brad meikle
Covington Group of Funds will open up Covington Fund II for redemptions by shareholders as of January 18, 2016. Redemptions will be honoured for up to 20 percent of the fund's net asset value in the current financial year, or $24 million in total. Covington Fund II, a retail venture capital fund, is currently focused on optimizing the value of investment holdings and creating liquidity. In September, the fund became the controlling investor in Masstech Group Inc, a Canadian provider of workflow and media asset management software solutions.
Slack, a group messaging platform founded by Canadian entrepreneur Stewart Butterfield, has formed a US$80 million venture capital fund. The Slack Fund will invest in developers or small companies seeking to build “Slack-first” apps, as well as business-to-business and enterprise tools that make Slack integrations a core part of their offering. Six of the company's investors, Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Spark Capital Growth and Social+Capital, have committed to the fund. Slack, which has offices in San Francisco and Vancouver, raised US$160 million in a financing in April.
Toronto-based Clear Blue Technologies Inc, a smart off-grid company, has raised $1.85 million in a private placement transaction. Haywood Securities, a Canadian investment dealer, was the round's leader. The investment adds to the $500,000 in funding secured by Clear Blue in 2014 from Grenville Strategic Royalty Corp and the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE). The company, which aims to combine green energy with the advantages of communications and cloud technology to power and control off-grid lighting, security and mobile solutions, said it will achieve 300 percent sales growth this year.
Carré Technologies Inc, a.k.a. Hexoskin, has secured $1.32 million in a second round of financing from angel investment network Anges Québec and Anges Québec Capital Fund. Based in Montréal, Hexoskin is a designer and manufacturer of biometric shirts that measure cardiorespiratory activity, physical activity and sleep. The proceeds of the latest round will allow it to accelerate the medical certification of its clothing technology and pursue growth opportunities in the global digital health market. Hexoskin was founded in 2006 by CEO Pierre-Alexandre Fournier and CTO Jean-François Roy.
Trulioo has raised $15 million in follow-on financing. The investors in the round included American Express Ventures and Trulioo's existing backers: BDC Capital, Blumberg Capital and Tenfore Holdings. With the deal, BDC's Andrew Lugsdin will join the company's board of directors, Based in Vancouver, Trulioo is a provider of identity verification for the online payments industry. It said the new funds will help it grow to support banks in meeting cross-border compliance requirements. To that end, Trulioo will expand its sales team, technical infrastructure and customer support, and acquire data. In 2014, Trulioo raised US$6 million in Series A financing and a strategic investment from UST Global.
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), part of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, has given its first annual Capital Award to Haig Farris, a Canadian venture capital pioneer. CDL's award recognizes an individual or organization that has had an impact on Canada's competitiveness through the application of capital to the areas of science, technology, and commerce. Farris was the award's debut recipient in part because of his role in co-founding Ventures West Management, one of the domestic industry's most influential and longest-lived venture firms. Farris has since led Fractal Capital Corp, a Canadian angel and seed investment firm.
Boundless Spatial has obtained US$5 million in Series B funding. Motorola Solutions Venture Capital led the deal and was joined by existing investors, including Vanedge Capital, a Canadian venture capital firm that led the company's Series A financing in 2013. New York-based Boundless is a provider of open source geospatial software and services which utilize location-based mapping technology. Proceeds of the latest round will be applied to continued investment in engineering and sales expansion, the company said. Earlier this year, Vanedge led investments in Control Mobile and MediaCore, which was subsequently acquired by Workday.
Preqin has reported that about a third of U.S.-based venture capital firms invested in foreign markets in year-to-date 2015. It said Canada is "the most sought-after destination", with 10 percent of American firms investing there in the same period. India received investments from 6 percent of U.S. firms, while the United Kingdom accounted for the same share. Preqin reported that the value of venture capital financings located in the United States is on track to break records this year, with US$54.6 billion invested in the first nine months, just behind the high of US$55.7 billion invested in all of 2014.
PowerStores Ecommerce Ltd, a web building platform and service provider, has rebranded as Webware.io. The startup, which has offices in Toronto and Panjim, India, has also raised an undisclosed investment from Canadian venture capital firm Extreme Venture Partners and William Bissell, who invested via his family office. Webware.io provides a complete tool kit to help enterprises navigate and become competitive in the digital world. It plans to use the new funds to support its expansion across North America as it targets small and medium-sized businesses that can benefit from its services. Webware.io was launched in 2012 by CEO Cory York and CTO Indrajit Chowdhury.
Nasdaq said it would acquire the Canadian unit of alternative equities trading platform Chi-X Global Holdings in a deal giving it direct access to the Canadian equities market, Reuters reported. Financial terms were not disclosed; however, a recent media report said deal would value Chi-X Canada at about US$100 million.