brad meikle
Halifax, Nova Scotia-based topLog, a technology company that turns log data into actionable intelligence, has received $400,000 in seed-stage financing. Canadian venture capital firm Innovacorp led the round with a $250,000 investment, and was joined by BDC Venture Capital, which invested another $150,000 after the company’s graduation from the Launch 36 accelerator program. Funding proceeds will allow topLog to fine tune its data log analyzing platform. Founded this year, the company is currently doing closed trials with select clients, with public beta expected to be available in February 2014.
LX Ventures (TSX Venture: LXV), a Vancouver-based accelerator that acquires, integrates and accelerates high-growth technology companies, has agreed to buy Strutta.com Media Inc, a social media platform that enables brands to create, launch and manage online campaigns. Under the terms of the agreement, LX Ventures will issue 4,687,500 common shares and pay around $525,000 to complete the deal. An additional 9,375,000 shares will be issued as certain revenue milestones are met. The Vancouver-based Strutta has been a portfolio company of Working Opportunity Fund, a venture capital fund managed by GrowthWorks, since 2007.
Canadian private equity firm Desjardins Capital de risque has completed its sale of common shares in Wanted Technologies Corp. Desjardins and its fund affiliates disposed of their 37.44 percent investment stake in the company to GMP Securities LP and Desjardins Securities Inc, which will now resell the shares on a private placement basis. Based in Québec City, Wanted Technologies provides market intelligence services based on hiring demand, and has been venture-backed since 2000. Its other investors have included Innovatech Sud du Québec and Innovatech Québec et Chaudière-Appalaches.
According to an animated blog post on its site, Bitstrips has received $3 million in Series A funding from Hong Kong-based venture capital firm Horizons Ventures. No additional financial terms were disclosed. Based in Toronto, Bitstrips is a maker of personalized comics.
Lagoa Inc,a web-based platform for photoreal 3D visualization and rendering, has raised approximately US$5 million in a Series A financing round, according to a blog post written by Fred Destin, partner at U.S. venture capital firm Atlas Venture. Destin indicated that Canadian venture capital firm Real Ventures and Siemens Venture Capital also participated in the deal. Jean-Sebastian Cournoyer of Real Ventures and Mike Majors of Siemens were noted specifically. The Montréal-based company earlier this year obtained seed-stage funding of US$1.6 million, which suggests that total funding to date is close to US$7 million.
Invitae Corp, a genetic diagnostics company based in San Francisco, Calif., has secured a US$40 million Series E financing. Investors in the round included Canadian venture capital firm Genesys Capital, as well as Genomic Health Inc, GHDX -5.77% , Randy Scott, Thomas McNerney & Partners, Redmile Group and Casdin Capital. Invitae will use the new funding to accelerate the development of its genetic tests for hereditary disorders, and to expand into international markets. Based in Toronto, Genesys Capital is focused on investing in and building companies in high-growth sectors of healthcare and biotechnology.
Figure 1, a provider of free medical images that are readily available to the healthcare community, has secured $2 million in seed-stage financing. The round was led by Canadian venture capital firms Version One Ventures and Rho Canada Ventures, with the participation of the Investment Accelerator Fund, DMZ Investments, and a number of angel investors, including Zen Chu, founder of Accelerated Medical Ventures, and Daniel Debow, co-founder of Rypple. Launched in 2013, Figure 1 will use the funding to fuel the company's expansion. Figure 1 is an alumnus company of Ryerson University-based incubator Digital Media Zone, which since its opening in 2010 has facilitated the incubation and acceleration of 121 start-ups.
Relay Ventures said Wednesday that it has promoted Alex Baker to partner. Prior to joining Relay in 2008, Baker worked as a management consultant at BearingPoint and PwC Consulting. Relay is an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Toronto and Menlo Park, Calif. Update: As a partner, Baker will continue to source opportunities; oversee Relay's direct investments in a broad range of mobile payments, app and services companies; and actively participate on the boards of directors of portfolio companies.
Greensky President’s Club (GPC), a newly constituted group of 20 high net worth investors, has made a debut investment of $400,000 in Cyclica Inc, a Toronto-based developer of next generation computer simulation technologies for drug discovery and testing. Cyclica presented to GPC at the organization's inaugural meeting, 23 days prior to the closing. GPC's deals, including the Cyclica financing, are sourced, vetted and managed by boutique corporate finance advisory firm GreenSky Capital Inc. Cyclica, which also has an office in San Francisco, said that investment proceeds will be used to build its team and IT infrastructure as the company pursues contracts with clients in the pharmaceutical industry and expands the scope of existing partnerships.
Canadian clean technology-focused venture capital firm Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital has appointed a new advisory board that includes Paul de Martini, former CTO of Cisco Systems; Mark Dudzinski, former CMO of GE Energy; and John Thompson, former vice president of technology and development at Teck Resources. The purpose of the board is to advise Chrysalix on sustainable innovations that address challenges facing such industries as oil and gas, electric power and mining. Chrysalix said two additional members are expected to join the advisory board within the next quarter.