Inovia Q3: US $1.2B Raised by Portfolio During COVID, 4 Inovia New Hires, Lightspeed IPO on NYSE, AppDirect Closes a $185M Round

Capital raises: Busbud CAD $15M, Clearpath Robotics CAD $6.6M, Drivewyze CAD $81.7M

2020 has been a year unlike any other — full of surprises, challenges, and opportunities. As we round the final corner of this year, our sincerest hope is that your families and teams are all healthy and thriving and that anyone in your circle who is feeling the bite of COVID is having all their needs met. What initially seemed like a sprint has turned into a marathon, and we continue to draw inspiration from the resilience and long-term thinking happening across the Canadian tech community and abroad.

We have been busy as well. While the CVCA reported on a portion of our activity during COVID, we captured our total portfolio raise at US $1.2B between March and September; with Q3 as a strong quarter.

Lightspeed announced the closing of US$397.7 Million Initial Public Offering on the NYSE; AppDirect announced that it has raised a US $185M round led by Inovia LP CDPQ; Busbud raised a $15M Series C led by Inovia LP Investissement Québec and the Canadian Business Growth Fund; and Clearpath Robotics topped up its Series C with CAD $6.6M. Additionally, Drivewyze announced a CAD $81.7M raise which unlocked an exit for Inovia.

We also expanded our team — welcoming Andre Charoo, 25th employee at Uber and now founder of Maple Capital; Katrina Ouellette, our new Montreal Office Manager; Analyst Charlotte Borgognoni and Chief of Staff Arianne Angers. Additionally, we had two promotions — our deepest congratulations to Mia and Mike who are both now VPs.

— The Inovia team

In the News

Michele Romanow makes Fortune’s 40 Under 40 | Fortune

Clearbanc landed on the CB Insights Fintech 250 | Betakit

AppDirect is Named to the 2020 Forbes Cloud 100

Thoughts

Shawn’s piece on high-performing boards became a sharper point for us this quarter, as we worked closely as a team to make our own convictions around diversity and inclusion more impactful for ourselves and our portfolio. Shawn’s picks on this topic:

Check out the Decoding Digital Podcast from AppDirect — featuring Michele Romanow, Eric Ries & Brad Feld

Check out Processes Before Velocity: Why Your 100th Employee Will Change Your Company — featuring Michael Litt, CEO of Vidyard, on the Fellow Podcast series

Chris reflected on the growth at AppDirect in a piece on our blog

Don’t miss Symend co-founder Hanif Joshaghani’s incredible personal story o
f resilience

Hugues spoke about scaling teams at Traction Conference — watch now

Industry Insights

Inovia rose to the top of the list for active investors during COVID. | Betakit

All eyes are on Canada as US political leaders curb immigration | MarketWatch

We’re pleased to join in the movement to make more diverse and inclusive workplaces, and are watching closely as industry finds ways to make impact — including legislative efforts underway in California | WSJ

Ajay Agrawal penned a piece for HBR capturing his insights on machine learning | Harvard Business Review

Inovia Events

Our in-person events have gone virtual, giving broader access to insightful conversations from leaders in startups and investing:

Inovia Sessions — Building Distributed & Remote Teams from Seed to IPO

Inovia Sessions — Rebuilding Healthcare’s Software Stack

Plus: Other online events featuring Inovians are coming up: