Ian Rountree is a venture capital investor at Cantos who positions himself as a "first-check" investor backing founders before they have traction, focusing on what he calls "near frontier" technologies where science is just becoming commercially possible in areas like climate, defense, and industrial resilience. He advocates for "full-stack deep tech" approaches where startups integrate hardware, software, and services rather than just being component suppliers, and hosts the "Near Frontier" podcast to deeply engage with founders building technically challenging, physically instantiated projects. Ian Rountree is a venture capital investor at Cantos who positions himself as a "first-check" investor backing founders before they have traction, focusing on what he calls "near frontier" technologies where science is just becoming commercially possible in areas like climate, defense, and industrial resilience. He advocates for "full-stack deep tech" approaches where startups integrate hardware, software, and services rather than just being component suppliers, and hosts the "Near Frontier" podcast to deeply engage with founders building technically challenging, physically instantiated projects.