Kiwis’ Rocket Lab missed cash input
A Government-owned investment fund was offered the chance to invest in Rocket Lab when the space launch company was worth only $30 million, but had to turn it down, MPs have been told.
Rocket Lab spokeswoman Morgan Bailey said the valuation at which Rocket Lab last raised money at a capital raising in November had since risen to more than $2 billion.
New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF) chairman Murray Gribben told Parliament’s science, research and innovation select committee that NZVIF was offered the chance to invest in Rocket Lab five years ago at a $30m valuation. But it was not then allowed to invest directly in any business and had to turn the offer down, he said.
Chief executive Richard Dellabarca said NZVIF’s rules had since been changed to allow it to co-invest seed capital directly into small, early-stage ventures.
But the direct investment in Rocket Lab would have been a larger venture capital investment that would still be barred under the current rules if the same opportunity came up today, he said.
The investors who put US$140m (NZ$205m) of new money into Rocket Lab in November included the Accident Compensation Corporation.
But Gribben suggested to MPs that it was regrettable that up until then almost all of the venture capital funding for Rocket Lab had needed to come from Silicon Valley. ‘‘Four US venture capital funds invested in Rocket Lab. It would have been great if one of them had been from New Zealand.’’
NZVIF was originally established by the Labour government in 2002 to jump start the venture capital industry by investing taxpayer-dollars alongside private venture capital funds, before it expanded into providing seed finance to earlier-stage firms.
The Venture Capital Association in 2017 argued against changing NZVIF’s mandate to allow it to make larger venture capital investments direct into companies – warning that doing so risked ‘‘crowding out’’ the very same private venture capital funds that NZVIF was originally established to foster.
Dellabarca said NZVIF was still awaiting instructions from the Government on the future role it wanted NZVIF to perform in the venture capital space.
Last year, Rocket Lab put 24 tiny satellites into space from three successful rocket launches.
Its next launch window opens on Sunday, when it plans to put an experimental satellite into space.