Tim McCready spoke to Angus Blair, Partner at Outset Ventures and head of its investment team.
Herald: How does the physical space of Outset Ventures foster collaboration and innovation?
Angus Blair: The Outset Campus has always been about founders helping founders and the facilities are there to enable that. Thecommunity seeks to capture the magic that helped start Rocket Lab, LanzaTech, Mint Innovation and others to get going and move quickly.
Outset is also the only place in the country that can accommodate almost every type of research operation, whether that’s heavy machinery, physical confinement, extraction, customs zones, hazardous materials or all of these things at once.
An added benefit is that it’s right here in the heart of Auckland!
Herald: What factors contribute to Auckland’s attractiveness as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship?
Blair: All of Aotearoa is brimming with innovation and entrepreneurship, but it’s hard to understate how significant Auckland is as the heart of the industry.
It’s the centre of our migration boom, has the highest density of talent, and for companies looking to export their wares around the world, it’s typically one less flight to get wherever you need to be.
It’s worth noting that as the fastest-growing subsector in tech, it’s the best time in New Zealand history to build a deep tech company, and these businesses are largely gravitating to our largest city.
We have a legacy of major success stories like Lanzatech to learn from, and a healthy network of start-ups working across diverse problems and solutions, many from the Outset hub.
Herald: Outset operates an early-stage venture fund to support innovative ideas. How is the current climate for attracting capital into New Zealand’s deep tech innovation?
Blair: New Zealand has quietly built a reputation among the best international investors as not only the birthplace for great deep tech companies, but the place they grow, and ultimately provide phenomenal returns.
As with all fundraising, high interest rates and low liquidity in public markets mean that fund investors aren’t able to deploy as readily as they would like. However, increasingly the money that was flowing to software during Covid is now being redirected to deep tech, where investors are seeing greater potential return on investment.
Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck. Photo / Dean Purcell
Herald: What more would you like to see happen in Auckland to attract and nurture talent?
Blair: I’d like to see our schools from Year 1 to 13 get the support and strategy they need for New Zealand to get back near the top of the OECD for science and maths. We’ve really fallen behind and it’s hard for our universities to get people where they need to be from that starting point.
We certainly still produce the outlier talents that start companies and great people want to move here, but to grow these important businesses we also need to nurture and grow the workforce capable of operating them.
Herald: What developments or trends in deep tech are you excited about for New Zealand in the coming year?
Blair: I think trends are over-rated when you’re in a market as small as New Zealand. One company doesn’t make a trend, so we just try to look at the most compelling founders going after the biggest problems off the back of advances in science and engineering.
Yes, we are building incredible capability in areas like aerospace or biosciences, but does that explain that the most exciting start-up last year was in nuclear fusion?
Our philosophy is to keep meeting the world-class founders who this country produces and to understand their aspiration to build impactful, world-class businesses, whatever they might be doing.
