Providing a completely new way for companies to manage compliance tasks, and a user-friendly hub for investors to view and interact with their private investments, Orchestra is a new all-in-one platform positioned as the intersection between private companies, their investors and business advisors.
NZBusiness spoke with co-founder and Kiwi tech start-up veteran, Casey Eden (pictured), about what motivated this next big project, in partnership with online investment marketplace, Snowball Effect.
NZB: You’ve been instrumental to the successes of websites Neighbourly and GrabOne. What motivated you to develop a fintech platform like Orchestra?
Casey: Private investment in companies is vital to creating a healthy and vibrant economy, but for a lot of companies, managing compliance requirements and a diverse investor base is not always the easiest task. After being on both sides of the private investor marketplace, I saw a gap in the market for a tool like Orchestra that could help improve the experience for all stakeholders and grow capital investment for Kiwi businesses.
NZB: How does New Zealand’s investment and compliance landscape differ from other countries, and what are the most common challenges faced by business owners here?
Casey: From a compliance point of view, New Zealand stacks up reasonably well. But in general, we have a relatively immature private investment marketplace. And I do believe these two things are linked.
As businesses grow and compliance requirements naturally increase, it’s common for business owners to feel strained to keep everything compliance-related and other key information available to investors. Failing to create this engaging environment can be a limiting factor in finding growth capital for a business.
NZB: How can improving the management of your businesses’ share registry reduce costs and mitigate risk?
Casey: More than 630,000 companies in New Zealand are legally required to meet certain compliance tasks, including having a share registry. And there are a lot of moving parts and stakeholders in a registry that is fully compliant. Managing all of these pieces manually in different systems can be a time consuming task – not to mention also potentially very expensive if key information falls through the cracks and you later need to retrospectively fix issues.
When there are so many important bits and pieces involved, it makes sense to streamline them into a single source of truth to ensure accuracy and consistency.
NZB: What are employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and how do they work?
Casey: ESOPs offer employees the opportunity to own small parcels of a company. They work by giving options to staff to purchase shares at a pre-determined price at a future point in time, normally when a business is sold. ESOP schemes are great as they create a culture of ownership amongst employees, are proven to help recruit and retain key staff, and it’s also a tax-efficient way to give equity in a company.
NZB: In this post-COVID environment, what are your top tips or predictions for investment opportunities in Kiwi businesses?
Casey: Businesses should be looking to raise extra capital to capitalize on opportunities that may present themselves at short notice, such as acquiring a competitor. As business confidence and the economy ebbs and flows, capital may at times be a bit tougher to access for NZ companies, but investors will still be keen for a great business given relatively poor returns from some safer investments.
Companies that are export ready, with proven scale opportunities internationally, will continue to be popular choices with investors.
Learn how the Orchestra platform works here: https://www.orchestra.co.nz/orchestra-intro.html
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