Investment thesis
The thesis.
What we back
We back operator-founders building AI-native software for Australian and New Zealand markets. Capital is the table stakes. Engineering, data, and distribution are how we actually move the needle.
Our edge is structural, not rhetorical. Portfolio companies tap the Horizon Labs engineering bench on day one, which compresses the path from idea to a shipped first version.
What we back
- Stage
- Idea to seed. Pre-product, pre-revenue, and early-revenue founders welcome.
- Geography
- Australia and New Zealand. Remote-first, but we lean in when a founder is within reach of a cafe in Melbourne or Sydney.
- Cheque size
- First cheques sized to the round, ranging from pre-seed through to seed. Exact amounts are discussed per opportunity, not published.
- Ownership
- Fair terms for the stage. Studio equity is negotiated alongside cash, in line with what the founder needs from us beyond a wire transfer.
- Follow-on
- We reserve capacity to participate in subsequent rounds where the business is working and we remain a good partner on the cap table.
Sectors
AI-native software
Products where the AI is the product, not a feature. LLM-powered workflows, agent systems, retrieval-heavy applications, vertical copilots.
Vertical SaaS
Software built for a specific industry where domain depth is the moat — logistics, healthcare, professional services, construction, legal, financial services.
Fintech
Infrastructure, embedded finance, SMB financial tools, and data products. We steer clear of regulated retail financial products.
Developer tools and infrastructure
Tooling that improves how software teams ship, observe, or operate systems. Bottom-up adoption, technical buyer.
Productivity and work
Software that removes toil for knowledge workers and operators — particularly where AI can genuinely rewrite a workflow rather than decorate it.
What we do not do
- Hardware-first businesses where the core IP is physical.
- Life sciences, biotech, or therapeutics.
- Regulated retail financial products (consumer lending, crypto tokens, market-making).
- Anything requiring infrastructure, regulation, or sales motion we do not understand well enough to be useful.
- Pure content or media plays without a software product underneath.
How we decide
- 01
Founder fit
Can this founder lead? Clarity of thinking, velocity, intellectual honesty, and the kind of stubborn domain obsession that survives contact with reality.
- 02
Thesis fit
Is this inside the sectors, stages, and geographies where we can form a credible view? If we cannot be useful beyond the cash, we should not be on the cap table.
- 03
Ability-to-help fit
Can the Horizon Labs engineering and AI bench meaningfully accelerate this company? If the answer is no, a passive investor is a better fit for the founder.
- 04
Capital-stack fit
Do the round structure, valuation, and follow-on path make sense for a studio-or-direct first cheque? We pass when the math does not work for everyone on the cap table.
- 05
Timing
Is this the right moment for the market and the right moment for us? We would rather pass on a good company with bad timing than crowd it with unhelpful capital.