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.