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Guide

Setting up a joint venture: open enough to build trust, careful enough to protect both sides.

New Zealand businesses form joint ventures to bid for large contracts, develop land, export together, share a facility or combine expertise. Before they commit, each partner needs to understand the other: its finances, its people, its capability and its risks. Yet the two may remain competitors in other markets, and if the venture never goes ahead, each will want its information back out of the other's hands.

This guide covers what is usually exchanged and how to share it with control.

What partners usually exchange

Before signing

  • Company details from the Companies Office, NZBN, ownership and key people.
  • Recent financial statements and evidence of funding for the partner's contribution.
  • Capability material: CVs, project histories, equipment lists and certifications held.
  • Insurance certificates and health and safety records.
  • Information about the opportunity itself: site reports, market research, customer interest or a tender document.

While agreeing terms

  • Draft joint venture or shareholders' agreements, and term sheets.
  • Business plans, budgets and funding models for the venture.
  • Details of intellectual property each partner will contribute or license to the venture.

Once operating

  • Board or management committee papers, management accounts and reports to each partner.

A shared room with private corners

  1. 1

    Agree the NDA first

    Each visitor accepts the confidentiality terms before the room opens, and ShareAndGo keeps a record of who accepted and when.

  2. 2

    One group per partner

    Each partner's team is a group. Shared folders hold the opportunity and the drafts; each partner can also have a folder only its own group sees.

  3. 3

    View, do not take

    Set capability and financial folders to view-only. Pages are rendered on our side and watermarked with each reader's name, email and the date.

  4. 4

    Close cleanly

    If the venture does not proceed, revoke the other partner's access and the room closes for them at once.

Handling the sensitive parts

The hardest material in a joint venture is often the most commercially valuable: pricing models, customer lists and technical know-how. Share it late and share it narrowly. A partner group can be given access to a folder only when the parties reach the right stage, and the folder simply does not appear for that group until then.

Download, print and copy are set per room and per group, so a partner's finance team might download the funding model while its wider team may only view the capability material. When a view-only page is captured or photographed, the watermark shows whose copy it was.

Drafts of the agreement change often. Upload each revision as a new version; everyone sees the current draft, and earlier ones stay in the version history.

Questions between partners can be raised and answered inside the room, assigned to the right person with categories and priorities, so the answers are there for both teams to read. Owners can ask for an AI-drafted answer to review before posting.

The audit log records every view, upload, download, invitation and change, chained so alterations are detectable and exportable as CSV, which tells you exactly what each partner was given.

Frequently asked questions

Who should own the room?
Often the partner leading the opportunity, or an adviser both trust. The owner sets the groups and permissions, so agree that early.
Can the room become the venture's working space?
Yes. Once the venture is running, add folders for management papers and reports and keep using the same room, with each partner's group reading what it is entitled to.
Do the other partner's staff need accounts?
No. Invited readers confirm their email with a six-digit code. Your own team signs in through MyAndGo with Google, Microsoft or email and two-step verification.

Related guides

Responding to a tender

Many joint ventures start with a joint bid.

Board packs

Papers for the venture's board.

All guides

Every business process we cover.

How ShareAndGo protects documents

Access, watermarks, scanning and the audit log.