If you need more proof that seed investing is taking over the world, just look up north to Canada. Three years ago, a group of angels started Montreal Startup, a $5 million seed fund. This week, they are launching their second, $45 million fund under a new name, Real Ventures. It will invest in startups across Canada from Montreal to Vancouver, but mostly within 250 kilometers of Montreal where most of the partners are based.
The partners include serial entrepreneur Austin Hill, John Stokes, and Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, Daniel Drouet, Alan MacIntosh, and Mark MacLeod. The fund will invest in web, mobile, software, digital media, social and casual gaming startups.
A $45 million fund is small by venture capital standards, but it is actually quite large for a seed fund. New York City’s Founder Collective, for instance, is a $40 million fund. The more seed capital gets spread across different pockets of entrepreneurship, the more chance there will be for new startup hubs to grow or feed into the bigger hubs in California and, increasingly, New York. You can learn more about Real Ventures and its investing philosophy in this blog post.
Real Ventures is a Montreal based venture capital and private equity partnership. Real Ventures will invest in web, mobile, software, digital media, social and casual gaming startups run by driven entrepreneurs. It invests at the seed level, between conceptualization and the validation of the business model, for companies that can get there with less than $1M, but preferably less than $500K. The partners are some of the same people behind the smaller Montreal Startup fund…
Montreal Start Up provides seed-level financing to entrepreneurs aspiring to establish companies in Montreal, with the focus being on software based services in the internet, wireless and media space. The Fund invests in entrepreneurs with very early stage concepts and ideas that need a bit a financing and some strategic and operational input in order to help them progress their idea towards being a successful company or at least a company that is fundable by other VC’s.
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