We hope you had an inspired beginning of the year. Our team of company builders has been fully engaged in closing deals, supporting portfolio growth momentum, and exchanging valuable insights with the ecosystem. In the blink of an eye, spring is at our doorstep!
Here are the main highlights of the past quarter :
- We welcomed one new portfolio company, Pay Shepherd, pursuing the mission of helping data-driven heavy industrial enterprises streamline contractor management
- We doubled down on our investment in portfolio company Spellbook, a Generative AI contract drafting solution for legal professionals
- AppDirect raised US$100M from CDPQ to expand its financing program for tech businesses
- Dax Dasilva returned as the CEO of Lightspeed to accelerate profitable growth
- We closed one growth investment, announcing shortly – stay tuned!
- Last but not least, we have published our first State of Canadian Software Report
Meanwhile, we maintained active involvement with operators, investors, and peers across North America, participating in various events such as the VCAA Conference, MaRS Impact AI, the CIX Summit, and Transform. Read below about additional activities during the last quarter.
— The Inovia Team
Portfolio News
Fundraising
- Can You Hear Me Now? AI-Coustics to Fight Noisy Audio with Generative AI I TechCrunch
- Contractor Management Platform PayShepherd Closes CAD$7M as Product, Market Expansion Continues I BetaKit
- Bench IQ Raises CAD$2.8M in Pre-Seed Funding with Buy-In from Maple VC, Haystack I BetaKit
- Legal AI Startup Raises $20M as Sector Draws More Investments I Reuters
- CDPQ Invests CAD$136M Into AppDirect Lending Program for Tech Advisors I BetaKit
M&A and Partnerships
- Flare Acquires Foretrace to Accelerate Threat Exposure Management Growth I NewsWire
- Neo4j Announces Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance GenAI and Data Solutions I Press Release
- AlayaCare Joins AWS Public Sector Partner Program I Press Release
Hiring, Talent Movement and Board Appointments
- Bench Welcomes Todd Daum as CRO I LinkedIn
- Top Hat’s Maggie Leen Appointed CEO Two Months After Joe Rohrlich’s Quiet Departure I BetaKit
- Marcos Lopez, former Inovia EiR, Joins CreditApp as new CEO I LinkedIn
- Sridhar Ramaswamy Named Chief Executive Officer of Snowflake, Frank Slootman Remains Chairman of the Board I Press Release
- With New President Sarah Miller Wright, former Inovia EiR, Certn Targets Profitable Growth Over Acquisitions I BetaKit
- Lightspeed Announces the Return of Dax Dasilva as CEO I Press Release
Podcasts
- Andre Charoo from Maple VC on The Hard Part with Evan McCann I Spotify
- Crossing Borders, Bridging Gaps: A Vision for Pre-Seed Success in Canadian Tech with Alex McIsaac of Northside Ventures I Tank Talks
Other Exciting News
- With Help from AI, Symend Tries a Gentler Approach to Debt Collection I The Logic
- Ex-BDC Partner Aims to Back Early-stage “AI Frontier” Startups with Defined Capital I BetaKit
- Cohere Releases Powerful ‘Command-R’ Language Model for Enterprise Use I VentureBeat
- Cohere Looks to Open New York Office as AI Interest Surges I The Logic
- Cohere for AI Launches Open Source LLM for 101 Languages I VentureBeat
- Spare: How AI is Helping to Prevent Three Buses Turning Up at Once I BBC
- Hopper Ranks on List of 10 Most Downloaded OTA Apps in 2023 I Apptopia
- Wealthsimple Banking on Payments Moves to Strengthen Ties With Customers I The Logic
- Commit: OpenAI’s GPT Store Launch is Bigger Than You Think I BetaKit
- Wealthsimple is Starting to Look Like Canada’s Next Big Bank I The Globe and Mail
Inovia Thoughts
Portfolio Blogs
- Investing in PayShepherd: Advancing Vendor Management in Heavy Industry I Shawn Abbott & Manpreet Deol
- Bringing Magic to Contract Law with Spellbook I Kory Jeffrey
- AI, Data, Teams and Innovation I Steve Woods
Portfolio Sessions
- Impactful Leadership: Key Insights from Manon Brouillette I Inovia Blog
Inovia News
- Welcome to Inovia Executive in Residence Mike Lueck I Inovia Blog
Emerging Manager Series
- Inovia Emerging Managers Portrait Series: Meet Defined I Portrait
- Inovia Emerging Managers Portrait Series: Meet Mighty Capital I Portrait
- Inovia Emerging Managers Portrait Series: Meet The51 I Portrait
- Inovia Emerging Managers Portrait Series: Meet FounderFuel I Portrait
Media interviews
- Interview With Phoebe Kitchen, Vice President of Growth Equity at Inovia I VCWire
- Building Global Tech Giants, a Profile of Inovia Capital I Patrick Pichette in Maddyness UK
- Thinking Globally from Day One: What I Learned from my First Investment Reaching $1bn in Revenue I Mike McGraw in Startups Magazine
- Serving the Strategic CFO: Growing Opportunities for Next-generation Tooling I Phoebe Kitchen in Finance Derivative
Podcasts
- What are the FinTech opportunities in Europe I Phoebe Kitchen on IBS Intelligence
- Monzo and PensionBee target the US, while J.P. Morgan doubles down in France I Phoebe Kitchen on Fintech Insider News Podcast, Episode 833
Report
- Perspectives: 15+ Years of Shaping the Canadian Ecosystem I Inovia’s 2023 State of Canadian Software Report
Industry Highlights
- Inovia Report Indicates Canadian Software Sector is Returning to Normal I Betakit
- Third Edition of The 50: A Guide to the Canadian VC Ecosystem Highlights the Sector’s Resilience and Innovation I Press Release