Outset Ventures gets shot in the arm for its $50m Momentum Fund

October 21, 2026
9:17 pm

Outset Ventures gets shot in the arm for its m Momentum Fund

Momentum Fund I will focus more on deep-tech firms that are more advanced and staging Series A or B raises.

“Typically, they will be post-revenue and showing early signs of commercial traction,” says general partner Angus Blair.

“In the majority, the scientific and engineering risk will have been retired.”

Energy and advanced manufacturing, automation, industrial technology, critical minerals, and medical technology are all sectors on his radar.

Outset recently hit headlines for being one of a handful of companies involved in Tauranga drone maker Syos’ first institutional raise. Blair (and other parties) wouldn’t say the sums involved, but he did tell the Herald: “It was our largest ever cheque.”

Earlier investments include Basis, Atomic Tessellator and CullBeck.

“New Zealand still has a relatively shallow capital market, particularly at the Series A, B, and C stages,” Angus Blair says. The Outset general partner says the current Government’s “golden visa” scheme has helped pep things up. Labour’s plan to pump $50m a year into the Crown-backed Elevate fund, which co-invests with venture capital firms, also appeals.

Outset will also be making larger investments via Momentum, with punts of up to $10m. It’s possible the fund will invest in just five or six firms. Some could be follow-on investments into companies already in its portfolio.

Momentum has already made its first investment, putting more capital into Napier-based start-up Kwetta, which is developing infrastructure for high-powered EV charging, from cars to buses and heavy trucks.

In 2021, when Outset Ventures first backed Kwetta, the company had a plan and a customer in waiting, but no product, no prototype and no signed contract.

Today, Kwetta has units operating across New Zealand and Australia and is expanding into Europe.

Kwetta's co-founders Mike Lazelle, Dustin Murdock and Dr Robert Turner. — Kwetta’s co-founders Mike Lazelle, Dustin Murdock and Dr Robert Turner.

“Kwetta is a good example of the journey we want to support,” Blair says.

“We backed the company when the technology was still being developed. Today, it is operating internationally and attracting significant capital to accelerate its growth.”

(Kwetta’s other investors include Ampol’s Z Energy, Australian VC funds Blackbird and Virescent, the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Icehouse Ventures; Icehouse owns 50% of Outset).

Outset's first two funds focused on seed investments in pre-commercial start-ups like Lower Hutt's OpenStar, which is developing a nuclear fusion reactor. Momentum Fund I targets firms that have "retired scientific risk" and started to get some revenue in the door. — Outset’s first two funds focused on seed investments in pre-commercial start-ups like Lower Hutt’s OpenStar, which is developing a nuclear fusion reactor. Momentum Fund I targets firms that have “retired scientific risk” and started to get some revenue in the door.

“We’ve spent years investing early in some of New Zealand’s most ambitious deep-tech companies, and we’re now seeing many of them reach the point where they need a different kind of capital to scale,” says Outset Ventures managing partner Angus Blair.

Plans for global expansion are part of the equation. So is revenue ambition.

Outset investment committee member Beck earlier told the Herald: “I always say, ‘Show me a path to a billion-dollar company, or you haven’t got my vote’.”

Election wish-list

With the election looming, what extra backing, if any, does Blair want to see from Government?

“NZGCP’s Elevate Fund has probably been the most efficient intervention in the early-stage technology seen in New Zealand, and it’s been great to see sort of support for it across both parties,” he says.

Outset, which also runs a business incubator, is based at Future House in Parnell – a building famed in startup circles because it used to house Crown agency Industrial Research Limited, where a young Peter Beck tinkered (sometimes explosively) with rocket tech in the basement during the 2000s.

In 2020, the then Labour-led Government created the Elevate fund, managed by the Crown’s NZGCP, to co-invest in VC funds. It was bankrolled to the tune of $300m, with $270m contributed by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.

In Budget 2025, the National-led Government topped up the fund with a further $100m (the Startup Council had wanted $500m).

In Budget 2026, there was nothing for Elevate, but NZGCP did get $10m for a new “fund of funds” to invest in “selected emerging and first-time fund managers who invest in start-up companies”.

In the current campaign, Labour has pledged to draw $50m a year from the Super Fund and put it into Elevate, Blair notes.

“We think both sides understand that Elevate has been effective,” he says.

“AIP [Active Investor Plus or the ‘golden visa programme’] has been really strong as well.” Investor-migrants have chipped in around a third of funds raised by Outset.

Whatever the measures, Blair sees more scope for moving the needle.

“New Zealand still has a relatively shallow capital market, particularly at the Series A, B, and C stages.”

Beyond the lab

According to NZ Growth Capital Partners investment director James Roche, “Outset has shown it can identify technically ambitious founders and support them from the very beginning.

“This new fund lets the team back the most promising of those companies at a pivotal moment, once their technology is working outside the lab and commercial traction is building.

“That means more of these companies can grow with strong local backing alongside the international capital they’ll need to scale.”

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer. He recently wrote about Simplicity putting $50m into Icehouse Ventures’ $180m Growth Fund III, and Sam Stubbs’ Election 2026 push for ‘side pockets’.