What inspires a venture firm to focus on deep tech?

Ian Rountree is Founder and General Partner at Cantos, a venture fund that invests in potentially world-changing deep tech startups. 

Cantos focuses on hardware and bio investing at the intersection of climate and industrials, life sciences and AI, aerospace and defense, and next-generation computing.

On this episode of Boost VC, Ian joins us to share his definition of deep tech and explain why he underwrites technical risk rather than market risk.

Ian discusses the value of founder empathy, challenging VCs to see the entrepreneur as their customer and LPs as shareholders in the portfolio.

Listen in to understand what drives Ian to make a global-scale impact, backing founders who tackle climate change, disease, armed conflict, poverty and existential risk.

Topics Covered

Ian’s biggest accomplishment before age 20

• Getting Vanderbilt to accept him off waitlist 
• Refused to take NO as answer

Ian’s take on who is the customer in venture capital

• Founder = customer
• LP = shareholder

What inspired Ian to focus on deep tech

• Tackle big problems, e.g.: climate change, poverty
• Deep tech startups outperformed rest of portfolio

How losing his father early informs Ian’s work

• Feels hard deadline to career and life
• Wants to play small role in changing world

The criteria Ian uses to decide if a startup is ‘important’

• Nonzero chance of global-scale impact
• Tackles climate, disease, armed conflict or poverty

How Ian defines deep tech

• Taking technical risk rather than market risk
• Cantos specializes in hardware and bio investing

How Ian thinks about growing the Cantos organization

• From solo GP to 4 equal partners
• ‘Fire’ himself by age 55

What’s behind Benchmark’s equal partnership structure

• Set up for generational turnover from jump
• May also be consequence of early success

Why a deep tech VC doesn’t need to be technical

• Ask expert if violation of physics involved
• Startups that change world challenge status quo

What differentiates software investing from deep tech

• Software involves market risk, easy to pivot
• Deep tech involves technical risk, hard to pivot

Ian’s diligence criteria

• Size of market, potential margins at scale
• Founder who understands their WHY

Connect with Ian Rountree

Cantos https://cantos.vc/

Cantos on Twitter https://twitter.com/cantos

Ian on Twitter https://twitter.com/ianrountree

Ian on LinkedIn    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianrountree/

Near Frontier Podcast https://nearfrontier.castos.com/

Resources

Fred Wilson’s Blog ‘The VC’s Customer’ https://avc.com/2005/11/the_vcs_custome/

Fred Wilson’s Blog ‘The VC’s Customer (Continued)’ https://avc.com/2009/07/the-vcs-customer-continued/

Radiant https://www.radiantnuclear.com/

Tim Urban’s TED Talk on Procrastination https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator/c

Benchmark https://www.benchmark.com/

eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work by Randall E. Stross https://www.amazon.com/eBoys-Inside-Account-Venture-Capitalists/dp/0812930959

Benchmark Part I on the Acquired Podcast https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/benchmark-capital

Benchmark Part II on the Acquired Podcast https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/benchmark-part-ii-the-dinner

Union Square Ventures https://www.usv.com/

Cerebras https://www.cerebras.net/

Eric Vishria on Twitter https://twitter.com/ericvishria

Connect with Boost VC

Boost VC Website https://www.boost.vc/

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