Private Equity
Toronto online marketplace VarageSale has appointed Janet Bannister, a partner at Canadian venture capital firm Real Ventures, to its board of directors. Bannister, who joined Real Ventures in 2014, is a Kijiji founder. VarageSale said she will help it scale across North America and support its monetization strategy. VarageSale, which provides an app to buy and sell used items locally, also reported a doubling of its user base in 2016. Founded in 2012, the company is backed by Real Ventures, iNovia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Version One Ventures and others.
4 min read · 18 May 2017
U.S. clinical-stage oncology company G1 Therapeutics Inc priced its recently filed initial public offering to raise US$105 million, not including its greenshoe option. It began trading today on Nasdaq's Global Select Market under the symbol GTHX. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based G1 develops novel small-molecule therapies for the treatment of cancer. Since its founding in 2008, the company has raised nearly US$100 million in funding from several investors, including Canadian life sciences venture capital firm Lumira Capital.
2 min read · 17 May 2017
D-Wave Systems Inc, a Vancouver quantum computing systems and software company, has secured a convertible notes facility of up to US$50 million from Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments). PSP funded US$30 at closing, with an additional US$20 million available upon the company's achievement of milestones. The facility will help D-Wave deploy its quantum computing system with more densely-connected qubits, as well as products for machine learning applications. D-Wave has raised about US$200 million, including the facility. Its other backers include BDC Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs and In-Q-Tel.
3 min read · 16 May 2017
Toronto-based Nymi, creator of the Nymi Band authentication device, has raised about $20.5 million (US$15 million) in a Series B financing. The round was led by Dubai's GII Tech Ventures, a new investor, and joined by Canadian venture capital firm Relay Ventures and U.S. firm Ignition Partners, which led the company's US$14 million Series A round in 2014. Founded in 2011 by CEO Karl Martin and Foteini Agrafioti, Nymi developed the Nymi Band as a wearable device that utilizes cardiac rhythms to enable continuous presence-based authentication. The company plans to use the funds raised to commercialize the technology for enterprises.
3 min read · 16 May 2017
Formation Biologics Inc, a biopharmaceutical company based in Austin, Texas and Montréal, has raised an undisclosed Series B financing. The round was led by European investor HBM Healthcare Investments. Founded in 2011 as a spin out of YM BioSciences Inc, Formation is developing biotherapeutics for life-threatening cancers and orphan diseases. Led by President and CEO Ilia Tikhomirov, the company will use the funds raised to support development of its two lead programs, AVID100 and AVID200, through clinical validation. Formation is also backed by Canadian venture capital firm Lumira Capital and seed investor MaRS Innovation.
2 min read · 15 May 2017
Canadian 3D sensor startup Airy3D has raised about $4.8 million (US$3.5 million) in a seed-stage financing. The round was led by CRCM Ventures and R7 Partners and joined by WI Harper Group, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners and angel investors affiliated with TandemLaunch, the Canadian incubator and seed investor that spun out the company. Montréal's Airy3D, led by President and CEO Dr. Dan Button, has developed a TDM technology platform that can cost effectively convert any camera sensor into a versatile 3D sensor. It will use the funds raised to bring the platform into commercial use with a strategic partner.
4 min read · 15 May 2017
Canadian private equity firm NorthSpring Capital Partners has invested more than $1.5 million in five technology companies located in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor. The companies are video quality platform SSIMWave; surgical navigation solutions provider Intellijoint Surgical (which last November closed a $11 million Series A financing); workplace health company Sprout; hyperconvergence software solutions provider HTBase and; diesel gas converter Envoy Energy (which recently acquired ComTech CNG, a designer of compressed gas refuelling stations). NorthSpring partnered with venture capital and angel investors in several of the deals.
6 min read · 15 May 2017
Toronto cloud real estate technology platform Real Matters Inc has closed its initial public offering, raising about $156.7 million for the company and selling shareholders. The offering’s greenshoe option may generate an additional $23.5 million. Real Matters, which began trading today on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol REAL, achieved a valuation in excess of $1 billion, according to Whitecap Venture Partners, a Canadian venture capital firm and one of the company's earliest investors. Its other private investors include Kensington Venture Fund, Radar Capital and Wellington Financial.
3 min read · 11 May 2017
Power Financial Corp has invested $50 million in "robo-adviser" Wealthsimple, bringing its total investment in the two-year-old financial technology company to $100 million, Reuters reported. Toronto-based Wealthsimple provides automated investment advice to consumers and helps manage personalized portfolios based on responses to an online questionnaire about investment goals. It entered the U.S. market at the end of January. The company said it now has more than 30,000 clients in Canada and the United States, up from 20,000 earlier this year. Wealthsimple, which is led by Founder and CEO Michael Katchen, said it will use the funds raised to continue its North American expansion and grow Wealthsimple for Advisors, its B2B platform.
2 min read · 11 May 2017
Montréal voice recognition software company Fluent.ai Inc has raised $1.8 million in a seed-stage financing. The round was backed by BDC Capital, Danhua Capital, investors affiliated with Creative Destruction Lab and Maple Leaf Angels. Fluent.ai, which is now graduating from TandemLaunch's incubation program, is focused on developing a voice recognition software solution to be used in the products and services of original equipment manufacturers and user interface designers. Led by CEO Niraj Bhargava, the company plans to use the funds raised to commercialize its technology.
4 min read · 11 May 2017
