Tag Archives: Peter Thiel

Has the Overseas Investment Amendment Act Worked?

Has the Overseas Investment Amendment Act Worked?

After watching home prices rise by 60 per cent in a decade, New Zealand decided to ban foreigners from buying property. Will it work? The New York Times reports. When it was reported in 2017 that…

Bunker Buyers and Billionaires Still Seek Shelter

Bunker Buyers and Billionaires Still Seek Shelter

“If the New Zealand government was sending a message when it banned foreigners from buying houses in the country earlier this year, it does not seem to have been heard by the global billionaire…

New Zealand’s Role in Apocalypse Now

New Zealand’s Role in Apocalypse Now

“If you’re interested in the end of the world, you’re interested in New Zealand. If you’re interested in how our current cultural anxieties – climate catastrophe, decline of transatlantic political orders, resurgent nuclear terror…

More Americans than Ever Moving to NZ

More Americans than Ever Moving to NZ

Forget Canada. In the wake of the election, the Associated Press reports, Americans are applying in droves for citizenship in New Zealand, a country as far away as physically possible from the United States,…

Everything Wrong with the NZ Doomsday Survival Plan

Everything Wrong with the NZ Doomsday Survival Plan

“You know things are getting risky when billionaires start making plans to flee to New Zealand on the off chance civilization might collapse,” writes Outside magazine contributing editor Wes Siler. “The thing is, despite…

Peter Thiel’s Middle Earth Citizenship Dream Revealed

Peter Thiel’s Middle Earth Citizenship Dream Revealed

Silicon Valley tech pioneer, Donald Trump advocate, and newish New Zealander Peter Thiel has generated international headlines for the revelation that he was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011. Thiel first visited New Zealand…

Booktrack Attracts $5 Million in Funding

Booktrack Attracts $5 Million in Funding

The New Zealand e-publishing venture Booktrack has secured $5 million in funding led by investments from COENT Venture Partners and Sparkbox Ventures, which will be used to support recent overall growth. Booktrack offers publishers the…

Panicked Super Rich Buying up NZ Bolt Holes

Panicked Super Rich Buying up NZ Bolt Holes

Hedge fund managers are buying up remote stations and land in places like New Zealand to flee to in the event of civil uprising against growing inequality, it has been claimed. With growing inequality and…

World’s Number One Innovator: Xero

World’s Number One Innovator: Xero

Influential US business media Forbes has declared New Zealand start-up Xero as the world’s most innovative growth company, beating out much bigger and well-established companies, ASOS and NetSuite. The Wellington-based cloud accounting firm, which has…

Peter Thiel Invests Big in POS Software Provider Vend

Peter Thiel Invests Big in POS Software Provider Vend

New Zealand point of sale, cloud-based software provider Vend has new investors – Peter Thiel, the PayPal cofounder and the first outside investor in Facebook, is among a group that has agreed…

Xero Eyes 29 Million US Small Businesses

Xero Eyes 29 Million US Small Businesses

Wellington-based accounting software maker Xero signals a major push in the United States market, with appointment of former and current executives from Microsoft, HP and PayPal in a move analysts say could foreshadow a…

Kiwis Make Accounting Sexy

Kiwis Make Accounting Sexy

The accounting software industry is not known as the sexiest business sector. But New Zealand cloud accounting software provider Xero is, Reuters reports, bringing spice and drama to the world’s greyest profession. “Oh, yeah, we’re…

Xero Further Expands into US

Xero Further Expands into US

New Zealand-based online accounting software company, Xero has opened a Denver-area office as part of its US expansion. The local office, in the Denver Tech Center, will be Xero’s fourth in the US. The Wellington…

Attractive Investment

Attractive Investment

“A little bit of PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s wealth will help New Zealand technology businesses thanks to the launch of a new venture capital project,” Lucy Craymer writes for the Wall Street…

High Life On The Edge

High Life On The Edge

New Zealand is becoming a favourite place to live for wealthy foreigners, with American Facebook billionaire Peter Thiel, Russian steel billionaire Alexander Abramov, and New York Empire State Building’s Tony Malkin among those recently…

New Zealand Facebook First

New Zealand Facebook First

“New Zealand already has lush rainforests and sandy beaches, bungee jumping and scuba diving, gourmet restaurants and lively night life, even a thriving tech community that has drawn investment from the likes of Peter…

Talent Spotting Down Under

Talent Spotting Down Under

“There’s a lot of incredibly talented people in New Zealand,” legendary American venture capitalist Peter Thiel told the New Zealand Herald recently. “You look around and you see the small businesses and it’s very…

Utopian Tech Mecca

Utopian Tech Mecca

New Zealand is a newly discovered “utopia” for American entrepreneur Peter Thiel, famous for co-founding PayPal and being an early investor in Facebook, buying 5.2% in 2004 (the scene is in The Social Network)….