Mainland Angel Investors (MAI) is organising a pitch evening at which four start-ups from the South will showcase their ideas to around 70 investors.
"One company is looking at raising $1.5million, another $1million and two others looking at $500,000 each," MAI network manager Peter Ramsay said.
MAI organise six pitch meetings every year to showcase start-ups to angel investors to help get early stage funding.
The Dunedin event, on February 15 at Gallaway Cook Allan, will be followed by meetings in Invercargill, Wanaka and Queenstown.
At each meeting, investors will have an opportunity to ask questions to understand more about the hopeful businesses.
The companies scheduled to pitch for funding were from the technology sector.
"We are a sector-agnostic fund, however, we are seeing more interest towards the tech sector from members," Mr Ramsay said.
Of the four companies, two were from Queenstown, one from Wanaka and one from Dunedin.
They were specialised players in enviro-tech, health tech and hospitality segments, and had scored well in a screening process to be selected to pitch to prospective investors.
MAI was launched in 2020 and so far had aided investment of about $700,000 in four companies.
"We were primarily looking to help companies in the South. However, we can invest nationally also."
MAI had about 60 paying members and was planning to add more members to the network.
"We have a mailing list of about 300 people who are interested in our network.
"We are adding new members as there was an interest from people for investing in start-ups."
It was believed that expanding of the network would help the start-up ecosystem grow with the availability of early stage capital.
Unavailability of early capital would result in start-ups shifting locations to places such as Auckland, Wellington or Melbourne to raise funds.
Presence of venture capital was also an important aspect for the development of a good start-up ecosystem.
"By having an active ecosystem we will see a lot more acceleration and innovation which would be good for our region."
One reason for less venture capital activity in the region was because there were no active angel investment groups, which MAI was trying to solve.
"Venture capital investment will help our investors to exit the portfolio with a profit."
