NZ creates remarkably valuable tech firms. How can it keep more of the benefits?

Aerospace firm Rocket Lab was singled out in a recent sector report as one of two New Zealand-grown companies valued at more than $10 billion.

Dean Purcell/Getty Images New Zealand’s technology sector has received some unusually good news.

A new report by global data platform Dealroom and NZ Growth Capital Partners estimates the combined enterprise value of New Zealand’s venture-backed companies at NZ$133 billion.

It identifies more than 400 firms, including eight “ unicorns ” that have reached a valuation or exit of more than US$1 billion.

Two of these are “ decacorns ” valued at more than US$10 billion – aerospace firm Rocket Lab and global financial services provider FNZ .

More striking still is how much enterprise value has been created from a comparatively modest capital base.

Relative to peer innovation economies, New Zealand generates unusually high enterprise value relative to the venture capital invested.

That’s an impressive result for a country of New Zealand’s size.

But it also prompts a question many local observers will be asking.

Is New Zealand as good at retaining the wider economic benefits of successful technology companies as it is at creating them? A $133 billion success story – with a catch Enterprise value tells us how valuable New Zealand’s venture-backed ecosystem has become.

It tells us much less about how much capability their success has built in New Zealand.

Dealroom’s definition includes companies founded here that subsequently moved overseas.

The report also identifies more than ten billion-dollar businesses created by Kiwi founders but built offshore, across software, fintech , artificial intelligence and consumer technology.

The economic value of a successful start-up lies not only in the company it becomes, but also in the companies, capabilities and capital that come after it.