NO GUARANTEES: Lance Wiggs has created Punakaiki Fund and is looking for investors.

Punakaiki Fund director Lance Wiggs says he can't yet tell whether the company will succeed in raising the minimum $5 million it needs to establish a fund investing in Kiwi hi-tech businesses.

The fund issued a prospectus in August, through which it hoped to raise between $20m and $50m to invest in high-growth, early-stage technology and internet firms.

With two days to go until the offer closes, Wiggs said he was 60 per cent confident Punakaiki would reach the minimum $5m threshold needed for the fund to proceed, but admitted he was nervous and that it "could go either way".

Investors generally left applications until the last minute. He was unlikely to find out whether it had met the bar before Thursday, he said.

The timing of the Meridian Energy float had had an impact as it was "sucking the energy out of the ecosystem" and taking up the mind-space of some financial advisers, Wiggs said.

"We have had at least one broker say, 'we can't handle you because we are too busy with this other stuff', which is really disappointing."

Wiggs said he didn't believe Punakaiki could have done a better job of publicising the opportunity it was pursuing.

"Everyone has heard of it. It is over to the public really."

The experience was proving there was strong demand from technology companies for a fund like Punakaiki, he said.

"We need to be investing in these companies. Company after company has been saying they can't get access to money."

The minimum investment in Punakaiki has been set at a relatively low $2000. About 600 people visited the fund's website before its prospectus opened and registered their interest in investing $9m.

Wiggs is well-known in the information technology industry as a commentator and consultant and was an adviser to Trade Me at the time of its 2006 sale to Fairfax. Punakaiki's fund manager is Lance Wiggs Capital Management, a company owned by Wiggs and former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant Chris Humphreys.