Notas del episodio
Tim Wixon has put debt funding into more than 1,700 New Zealand tech companies. He has never taken a single share of equity in any of them.
As Head of Technology and Innovation at BNZ, Tim spent 11 years building a lending model most traditional bankers said was impossible. Debt against recurring revenue, interest only while you scale, no personal guarantees, and no dilution. His first deal set the tone: five million dollars to a zero-profit software company buying another zero-profit company, secured only against the software. His colleagues laughed when he said he wanted to fund tech. One deal led to another, and it grew into a portfolio of over 1,700 companies. A former lawyer and FMA regulator, Tim brings an outsider's clarity to how founders should actually think about capital. This is the clearest explanation of non-equity funding you'll hear from anyone in New Zealand.
We get into:
- How BNZ funds companies with no profit, no tangible assets, and no personal guarantees
- Why interest-only debt while you grow can protect your cap table better than a raise
- The lead indicators Tim looks for that most founders never track
- What the SaaS apocalypse did to founder attitudes toward debt in NZ
- The one question that turns a bank's no into a roadmap
Debt or dilution is a choice most founders make without understanding one side of it.