The Mainland Angel Investors [MAI] group was launched just before the country went into Alert Level 4 lockdown.
MAI is a network of angel investors across Otago and Southland that hoped to give more efficiency and opportunity to both investors and new business founders.
It now has more than 150 registered investors.
The group had its first showcase — called Take Flight — last Thursday night, in association with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise [NZTE].
Four businesses — two from Dunedin — were able to pitch their businesses to investors at the event.
They included Dunedin container solutions company Bison Group, worker safety tracking company Get Home Safe, Queenstown food safety app Chomp and Christchurch company Hive Mind, which uses the Internet of Things to manage beehives.
"The pitches themselves were fantastic," MAI interim chairman Scott Mason said.
"The response that I’ve had from attendees was really, really positive."
He said that showed the environment was ready for it "because we haven’t really had something of that quality or standard in this region for a long time."
A couple of the companies had already been contacted by investors wanting to have "further conversations".
