Icehouse Ventures

Ice Angels was formed by five founding members in December 2003. Ice Angels and a handful of other investors provided seed funding to the startup Biomatters in 2004 and later invested in it multiple times; in April 2019, U.S. company GraphPad announced its acquisition of Biomatters, the first startup the network had invested in.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In 2008, Robbie Paul, who later became CEO, joined Icehouse, going on to see it grow from an angel network to its first fund and then to more than $500 million in funds under management. He recalled that at the time you could count on one hand the investors across New Zealand who had invested in more than ten startups or had been habitual startup investors for more than ten years, and that there were fewer than 500 startup investors in the country.⁠[2][2][3][3]

In 2013, the Ice Angels team raised its first fund.⁠[2]

In December 2015, its seed fund made its first investment. Its three seed funds went on to be among the early investors in companies including Halter, Dawn Aerospace, Tradify, Sharesies, and Tracksuit.⁠[4][4]

In 2017, its first index-style fund, IV100, was raised; in March 2020, it backed its 100th company, Revolution Fibres.⁠[5]

On April 15, 2019, the startup incubator The Icehouse announced that new investment partners had come on board to form Icehouse Ventures, an independent company to be launched on May 1. The new partners, including KiwiSaver funds manager Simplicity, Sir Stephen Tindall’s investment company K1W1, investment banking firm FNZC (later renamed Jarden), and investors connected to The Icehouse, held a combined 23% stake; Simplicity also committed to invest up to NZ$100 million over five years into funds managed by Icehouse Ventures, targeting high-growth New Zealand companies seeking expansion capital.⁠[6][6][7][6]

CEO Robbie Paul said the new company’s larger scale would enable startups to attract more capital by tapping strategic offshore investors, while ensuring that a greater share of the capital came from New Zealanders. In July 2019, Andy Hamilton, the founding CEO of The Icehouse, announced that he would step down and join the board of Icehouse Ventures as an executive director, alongside directors Sam Stubbs, Tim Williams, and Anne Catley.⁠[6][7][7]

On September 28, 2020, Icehouse Ventures and the deep tech incubator LevelTwo announced a partnership to jointly run a $10 million deep tech fund, expand laboratory and workshop space, and launch a pre-incubation program, “Launch Lab.” LevelTwo is the birthplace of Rocket Lab and LanzaTech.⁠[8][8][8]

In December 2020, Icehouse Ventures announced that its second index-style fund, IV100 II, had raised its first $5 million toward a planned $10 million, to be invested in 100 startups over three to four years; an investor portal launched in July of that year let investors track the progress of more than 100 companies. The firm then expected to invest more than $30 million into 75 companies over 2020.⁠[5][5][5][5]

On July 14, 2021, Icehouse Ventures launched IVX, a late-stage venture fund planning to invest in 20 to 30 of New Zealand’s leading technology companies. It had already raised more than $50 million from Simplicity, an iwi (a Māori tribe), Hobson Wealth, Sir Stephen Tindall, and more than 100 individual investors, and was targeting a $75 million final close.⁠[9][9]

In April 2022, ArcAngels Fund II, an Icehouse Ventures fund dedicated to women-founded and women-led businesses, raised its first NZ$5 million toward a NZ$20 million target; the previous ArcAngels fund raised NZ$2.8 million and invested in 31 New Zealand ventures, including Hnry, Easy Crypto, and ArchiPro.⁠[10][10][10]

On November 30, 2023, Icehouse Ventures announced that it had raised $10 million in equity for the firm itself, to be spent on people, technology, and resources, separate from the $95 million raised for its funds that year; backers included entrepreneurs such as Brooke Roberts of Sharesies and Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education, as well as family offices in several locations. In the four years since becoming independent, the firm had grown its staff to 24, increased its funds under management fivefold, and seen its valuation rise from $18 million to $50 million; its late-stage Growth Fund I had backed 32 companies, including Hnry, Tracksuit, Halter, and Crimson Education.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][11]

In November 2024, Crimson Education disclosed a NZ$67 million Series D round led by Movac, in which Icehouse Ventures participated as an existing backer alongside HEAL Partners and others; the round valued Crimson at more than NZ$1 billion.⁠[12][12][12]

Growth Fund II closed at the end of 2024 with NZ$122 million in commitments, planning to back up to 20 New Zealand tech scaleups, with KiwiSaver providers Generate, Simplicity, and Pie Funds among its investors; the NZ$110 million Growth Fund I was fully deployed in 32 companies. After the close, Icehouse Ventures’ total funds under management stood at NZ$454 million. Robbie Paul said the group’s returns exceeded NZ$100 million in 2024; that year, more than $18 million in profits from Tradify was distributed to nearly 1,000 investors.⁠[13][13][3][13][13][13][3]

On July 16, 2025, Icehouse Ventures announced the first close of Seed Fund 4, with 80 investors committing $15 million in less than a month; the fund plans to invest in 30 startups over three years, and its first investment was in Harth, founded by Scott Barrington and Tom Batterbury. Robbie Paul also noted that the first three seed funds had made 96 investments since December 2015, of which seven companies had been sold with positive returns, 14 had failed, and the rest were still operating.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

In September 2026, Icehouse Ventures announced that it had led the Series A round of Calocurb, a New Zealand weight management supplement brand, investing $5 million from Growth Fund III, the fund’s second confirmed investment after Halter; KiwiSaver provider Generate made a $10 million direct co-investment.⁠[14][14][14]

As of October 2026, the firm’s website listed cumulative investments of more than 800 million (currency not specified), more than 390 portfolio companies, and more than 3,000 co-investors. Its funds are open only to wholesale investors as defined by New Zealand’s Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, with a minimum commitment of $50,000 paid in four tranches, and some of its funds are approved for New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus investor visa.⁠[15][16][16][16][16]

As of October 2026, Growth Fund III, then raising, was structured as a limited partnership with a target size of more than $150 million, planning to invest in about 20 later-stage companies at Series A to D, with a 10-year term; First Cut IV had a target size of more than $5 million, planning to invest in about 30 early-stage technology companies led by New Zealand founders under 30, with a 12-year term. Alongside the funds, the First Cut community serves young founders; Halter founder Craig Piggott was the first investment made through First Cut I.⁠[15][17][17][18][18][19][19]

Icehouse Ventures lists Crimson Education among its featured portfolio companies. Co-founder and CEO Jamie Beaton said that without the consistent support of Icehouse Ventures, Crimson could not have grown from three founders in a dorm to more than 950 team members across 26 countries.⁠[20][15]

In 2026, Icehouse Ventures recruited participants for “The Fellowship,” a scholarship program for Year 12 students in New Zealand: five selected fellows transfer to Crimson Global Academy for their final years of school, with tuition valued at $30,000 per year covered by Icehouse Ventures; fellows also take part in a year-long Icehouse Ventures program including mentorship and $10,000 in funding to start a business.⁠[21][21][21][21][21][21]

As of October 2026, Robbie Paul is CEO, and the partners include Jack McQuire, Barnaby Marshall, Jo Wickham, and Jason Wang; Allbirds co-founder Tim Brown has been a venture partner since 2024. The firm’s office is at the Textile Centre in Parnell, Auckland.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2][15]

Icehouse Ventures: Official website: https://www.icehouseventures.co.nz/ (opens in a new window).⁠[15]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/icehouse-ventures/ (opens in a new window)⁠[15]

Instagram: Public account: https://www.instagram.com/icehouseventures/ (opens in a new window)⁠[15]