WNT Ventures

WNT Ventures is New Zealand's deep-technology venture capital investor, founded in 2014 with operating offices in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty and Auckland. The firm was selected in 2014 as one of only three pilot Technology Incubator partners under the Callaghan Innovation Deep Tech Incubator Programme, the longest-running such partnership in the country, and was subsequently re-awarded a continuing contract under the revised eight-year program. WNT is led by Managing Partner Carl Jones alongside Partner Maria Jose Alvarez, and the team works closely with founders out of New Zealand's universities and Crown research institutes to commercialize tangible science and engineering breakthroughs that can be 'seen, felt or touched' rather than purely software, and it is willing to lead. Its sector focus is intentionally broad within deep tech: agritech, food and horticulture tech, cleantech and climate tech, marine sciences, materials and advanced manufacturing, robotics, aerospace, engineering and automation, sustainability and commodity recycling, medical devices and tools, and selectively AI. WNT has raised four funds to date, with Funds I and II producing strong net returns of roughly 20% and 25% net annual respectively, Fund III deployed across deep tech, and the newly announced Fund IV targeting $35M to $40M. Across approximately 28 disclosed investments, the broader Callaghan-supported program has fostered more than 84 deep-tech NZ startups with a 72% survival rate. Named portfolio companies include CarbonScape, carbon-negative biographite for EV battery anodes, and CarbonCrop, native-forest carbon monitoring. WNT Ventures commercializes New Zealand's science and engineering research.