Private Equity
DIRTT Environmental Solutions Ltd, a Calgary-based technology-focused manufacturer of highly-customized interiors, has filed a final prospectus in connection with its forthcoming initial public offering of 15,000,000 common shares at a price of $3.00 per share. The company aims to raise gross proceeds of $45 million. DIRTT has also provided for an over-allotment option of an additional 2,250,000 shares. Founded in 2001, the company is backed by Canadian and U.S. venture capital firms, including Apex Venture Partners, EDC Equity Fund, Expansion Capital Partners, Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, NGEN Partners and North Sky Capital.
3 min read · 22 November 2013
Rithm, a mobile music messaging app developed by MavenSay Inc, was awarded the People’s Choice at the conclusion of the Canadian Innovation Exchange's CIX 2013 forum, held this week at Toronto's MaRS Discovery District. Company co-founder and CEO Mike Wagman believes that the start-up stood out because of its compelling story and rapid growth over the past few months.
2 min read · 22 November 2013
BDC 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 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 is backed by Vancouver-based start-up accelerator GrowLab.
3 min read · 22 November 2013
GrowthWorks Canadian Fund has been provided legal authorization to begin a sale investor solicitation process. The authorization, which was provided by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, faciliates contact with prospective strategic and financial partners about a potential merger, asset sale, or investment in the fund. The venture capital fund has in past been affiliated with Vancouver-based GrowthWorks.
5 min read · 21 November 2013
Blueline Bioscience, a Toronto-based biotech incubator launched earlier this year by U.S. venture capital firm Versant Ventures, has entered into a new partnership with Celgene Corp, a manufacturer of drug therapies for cancer and inflammatory disorders with headquarters in Summit, New Jersey. Under the terms of the collaboration, Celegene will have certain option rights with respect to early-stage life sciences companies launched by the incubator in such fields as oncology and inflammation. Versant Ventures recently established an office in Vancouver. Blueline Bioscience is located in the MaRS Discovery District.
3 min read · 20 November 2013
Toronto-based financial advisory firm GreenSky Capital has launched GreenSky President’s Club (GPC), a group of high net worth investors interested in investing in early-stage technology companies. Under the GPC model, opportunities are first pre-screened by GreenSky. ”We will often work with companies for a couple of months before we bring them to the GPC, and will have completed and organized our own due diligence for the group to review even before they see the presentations," said GreekSky president Geoff Simonett. GPC's first meeting was this month held at MaRS Discovery District. Twenty GPC members were introduced to Cyclica, a platform for accurately testing drug candidates and designing new drugs, and OTI Lumionics, a company focused on reducing the manufacturing costs of organic light emitting diodes.
3 min read · 18 November 2013
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.
3 min read · 18 November 2013
Therma-Flite said Friday that it has raised $7.5 million in financing from Toronto-based XPV Capital. Headquartered in Benicia, Calif., Therma-Flite is a provider of waste water treatment and resource recovery solutions. Update: Investment proceeds will be used to introduce new products within core markets and expand the company's plants in Benicia and El Dorado, Arkansas. XPV is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in investments in the global water industry.
3 min read · 15 November 2013
TouchBistro said Thursday that it has closed $4.5 million in seed funding. Relay Ventures was the lead investor. In conjunction with the funding, John Albright, co-founder and managing partner of Relay Ventures, will join Touchbistro's board of directors. Based in Toronto and New York City, TouchBistro is a food and beverage app.
3 min read · 14 November 2013
Deloitte has announced the winners of its 2013 Technology Fast 50™ program, welcoming 17 companies that made the list for the first time. These include all three companies in the top spots: Vancouver-based QuickMobile, a developer of secure mobile event apps, which showed a growth rate of 10,444%; Kitchener, Ont.-based Miovision, a creator of intelligent solutions to address challenges in global transportation networks, and; Ottawa-based Shopify, a provider of e-commerce website solutions. According to the Canadian database of Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB Canada), over 60% of the companies on the 2013 list are currently backed, or were previously backed, by venture capital investors.
4 min read · 13 November 2013
