The Business Development Bank of Canada related stories
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BDC renews NACO partnership, Farm at Hand is tops among angel investorsBDC Venture Capital and the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) have renewed their partnership for a third year, promising to further strengthen Canada's community of angel investors by identifying, standardizing, and sharing best practices. BDC's Dominique Belanger noted that the initiative supports the continuing rise in the number of angel investors, and their increasing role as drivers of Canadian innovation and competitiveness. The announcement was made at this week's 2013 National Angel Summit, hosted https://nacocanada.com/2013summit/ by NACO in Banff, Alberta. The winner of the Summit's pitch competition, peHUB Canada has learned, was Farm At Hand, a cloud-based farm management platform that allows producers to manage production and agribusinesses to exchange real-time information. The company http://www.farmathand.com/ is backed by Vancouver-based start-up accelerator GrowLab.
- Sam Duboc named chair of BDC's board of directors
Sam Duboc has been named the new chair of the board of directors of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). A senior private equity professional, and founder, president and managing partner of Edgestone Capital Partners, Duboc has recently been the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at the federal Department of Finance. In the latter role, he has been the federal government's top adviser on the $400 million Venture Capital Action Plan, announced in early 2013. BDC offers financing, subordinate financing, venture capital and consulting services to 28,000 small and medium-sized Canadian businesses.
- McRock Capital partners with GE Capital to advance industrial internet
Canadian venture capital firm McRock Capital has formed a strategic relationship with GE Canada to help introduce a higher degree of connectivity and analytics of the digital world to Canadian energy and mining sectors. Based in Toronto, McRock invests exclusively in Intelligent infrastructure companies across Canada and the United States.
- Ottawa's Elliptic Technologies racks up $4 mln in new funding
Elliptic Technologies Inc said Wednesday that it has raised $4 million in funding. Investors included BDC Venture Capital and Anges Québec members. Based in Ottawa, Elliptic Technologies is a provider of embedded security solutions. Update: The company plans to use investment proceeds to support its growth strategy, opportunities through the continued development of its tVault™ technology, and expansion of the sales and marketing teams. Founded in 2001, Elliptic Technologies has been venture-backed since 2002.
- Lumira Capital closes $10 mln commitment from VCAP
Canadian life sciences venture capital firm Lumira Capital has closed the $10 million capital commitment made to its latest partnership, Lumira Capital II, by the federal Venture Capital Action Plan (VCAP). In September, the $400 million VCAP awarded /2013/09/23/four-canadian-venture-partnerships-awarded-50-mln-vcap-top-ups/ $50 million to four "high performing" Canadian funds, including the Lumira fund. The Toronto-based Lumira, which invests in North American companies in biotherapeutics, medical technology and health and wellness sectors, is also backed by Business Development Bank of Canada, Teralys Capital, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Northleaf Capital Partners, Fondaction CSN and Merck & Co.
- Univalor finds new ways to spur Québec’s startup ecosystem
When it comes to funding innovation, Québec has been long recognized as a wellspring of good ideas. It might for this reason come as no surprize that Québec’s leading commercialization hubs, MSBiV, SOVAR, Univalor and Valeo, have recently advanced some new strategies for leveraging the market potential of home-grown R&D and technological change.
- Difference Capital puts $5 mln to work in Vancouver's BuildDirect.com
Toronto-based specialty financial services firm Difference Capital Financial has invested $5 million in BuildDirect.com Technologies Inc, an online supplier of home improvement products with its headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1999, BuildDirect has secured funding from other sources in past, including Canadian venture capital firms BDC Venture Capital and OMERS Ventures, an investment division of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System. BDC and OMERS invested a combined $20 million in the company in 2012.
- Edmonton SAAS platform Granify seeded with $1.5 mln by VCs and angels
Granify Inc, an Edmonton, Alberta-based software-as-a-service platform that brings real-time data and machine learning to online retailers, has received $1.5 million in seed-stage financing. Deal participants included Canadian venture capital firms iNovia Capital, Klass Capital, BDC Venture Capital and Extreme Startups, U.S.-based Valar Ventures and Social Starts, and nine individual angel investors. The company will use investment proceeds to grow through product development, infrastructure, and by attracting more online retailers to its product. Granify also raised venture capital funding in 2012.
- SmartReno.com attracts $725k from BDC, Québec angels, other investors
SmartReno.com has raised $500,000 in new venture capital funding, in a deal led by angel investor Pierre Fleurent, and with the participation of four members of Anges Québec and Anges Québec Capital Fund. The investment completes a second round of financing totaling $725,000. Other investors in the company include BDC Venture Capital and Société de développement économique Ville-Marie. The Montréal-based SmartReno.com, which has raised $1.04 million in funding to date, provides a matching service between people who have renovation projects and qualified and available contractors.
- Relay Ventures leads $2.3 mln seed financing of connected car app Mojio
Mojio Inc, the Vancouver-based maker of a cloud-connected device for cars and an app for smartphones, has closed a seed-stage financing round totaling $2.3 million. The deal was led by Canadian venture capital firm Relay Ventures, with the participation of 500 Startups, BDC Venture Capital and a number of other private funds. Founded in 2012, Mojio will use the new funding to bring to market its connected car app, which the company said is in the final stages of development, and will launch within a few months. Additional products will be made available from the Mojio app store for cars, to be announced in Q1 2014.