the next level and that have the right mindset. By right mindset, we mean they have to be coachable and open to advice.
When we work with start-ups, especially very early stage ones, we look at the idea and the size of the opportunity as well as the background and capability of the founder(s).
The great thing about The Icehouse is we are running a number of different programmes and have a large group of mentors and advisors. This enables us to match businesses with the right programme or mentor to make sure they get the most out of their time with us.
Visit our website (www.theicehouse.co.nz) and get in touch with us to learn more about the individual programmes and find out which one is the best fit. The next step is to complete an application form. For some of our programmes, we invite businesses to a screening session. For others, we accept them directly based on the application form.
We have some amazing partners who support us in helping develop Kiwi businesses to improve the economy. We have a large group of mentors and coaches who work directly with our customers and deliver our programmes. We work very closely with our foundation partner, The University of Auckland, as well as government institutions like ATEED and NZTE.
We have close partnerships with a number of NZ corporates including BNZ, HP, Gen-i, Telecom, Microsoft, JBWere, KPMG, and AJ Park.
We had a number of great successes in the last 12 years. Looking at the start-up side some that stand out are eBUS, provider of expert software as a service for the TV broadcasting industry, who just recently got bought by UK firm, IMD.
Also wireless inductive technology provider PowerByProxi who is considered a world leader in its industry and has worked with around 30 large companies around the world in diverse areas including aerospace, security systems, sensor networks, and hydraulic control. And BigLittleBang, a 3D virtual world for kids with over 125,000 users and this number is growing 35 percent month on month.
Some of the well known SMEs we have worked with include ProLife Foods, a FMCG focused supplier of food products to NZ & Australia, Sutton Group, added value dairy manufacturer of infant formulas, JUCY rentals, Furnware, manufacturer of children’s school furniture, Farro Fresh and Future Products Group, a leader in FMCG retail fit-outs and refrigerated cabinetry.
Start-ups and SMEs are the backbone of the New Zealand economy. We have a lot of great SMEs and entrepreneurs in New Zealand, and every day, more people have great business ideas.
Kiwis are known for being innovative and NZ is considered one of the best places in the world to start a business. However, we often see Kiwis struggling to grow their businesses and turn them into successful companies with strong domestic and/or international markets that can help our economy long-term. We are helping entrepreneurs overcome these challenges, and through that, are helping the NZ economy.
