Susan Lorns has been awarded Angel Association New Zealand’s 2024 Arch Angel Award today at the 16th New Zealand Angel Summit in Auckland.
The Arch Angel Award is the highest honour in New Zealand’s angel investment community, given to those who exemplify the quintessential angel and who advocate for the endeavour and make a significant difference to New Zealand’s start-up ecosystem. As well as their personal capital, Arch Angel recipients share their time, insights, deeply relevant skills, and their networks with high growth startup companies.
Susan was first exposed to startup investment when she responded to an advertisement promoting the establishment of a new angel network in Wellington in 2007 and she attended the launch of AngelHQ at the NZX. Susan has been an active member ever since, serving two separate terms on the AngelHQ board and leading work to update the club’s founding documents.
She has backed nearly 50 startups and taken on governance roles with at least half a dozen of these companies. Susan is currently on the board of Eight360, a Wellington based startup building a motion simulator which has raised several rounds of venture capital.
One of the first supporters of New Zealand’s accelerator programmes, Susan was an early investor in Lightning Lab and an active mentor of a number of the startups that took part.
A hands-on approach to angel investing is Susan’s modus operandi. She is a lynch pin of AngelHQ’s team who provide practical advice to founders through Flying Kiwi Angels ADI (Angel Drop In) clinic which operates across the country including in Wellington. Susan is especially supportive of women investors and works closely with others in the club to champion AngelHQ events advancing diversity and inclusion.
Each year, the Arch Angel award recipient is chosen by the previous years’ winners.
Fellow Arch Angel and Chair of AngelHQ, Trevor Dickinson says “Susan and I have invested in a number of ventures together and I have been very grateful for her clear-eyed approach. Her experience enables her to add real value to the operations side of businesses.
Susan also has a unique ability to focus on what’s practically needed, and she has special affinity for founders who do not fit conventional norms. Both characteristics make her a really effective angel investor.
Susan received her award at the 2024 annual Angel Summit being held Kauri Bay Boomrock south of Auckland today.
Former Arch Angel winners include The Warehouse founder and K1W1 founder Stephen Tindall; Andy Hamilton, former chief executive of The Icehouse and IceAngels founder; US super angel Bill Payne; Movac Ventures founder Phil McCaw; veteran angel investor the late Dr Ray Thomson; prolific AngelHQ member Trevor Dickinson, former AANZ Chair Marcel van den Assum; ardent angel investor Debra Hall, champion for kiwi start-ups Dave Moskovitz and long-time Ice Angels member Scott Gilmour, SaaS champion, Serge van Dam, a member of AngelHQ, Rudi Bublitz, founder and CEO of Flying Kiwi Angels and most recently Dana McKenzie.
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The Angel Association of New Zealand (AANZ)
The Angel Association is an organisation that aims to increase the quantity, quality, and success of angel investments in New Zealand and in doing so create a greater pool of capital for innovative start-up companies. It was established in 2008 to bring together New Zealand angels and early-stage funds. AANZ currently has over 50 members representing over 900 individual angels associated with New Zealand’s key angel networks and funds. AANZ works closely with NZTE and Callaghan Innovation and a number of private sector partners including Jarden, PWC, Avid Legal, KiwiNet, Uniservices, Amazon Web Services, BNZ and NZX. For more, please visit: www.angelassociation.