Congratulations to the Xero team for attracting US-investor Peter Thiel to the company (release). Peter Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal (sold to eBay for US$1.5 billion) and the first external investor into Facebook and is on the board.
This is FANTASTIC news for both Xero and New Zealand.
The really interesting part of the press release is:
“The investment in Xero will be made through Valar Ventures LP, Mr Thiel’s New Zealand investment firm. Valar Ventures focuses on helping New Zealand companies in the post-revenue phase move into global markets. The Xero placement is the firm’s inaugural investment.”
This could be a huge opportunity for many more New Zealand companies.
Great job Rod Drury and the whole Xero team.
Bernard Hickey from interest.co.nz wrote this piece at the end of September:
Opinion: Why we must abandon the economic orthodoxy and embrace capital, trade and exchange rate controls (source)
In the month since this was written – we have heard it quoted and referenced in many conversations with public and private entities. If you are in New Zealand and have not read it – we do recommend it. We might not agree with everything written – but it is an important piece of analysis.
We previously thought that Bernard’s piece on South Canterbury Finance founder Allan Hubbard (source) was the business journalism piece of 2010. Bernard’s piece on New Zealand and economic orthodoxy has now taken that title – in our opinion.
To Bernard Hickey and the team at interest.co.nz – keep up the great work.
Back story – books vs. e-books (source)
The Lean VC: a Silicon Valley story about Innovation, Incubation, & Iteration (source)
Futurist forecasts newspapers will be irrelevant in 12 years (source)
The rise of decentralized expert-in-field media or how Fred Wilson killed Inc magazine (source)
Google’s ($GOOG) nine year shopping spree, illustrated (source)
The rise and fall of American Apparel (source)
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