Before we all slip off to kayaks and hammocks and summery escapes, we wanted to share a few highlights from an exciting Q2.
We were pleased to lead a growth round of CDN $51M for home healthcare platform AlayaCare as well as our investment in management software company Fellow (US $6.5M). We were also excited to support the Chronogolf acquisition by sister portfolio company Lightspeed, as Smooch Technologies was acquired by Zendesk — opening the door to greater, faster scaleup and deeper relationships for Inovia. Milestone Pharmaceuticals also launched its IPO on the NASDAQ under the ticker: MIST.
It was absolutely wonderful to see so many of you in Toronto at the Inovia Capital 2019 Annual Summit, which was one of our biggest events to date. Among many standout speakers, we were honored to welcome JP Chauvet (President, Lightspeed), Laurence Tosi (Westcap, Airbnb, Blackstone Group), and Manon Brouillette — former Videotron CEO and new Inovia Capital Advisor, who helped to express the fundamentals of the Inovia growth mindset. We also welcomed friend of Inovia, Dr. Geoffrey Tabin, whose work to end curable blindness on a global scale brought everyone to their feet. We were honored to hear his incredible life story, as he set the bar yet higher for an audience of deeply experienced leaders.
As we reviewed our guest list, one data point hit home: well over 75% of our invitees have remained constant over the past four years, with a few notables attending since the earliest days. This is just a small proof point that we have a shared commitment to foster great relationships as a path to building stronger companies, a stronger ecosystem, and a stronger future. Thank you to all for being partners over our nearly 12-year history. We look forward to more quarters of continued growth. We also were pleased to greet our new investors and founders who joined since our last Summit.
In the News
- Home healthcare platform AlayaCare announced new funding, to help scale operations as they aim to become the gold standard for workforce management. | Globe & Mail
- Sean Silcoff captured the magic of Fellow and how they’ve built momentum from an early start by partnering with Shopify. | Globe & Mail
- Golf management platform Chronogolf is teed up for long-term growth after acquisition by Lightspeed. | Yahoo! Finance
- Milestone Pharmaceuticals held its IPO on Nasdaq. | PE Hub
- Recognizing an opportunity to help families better navigate their fertility journey, Future Family launched a $200 membership option that includes coaching and support. | TechCrunch
- CIX Community named Lightspeed POS its 2019 innovator of the year. | PE Hub
- Wow moment when SpatialXR took the stage with Satya Nadella at Microsoft Build. | YouTube
- Lightspeed Loyalty launched globally. | BetaKit
- BenchSci announced additional funding from Gradient Ventures. | PR Web
- Clearbanc shared how their AI-backed platform helps reduce bias in lending. | Forbes
- DarwinAI were at the heart of a piece about Robots and AI. | Forbes
- Boosted launched its vehicle-grade scooter, the Rev in May TechCrunch Mashable, Engadget, & Gizmodo.
- Clearbanc aims to loan $1B in non-dilutive capital to 2000 SMBs this year with ‘The 20-Min Term Sheet’. TechCrunch
- Eric Berry, Founder & CEO of TripleLift, earned EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year (NY) award. | EOYNY
- Chris Arsenault appeared on the Les Affaires business podcast. | Les Affaires (FR)
- Patrick Pichette answered a few key questions on building the next Google, outside Silicon Valley. | Innovator.news
Thoughts
- Osler Chief Client Officer and Inovia Advisor Colleen Morehead released a reflective and powerful book entitled The Collective Wisdom of High-Performing Women.
- On the heels of a strong IPO, Dax Dasilva, Founder & CEO of Lightspeed released his first book, entitled The Age of Union — a call-to-action for changemakers to redefine business, relationships, and the world.
- Jeff Russakow, Boosted CEO stopped by 20 Minute VC to talk about core elements of a successful transition into the CEO role.
- Sarah shared thoughts on how we’re building our own 10x culture with 1:1 management platform Fellow. | Inovia Blog
- As a follow-on to her popular piece on venture debt, Sarah deconstructed lines of credit and term loans. | Inovia Blog
- We recapped our Annual Summit, showing how we seek and support outliers. | Inovia Blog
- Our investment in Smooch started with a strong relationship and — even after acquisition — will continue to be so with standout co-founders Hamnett Hill and Warren Levitan. Read about our changing partnership now that the company is part of Zendesk. | Inovia Blog
- Inovia Partner Todd Simpson has put pen to paper, to share more in
sights on how we approach investments touching urbanism and mobility. Three are out and more are to come: - Dynamic City Infrastructure
- Scooter Sharing is for the Birds
- Adventure City
Events
April 18, Montreal: Magaly spoke at the Young Canadians in Finance Conference
June 12–14: Shawn connected with founders at Metabridge in western Canada
June 18–19, Toronto: 2019 Inovia Capital Annual Summit
June 22, Toronto: Patrick gave a keynote at the CDL Supersession
July 10, Montreal: Magaly joins BDC Capital at Startupfest to answer questions about financing
July 23, San Francisco: Françoise Brougher will join Patrick Pichette for a private event
September 18, Toronto: Patrick will speak at the Google Tech Leadership Summit
September 26–27, Montreal: Chris will join CIBC for a technology tour and talk on tech in Montreal