Angus Blair

Investor and operator. Hard tech for climate, capability, and abundance.

Managing Partner at Outset Ventures, New Zealand's most active deep tech investor. The work is industrial: rockets, reactors, refineries, and the boring layers underneath. The frame is climate, allied capability, and abundance.

Based in Auckland, with regular time in Wellington, San Francisco, Washington, Sydney, Tokyo, and Europe. Writing here is occasional and considered.

Auckland 2026
The Canonical Essay

Sovereign Capability from the Periphery

Why a small country on the periphery of the alliance system has to start building hard things again, and what that asks of capital, the state, and the people who choose to do the work.

Read the essay →
Coming Soon
  • What the Evidence Actually Says About Industrial Policy

    A reading of the academic and multilateral literature on industrial policy. What works, what doesn't, and where the consensus has actually moved.

    Essay
  • The Five-Test Framework for Any NZ Industrial Intervention

    A working filter for distinguishing real industrial policy from rent transfer, applied to the small set of interventions New Zealand should actually consider.

    Essay
  • Why Small Countries Have a Different Industrial Policy Problem

    Israel, Finland, Denmark. What the small-country playbook actually looks like, and what New Zealand should be copying instead of importing the American or Chinese version.

    Essay
  • Why Managed Strategic Competition Needs a Periphery Strategy

    Rudd's framework, applied to the small allied nations on the edge of the contest. What the centre owes the periphery, and what the periphery owes the centre.

    Essay

Outset Ventures backs the hard companies of climate, allied capability, and abundance. Born in New Zealand. Built for the world.

Rockets and reactors. Refineries and foundries. The advanced computing and medtech that come with them. We invest from first cheque through scale, and stay close for the long arc real companies require. Our portfolio sits in the lineage of Rocket Lab and LanzaTech, and we operate the Auckland campus where many are built.

outset.ventures →