GD1 is an operator-led venture capital fund backing New Zealand founders building category-defining companies — from first cheque to global scale.


































We write first cheques at pre-seed, lead rounds at Series A, and follow on through Series B. Across deep hardware, vertical software, agentic infrastructure, and everything in between. Our current theses are:
The physical economy is being rebuilt and the energy transition is driving it. We back the science and engineering companies producing the energy, materials, and industrial systems of the next economy.
Companies we back


In under a decade, New Zealand has become one of the few credible aerospace ecosystems outside the major powers, a sector born from Rocket Lab's success. The opportunity now is what happens above the atmosphere: propulsion, in-orbit infrastructure, and the next generation of companies that make space useful, not just reachable.
Companies we back


Biology, diagnostics, and medical devices are being redesigned from first principles. We back founders who understand a clinical problem deeply enough to rebuild it.
Companies we back



Vertical software is undergoing a revolution. Insurance, legal, fund administration, workflow, education, recycling — every one of these industries is being rewritten by the founders who understand them deepest and who are building with agentic infrastructure as the core operating model.
Companies we back

The financial system is being rebuilt from the ground up — how money moves, settles, and who owns what is all changing. We back the companies building the new infrastructure, not features on top of the old one.
Companies we back

Rocket-powered spaceplane pushing the boundary of reusable access to space from New Zealand.
