Richard Abbott has continued his involvement in early tech startups, as Wellington-based venture investment fund Movac invests its fourth fund.
Abbott is one of the founding partners of Movac in which his family trust owns a 10% stake, and is a key investor in all its funds.
One of the fourth fund’s most recent investments this year was into Mobi2GO, a digital ordering and engagement solution for hospitality brands such as Burger Fuel and Pita Pit. Movac was lead investor in the $5 million funding round.
Abbott may be best known for chairing Trade Me, which saw him partner with like-minded investors Phil McCaw, Sam Morgan and Nigel Stanford, from 2000 through to its sale in 2006, when he cashed in his 10% stake for $73 million.
He’s now semi-retired, is a private investor in his own right, a company director specialising in internet businesses such as Wellington company StarNow, and a philanthropist.
In 2009 he and his wife Gillian Newland set up the Jester Foundation, to invest in solutions that aim to aid humanitarian efforts in Africa, India and Nepal. It often co-invests with Morgan’s Jasmine Social Investments, of which Abbott is a board member.
Abbott’s IT experience includes stints in London and in Wellington with local firms CSI and Deloitte Consulting during the 1990s before he co-founded consulting firm AMR (now Maven) in 1997, which Movac later invested and exited from.
One of Movac’s more successful exits was the tens of millions of dollars it reaped in 2017 as a 20% shareholder in wireless charging technology company PowerbyProxi which was sold to Apple for more than $100m.
2018: $130 million