Friends,
In spite of these chaotic times, we hope that you enjoyed a productive spring. On our end, we were really busy closing our US$325M Inovia Venture Fund V, the third fund that we have raised since January 2021 and a testament to our commitment to tech entrepreneurs. We also held our 2022 virtual AGM, and hosted four events in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and London. It felt really good to reconnect in person with the tech ecosystem!
In the quarter, we welcomed Pine, Signal 1 and Flare to the Inovia portfolio family. We also saw exciting events within our portfolio as Certn raised a US$50M series B and TrackTik was acquired by Trackforce Valiant, a leading provider of security workforce management solutions.
This quarter also marked Inovia’s 15th year anniversary. To celebrate the occasion, we created a video that tells our story with the people that have helped us grow throughout the years. To learn more about Inovia’s history, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter over the coming weeks as we celebrate #15YearsOfInovia. We’ll be sharing throwback posts that highlight memories from the past fifteen years and regular updates on our team, our projects and our portfolio companies.
We want to thank you all for these 15 years of partnership and trust, and we look forward to many more years of company building.
— The Inovia Team
Portfolio companies in the news
Fundraising
- TD’s AI chief quits to start health care firm, backed by bank and Inovia Capital | Globe&Mail
- Tailscale closes CA$128M series B to scale VPN service | Betakit
- Tengiva secures CA$4.95M seed financing led by Fonds Ecofuel | Financial Post
- Neo Financial joins Canada’s unicorns as Peter Thiel’s Valar triples down with CA$185M round | Betakit
- Certn raises CA$65.1M to scale background check tech beyond Canada | Betakit
- Pine comes out of stealth to build “Wealthsimple For Home Buying” | Betakit
- Flare Systems eyes us expansion following CA$9.5M Series A funding | Betakit
M&A and Partnerships
- AlayaCare partners with Element5 to extend the adoption of workflow automation technology for home health care | AlayaCare
- Trackforce Valiant acquires TrackTik Software, creates the world’s largest security workforce management company | Globe Newswire
Hiring, Talent Movement and Board Appointments
- Talent.com adds a top Silicon Valley tech executive and Inovia Capital CEO to its board of directors | Talent.com
- Technology leader and former Shopify executive Jean-Michel Lemieux joins BenchSci Advisory Board | BenchSci
Other Exciting News
- Calico, Pine and Spare are all C100 2022 Fellows | C100
- Hopper being one of the The Top 100 Most Customer-Centric Companies of 2022 | Forbes
- This Canadian startup Is streamlining the textile Industry | The Hustle
- Announcing the new Wealthsimple app. It does… everything? | Wealthsimple
- Hopper will let customers pay a fee to leave the hotel after check-in for any reason | Skift
- Montreal-based Hopper faces exploding demand | LaPresse+ (article in French)
Inovia Thoughts
Investment Blogs:
- Pine: Shaking up Canada’s $761B mortgage market with Pine
- Flare: Flare takes cybersecurity to every corner of the web, including dark ones
- Venture Fund V: A new fund and a long-term view during chaotic times
Inovia Sessions:
- The state of the M&A market | Inovia Blog
Industry Highlights
- Alberta’s tech sector coming of age as province sets new venture funding record in Q1 2022 | Betakit
- Inovia closes US$325M oversubscribed fund, despite market downturn | The Logic
- After one week at the Collision conference, Axios’ newsletter is dedicated to Canada’s thriving tech scene | Axios
- Searching for startups post pandemic | The Record