We are proud to announce Inovia’s partnership with Mila, a premier Canadian artificial intelligence (AI) research institute, to launch the Venture Scientist Fund. This early-stage venture capital fund is designed to transform frontier AI research and deep scientific expertise into impactful and enduring AI-native companies.
A paper recently co-authored by Mila and Bain & Company highlights that while Canada represents roughly 10% of the world’s top AI research talent, it currently captures less than 2% of global AI venture capital investment. By building closer bridges between research and entrepreneurship, the Venture Scientist Fund represents a generational opportunity to close this gap, retain top talent and anchor intellectual property to create long-term economic wealth in Canada.
Today, Mila and Inovia Capital are joining forces as co-general partners to create this new fund. Mila, through its world-class research ecosystem, will lead investment activities by leveraging its privileged access to Venture Scientists, while Inovia will contribute its institutional scale and operational discipline necessary to transform these breakthroughs into global tech champions.
The Venture Scientist Fund is a key component of Inovia’s Discovery Program, one of the three pillars of the firm’s multi-stage investment strategy, designed to support the early stages of the ecosystem. By engaging early in company formation, often before a startup formally exists, the fund helps strengthen Canada’s AI startup pipeline for our Venture Capital Ecosystem, creating more opportunities for our leading researchers and entrepreneurs to launch their companies here in Canada.
Venture Scientist Fund at a Glance:
- Target Size: USD $100M.
- Impact: Plans to invest in 55+ early-stage AI-native companies emerging from Canada’s dense scientific landscape, including leading universities across the country.
- Focus: Domains where scientific depth is a competitive advantage, such as foundational AI, deep tech, and next-generation computational and physical infrastructure.
This initiative builds naturally on Inovia’s long-standing leadership in AI, shaped by decades of investing, deep technical expertise, and trusted relationships across research, industry, and entrepreneurship. We look forward to collaborating with Mila to turn one of Canada’s greatest strengths, its scientific talent, into a pipeline of consequential companies that strengthen the country’s tech ecosystem and reinforce its global leadership in AI.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Globe and Mail: Quebec’s Mila institute raising $100-million fund for AI startups
The Logic: Mila and Inovia Capital announce $100M fund to boost Canadian AI
BetaKit: Mila and Inovia launch venture fund to turn AI research “diamonds” into startups