Investment Services, Due Diligence and Valuation

Capital investment and strategic alliance activity are critical to successful commercialisation: investors are always looking for the next great start-up opportunity, start-ups are always hungry for more capital to fuel growth, and all companies, large and small, must seek out potential partnerships and alliances.

Successful investments and alliances can bring great rewards to all parties but hidden issues and risks can quickly turn a success into a mess.

If you are planning to invest in a technology business, enter a commercial arrangement with a new strategic partner, or raise capital to fund your initiative, then let us help you ensure the deal delivers the success it promises. Our highly experienced team can help you reduce risk, identify potential opportunities, and maximise your position to improve deal outcomes and return on investment.

Investment Services and Capital Raising

If you’re a start-up or young technology company needing capital, then talk to us about how we can help you to prepare for and raise capital from local and international investors.

What’s more, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise has selected EverEdge IP as one of a handful of accredited brokers for its Escalator programme. The Escalator program provides small and medium enterprises up to $22,000 in 100% government funding to prepare them to be investment-ready so they can raise capital or undertake strategic deals. As an Escalator partner, we can also help small and medium enterprises to connect to the right investors and companies to raise this capital or secure these deals.

• business model design
• technology and intellectual property
• market assessment and market strategy
• feasibility studies
• structuring intellectual property for investment, and
• financial modelling

Members of our highly experienced team have raised capital in the Silicon Valley venture capital community and their knowledge and extensive networks are invaluable in helping our clients secure the necessary investment to achieve your goals.

Due Diligence

Due diligence is one of the most important and complex features of technology investment.

Technology and intellectual property due diligence, in particular, presents many challenging issues: from distilling the true potential of the technology, to identifying relevant prior art to correctly assessing freedom-to-operate risk. Properly executed technology investment due diligence not only identifies risks that need to be mitigated but can also reveal hidden opportunities to improve return and reduce time to a major liquidity event.

We are the only service provider in New Zealand who combines the technology, legal and financial disciplines needed to complete this critical process. Unlike patent attorney and law firms, we can provide you with an accurate and objective assessment which takes all of these factors into account. The result is comprehensively researched and analysed due diligence outcomes that enable you to make investment-critical decisions with greater confidence and certainty.

If you are planning on investing in a technology or intellectual property-based company or deal then talk to us first about how we can help you reduce deal risk and gain a better understanding of the opportunity’s true potential.  Our team has many years of due diligence experience in technology sector investment and will work with you to ensure that your investment decision improves your investment outcome.

Intellectual Property Valuation

Intangible assets such as trademarks, patents, trade secrets, copy right and confidential information comprise an estimated 70% of the value of most businesses. Accurately valuing the assets that comprise the bulk of your company’s balance sheet is critical to enabling more effective and informed business, investment and financing decisions.

• transactions including due diligence and pricing intangible assets for trade sales
• investment including appraising technology–focused companies seeking venture funding or corporate finance
• auditing for regulatory, reporting, tax or transfer pricing purposes
• regulatory requirements – directors are now liable under the new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) rules to ensure an adequate return on all assets including intangible assets
• litigation to assess an intellectual property infringement’s impact and to determine damages

We can also provide advice relating to the taxation issues around intellectual property. Patents for example are treated quite differently from other types of intellectual property from a tax perspective and many transactions involving patents require the vendor to ensure the intellectual property is correctly valued so that tax obligations are correctly fulfilled.  We can also provide tax advice if you are considering shifting your intellectual property offshore.