Private Equity
Foxquilt, a Toronto-based insurance financial technology provider, has raised $1.2 million in a seed-stage financing. The round was led by Canadian early-stage venture capital firm Extreme Venture Partners. Foxquilt was launched in 2016 by CEO Mark Morissette and Karim Jamal, both formerly with Real Matters and Aviva Canada. Its platform uses big data and machine learning to help social groups save on home, small business and auto insurance. Foxquilt will use the funds raised to develop its technology and grow through sales and marketing and customer acquisition in Ontario.
3 min read · 18 October 2018
Montréal-based turnkey events platform Entr has raised $1.13 million in a seed-stage financing. The round was led by U.S. venture capital firm Telegraph Hill Capital with participation from iNovia Capital, Peter Kern, Interaction Ventures and Guillaume Jacquet. Founded last year by Marc-Antoine Bonin, Emeric Noël and Alexandre Vanier, Entr helps enterprises plan and book events. Platform users can select from a curated portfolio of 1,000 Canadian venues and vendors. Entr, which is debuting in Toronto next month, will use the funds raised to expand across Canada, improve its product, and bring on additional talent.
3 min read · 18 October 2018
Canadian cannabis investment firm Green Acre Capital has agreed to invest $10 million in The Friendly Stranger, a Toronto-based supplier of cannabis products and accessories. The deal is the first of Green Acre Capital Fund II, which raised more than $35 million in lead commitments earlier this year. It will allow Friendly Stranger to pursue a retail expansion plan intended to introduce dozens of stores across Canada, with an initial focus on Ontario. Established in 1994 by Robin Ellins and Joy Jacobsen, Friendly Stranger currently operates a single cannabis culture shop in downtown Toronto.
3 min read · 17 October 2018
Chefs Plate, a Toronto-based meal-kit delivery company, has agreed to combine its Canadian business with that of Germany's HelloFresh, which operates in the same sector. HelloFresh will acquire all shares of Chefs Plate for an undisclosed amount, creating a national company with targeted revenue to about $200 million. Founded in 2014 by CEO Jamie Shea and Patrick Meyer, Chefs Plate delivers kits of locally-sourced farm fresh ingredients and recipes to customers' homes. Its investors include Acton Capital Partners, BrandProject, Emil Capital Partners and InvestEco Capital Corp, as well as Comerica Bank. HelloFresh is also venture-backed, counting Insight Venture Partners and Rocket Internet among its investors.
3 min read · 17 October 2018
Canadian water-focused growth equity firm XPV Water Partners has invested in the merger of Monticello, Mississippi-based Atlas Manufacturing Company Inc and Slaughter, Louisiana-based Screening Systems International Inc. The transaction, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, created Atlas-SSI, a full-service producer of custom industrial water intake systems in North America. XPV said the new business will join its portfolio and gain access to additional resources needed to expand its relationships and product offering. The Atlas-SSI deal comes on the heels of XPV's recently announced investments in Metasphere Ltd and Mobiltex Data Ltd.
3 min read · 17 October 2018
Canadian growth equity firm Georgian Partners has led the US$25 million Series B financing of Stratifyd, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based end-to-end customer analytics platform. The round, which included existing investors, will see Georgian Partner Tyson Baber join the board. Founded in 2015, Stratifyd's platform utilizes artificial intelligence to help enterprises generate insights that lead to customer retention, improved products and services, and greater revenue. The funds raised will be used to deepen AI capabilities in unsupervised machine learning and natural language processing, and expand Stratifyd’s product offering to focus on key verticals.
3 min read · 17 October 2018
Canadian venture capital firm Version One Ventures has closed its third fund at about $57 million in committed capital. Version One Ventures III was backed by new and existing limited partners, including such institutions as Invesco, HarbourVest, Northleaf Capital Partners and Kensington Capital Partners. Commitments were also secured from entrepreneurs at Shopify, Slack, Hootsuite, Wattpad, Salesforce and other companies. Founding Partner Boris Wertz said Fund III will double down on the investment strategy followed by Vancouver-based Version One since its launch in 2012. It will lead or join pre-seed and seed rounds with cheque sizes of $500,000 to $750,000, backing North American startups and platforms that leverage network effects.
4 min read · 17 October 2018
Information Venture Partners has hired Toan Huynh as a venture partner, according to a news release. Huynh will soon be joining the Toronto investor from Citi Ventures, the venture capital arm of U.S. financial holding company Citigroup, where she is an entrepreneur-in-residence. Before then, Huynh held several entrepreneurial, executive and investment roles, including co-founder of Cloud Sherpas, a U.S. boutique cloud software advisory and consultancy. She will now lead Information VP’s new office in New York, assisting with sourcing, making and managing investments in the region.
1 min read · 16 October 2018
Sierra Wireless (TSX: SW, Nasdaq: SWIR), a Vancouver-based provider of device-to-cloud solutions for the internet of things, has appointed Kent Thexton as president and CEO. Thexton, who has led the company on an interim basis since May, will assume the permanent role in November. Thexton joins Sierra from Canadian early-stage venture capital firm ScaleUp Ventures, where for more than two years he served as a general partner. ScaleUp closed its debut fund last year at $100 million. Before then, he was a managing director at OMERS Ventures. Thexton also spent close to 25 years as a founder and operator of several technology companies.
4 min read · 16 October 2018
Vistara Capital Partners has set a target of about $130 million (US$100 million) for its third technology debt fund, according to a news release. Vistara Technology Growth Fund III launched with initial committed capital of about $52 million (US$40 million), supplied primarily by returning investors. Fund III will maintain the firm’s strategy of providing flexible, tailored debt financing to mid-to-late-stage tech companies in North America. Vancouver-based Vistara, co-founded in 2015 by Managing Partner Randy Garg, also said it planned to open a Toronto office to gain more exposure to Ontario tech deal opportunities.
2 min read · 16 October 2018
