Private Equity
The 2015 IESE VC/PE Country Attractiveness Index has ranked Canada among the top countries in the world for venture capital and private equity. The index, created by the IESE's Center for International Finance and EMLYON Business School, analyzes countries according to such variables as most promising markets, strongest institutions, most entrepreneurial support, best protections and strongest corporate governance practices. Other countries ranked highly among the 120 countries in total include: the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Japan.
4 min read · 09 July 2015
Influitive has secured $30.5 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Georgian Partners and was joined by new and existing investors, including Atlas Venture, BDC Capital, CommonAngels Ventures, Docomo Capital, First Round Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Illuminate Ventures, OurCrowd, Relay Ventures and Resolute Ventures. As part of the deal, Georgian Partners' Simon Chong will join the company's board of directors. Based in Toronto, Influitive helps business-to-business companies identify, mobilize and recognize advocates to accelerate growth. It will use the latest funding to expand its technology platform and advance new product offerings.
3 min read · 09 July 2015
Online emergency network ePACT Network Ltd has received close to $1 million in funding from the federal government's Western Innovation Initiative (WINN). WINN, which is administered by Western Economic Diversification Canada, provides repayable contributions to Western Canadian companies that are developing cutting-edge technologies and services. Founded in 2012, the Vancouver-based ePACT is backed by Canadian venture capital firms BDC Venture Capital and Yaletown Venture Partners as well as other investors.
2 min read · 08 July 2015
RSVP Technologies Inc has secured a total of $2.85 million in funding. The deal included a $950,000 commitment from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), as well as a $1.9 million investment from the Golden Triangle Angel Network. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, RSVP is a developer of question answering software for speakers of Chinese and English. The funding's proceeds will help the company to further develop and customize its technology and advance marketing and distribution strategies that target the Chinese market.
3 min read · 08 July 2015
Canadian boutique finance advisory firm GreenSky Capital has launched its previously announced early-stage venture capital fund, GreenSky Accelerator Fund I LP. The fund, which will leverage GreenSky's deal flow to make investments in Canadian technology startups, completed an initial close of $3.25 million. It is targeted to raise $4 million in total. It was also announced that the fund has entered into a term sheet for its first investment in Cyclica Inc, a data interaction platform that simulates the interaction of pharmaceuticals with the body’s proteins. The company, which is based in Toronto, secured financing from GreenSky President's Club in 2013.
4 min read · 07 July 2015
Landr Audio, a cloud-based audio post-production platform, has secured US$6.2 million in Series A financing. The investors included rapper and record producer Nas, HDGL (Cirque Du Soleil founders Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier), Warner Music Group, Plus Eight Private Equity, Real Ventures and YUL Ventures. Formerly known as MixGenius, Landr received support early on from Canadian accelerator and investor TandemLaunch and angel network Anges Québec. As part of its funding announcement, the company launched its latest tool for mastering audio production and giving listeners and producers improved sound quality. Founded in 2012, Landr is based in Montréal.
3 min read · 07 July 2015
In the coming weeks, the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) and Thomson Reuters will issue their reports on Canadian venture capital market activity in the second quarter of 2015. In the meantime, peHUB Canada has compiled a list of the likely top 10 (disclosed) financings completed between April and June.
3 min read · 07 July 2015
Storage virtualization platform ioFABRIC is preparing to emerge from stealth mode with a product that is intended to change the way that enterprise data are stored and managed. The Toronto-based startup's development has been facilitated by undisclosed seed-stage financing from Canadian venture capital firm Real Ventures and other private investors. Established in 2013, ioFABRIC is led by CEO Steven Lamb, a Canadian serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded Nevex Virtual Technologies, Nevex Software, Inex Corp and other companies. He said Real Ventures' investment supports the forthcoming launch of ioFABRIC's software-defined storage product offerings.
3 min read · 07 July 2015
The going public transactions of private equity and venture-backed companies helped drive the Canadian IPO market in the first half of 2015, a new PwC Canada report suggests. Offerings by companies such as Shopify Inc and Stingray Digital Group Inc contributed to $1.4 billion in new issue proceeds in this period, PwC found. Overall, proceed values were down from one year ago, while the number of offerings was up. PwC National IPO Leader Dean Braunsteiner said early signs of private equity firms bringing companies to the public equity market is a trend to watch. Another important trend is the successful offering of special-purpose investment companies focused on startups, he said.
3 min read · 06 July 2015
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ has reported comprehensive income totaling $992 million for the year ended May 31, 2015, which resulted in an annual return of 9.8 percent. Net assets managed by the Montréal-based private equity and venture capital firm have also reached a new high of $11.1 billion. During the past twelve months, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ said it deployed a total of $640 million in development capital to companies in Québec. Its recent investments include ATIS Group, Colo-D, Frima and Montreal Gateway Terminals.
3 min read · 06 July 2015
