Golden Ventures closes Fund III on $57.5m

Seed stage-focused venture firm Golden Ventures has closed its third fund on CAD $72m ($57.5m).

Golden Ventures III is the firm’s biggest vehicle, with its previous fund closing on $40m in 2014, and its debut securing $17m in 2011.

The firm received contributions from a selection of Canadian investors including previous backers Northleaf Capital, HarbourVest and Kensington Capital Partners, as well as new participant Teralys Capital. A group of Canadian family offices and individuals also made commitments.

Alongside the support for Canadian LPs, the firm welcomed support from US fund of funds including Cendana Capital, Foundry Group Next and Venture Investment Associates. This marks all of their first contribution into a Canadian venture firm.

This new investment vehicle will back 20 to 25 companies at their seed stage and follow-on rounds. It will invest across the US and Canada, but its primary focus is on Toronto, Waterloo, Bay Area, Los Angeles, Boston and New York. Golden Ventures expects the investment split to be 60 per cent towards the Canadian market.

Since Golden Ventures launched in 2011, it has backed 40 companies across Canada and the US. The company has made a handful of FinTech investments. Companies currently in its portfolio include online payments platform Plooto and day-care management and payments processor Brightwheel.

In a blog post, Colden Ventures said, “From a thesis perspective, we’re now officially sector agnostic. Having invested in sectors as broad as machine learning, robotics, quantum computing, computer vision, etc. and numerous business models.

“We’re confident most of you won’t find this surprising. Why the change? Over time, we have learned that our fund’s superpower is more stage than sector focused. The value we deliver to our portfolio companies in identifying and achieving the critical seed stage milestones far outweighs our knowledge of any one particular area.”

Following the close of the fund, Jamie Rosenblatt has been promoted to principal, and Marianne Bulger has joined the firm to head the people and platform team.

Copyright © 2018 FinTech Global

Enjoying the stories?

Subscribe to our daily FinTech newsletter and get the latest industry news & research

Investors

The following investor(s) were tagged in this article.