Global From Day One (GD1) has reached an approximately $60 million first close for Core Fund II as the New Zealand venture capital firm targets $150 million for the fund and expands its leadership team.
Alongside the fund close, GD1 promoted Aaron Small and Nawaz Ahmed to General Partners, strengthening the firm’s senior investment team as it continues backing deeply technical companies with ambitions to compete in global markets.
The new fund represents another step in GD1’s strategy of connecting New Zealand technology founders with international markets, customers and capital.
GD1 focuses on companies developing technologies with the potential to address large global markets from an early stage, including businesses operating across frontier technology, climate technology and other technically complex sectors.
Core Fund II comes as several of the areas GD1 has been investing in move increasingly toward the center of global technology and venture capital activity.
These include fusion energy, reusable spaceplanes, advanced materials, superconducting technologies, medical devices and other emerging technologies that often require significant technical expertise and longer development cycles.
Small’s promotion expands GD1’s partnership with an investor who has approximately 15 years of venture capital experience.
He joined GD1 three years ago and has developed an investment focus spanning climate technology, frontier technologies and materials science.
During his time at GD1, Small has worked with founders developing technologies across fusion energy, reusable spaceplanes, superconducting magnets for space applications, medical devices and education technology.
He has also led GD1’s investment in Atomic Tessellator and investments in additional companies that remain in stealth.
Small has described his interest in venture capital as being driven less by finance itself and more by the opportunity to work with technologies and founders attempting to solve difficult problems.
His investment approach also reflects GD1’s broader thesis around identifying technically ambitious founders capable of building globally competitive businesses from New Zealand.
The firm’s strategy is closely connected to the idea that New Zealand can generate greater economic value by commercializing science, engineering and intellectual property for global markets.
Small has pointed to the vision articulated by New Zealand physicist Sir Paul Callaghan around building prosperity through knowledge, science and technology as an important influence on his own approach to investing.
The approximately $60 million first close gives GD1 additional capital to pursue that strategy while working toward the $150 million target for Core Fund II.
The promotions of Small and Ahmed to General Partner also broaden the leadership group responsible for deploying the new fund and supporting its portfolio.
For Small, the promotion comes as several investment themes GD1 has pursued for years are attracting significantly greater attention across global technology markets.
GD1 sees that convergence as an opportunity to help New Zealand’s technically ambitious founders connect with the capital, expertise and international networks required to build companies capable of competing globally.
The firm also launched a new website alongside the Core Fund II first close and leadership promotions.
KEY QUOTES:
“One of the things we look for in founders is a strong trajectory. When I joined GD1 three years ago, that’s exactly what I saw in the firm. While we’re still early in our own journey, a startup in our own right, perhaps, we’re at an exciting inflection point.”
“With a new fund and a portfolio showing increasing momentum, much of it in thematics we’ve been backing for years that are now firmly at the forefront of global innovation, I feel even more optimistic about where we’re headed.”
Aaron Small, General Partner at GD1