COMMUNITY UPDATES

NEW FUNDS & FUNDING ROUNDS

₿ Mike Silagadze (C100 Charter Member) and Andrew McGrath (48Hrs Alumnus) have launched Gadze Finance, a next-generation crypto DeFi fund.  Mike is the founder of Toronto-based EdTech Top Hat and recently stepped down as CEO earlier this year and Andrew is formerly the President of Top Hat Ventures. The fund will start with US$25M under management as a pilot fund with the goal to scale the fund to US$100M over the next 6 months. Boris Wertz, Founder & Managing Partner at Version One Ventures, led the equity finance round and shares more about the announcement in this post.

  Hubspot Ventures has announced a $100M Hubspot CRM Platform Fund, focused on investing in early- and growth-stage technology companies focused on customer-first B2B innovation for scaling businesses. Congratulations to Andrew Lindsay (Charter Member), SVP of Business and Corporate Development at HubSpot.

 Newfoundland-based CoLab Software has raised a $17M Series A led by New York-based investment firm Insight Partners. CoLab Sofware provides a web-based collaboration tool and issue-tracking platform for engineering teams. Congratulations to Co-Founders Adam Keating, Jeremy Andrews, and the CoLabs team! Also congratulations to Greg Smyth (C100 Member) who is an early investor!

  Spin Master, a Canadian toymaker, has entered the venture capital game with a newly established $100M fund to back early-stage companies that can help accelerate growth in its toys, entertainment and digital game divisions. Starting with two investments – Winnipeg-based Hoot Reading and Stockholm-based Nordlight Games. (p.s. a few valued C100 Members and Partners are featured for commentary in this article from Sean Silcoff).

  Thomson Reuters is creating a $100M corporate venture fund aimed to support and accelerate innovation in sectors that the company already serves via its products, including legal, accounting, media, risk, fraud, and compliance. The division will report to Chief Strategy Officer Pat Wilburn and is looking to invest between $2-10M for each deal, backing 15-20 companies over the next three years.

  In one of the largest proptech deals ever, the leasing and management platform VTS announced that it will acquire Toronto-based Lane, a workplace experience platform used by several top landlords including Brookfield, Oxford, and Hines, for $200M. A big congratulations to Lane’s CEO Clinton Robinson (C100 Member and 48Hrs 2020 Alumnus) on this newest chapter. Hear directly from Clinton in this post.

  ResQ has been busy cooking up a Series A. Toronto-based ResQ, led by Founder & CEO Kuljeev Singh (C100 Fellow), has announced a $39M Series A, co-led by Tiger Global Management and Canvas Ventures, alongside existing investors Homebrew Ventures, Inovia Capital and Golden Ventures (proud C100 Corporate Member). Mike Ghaffary from Canvas Ventures and former CEO of Yelp-Eat24, and Nilam Ganenthiran, former President of Instacart will be joining ResQ’s Board of Directors. Hear from Kuljeev here.

  Flowers aren’t the only thing blooming at Callia. Winnipeg-based Callia, led by Founder & CEO Catherine Metrycki (C100 Fellow), announced that it raised a $6.4M Series A to expand its direct-to-consumer flower delivery services and new markets across North America, including looking to enter the U.S. market.

IPOS & ACQUISITIONS

  Montreal-based Hopper has made its seventh acquisition, purchasing Boston-based PlacePass for an undisclosed amount. This also secures a partnership deal with Marriott International Inc. Hopper is led by Founder & CEO, Frederic Lalonde.

 Kitchener, Ont.-based online learning software provider D2L has set a price range on its IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange that would value the company at more than $1-billion. Disclosed in a securities filing on Monday, the price range has been set at a range of $19 to $21 a share for a proposed $200M.

MEMBERS MAKING MOVES

  Silicon Valley Bank (proud C100 Foundational Partner) has expanded to Montréal with the appointment of Karl Théard as the Director of Technology Banking, Quebec. Paul Parisi, Head of Silicon Valley Bank shares, “with CAD $953M invested in Montréal in the first half of 2021, the city is taking its place as one of the leaders in terms of investment dollars and number of deals in Canada. We’re excited to welcome Karl to SVB and we know his deep understanding of the Montréal tech and investor community will be invaluable to the city’s high-growth companies.”

  Publicly-traded sports betting and media company Rivalry has appointed former World Economic Forum (WEF) and Twitter executive Kirstine Stewart (C100 Charter Member) to its Board of Directors. Congratulations to Rivalry and Kirstine!

  Dax Dasilva, Founder & CEO of Lightspeed (and C100 Charter Member), has launched Age of Union Alliance, a not-for-profit action-oriented environmental initiative with a $40M initial pledge to support conservation and restoration projects. The fund is set to fund five projects per year over the next five years.

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