brad meikle
Vantrix, a developer of content delivery technology for mobile network operators, closed on $13.5 million in Series D financing. Summerhill Venture Partners, JK&B Capital and Tudor Ventures led the round, with pro rata participation from BDC Venture Capital, Innovacom and Entrepia Ventures, the company said.
Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital says it has seen about a 75% increase in the value of its third fund since the fund kicked off four years ago. The Vancouver VC offered the assessment in an end-of-year press release that said it completed 18 follow-on portfolio companies financings during 2012. It also made a new investment in the wastewater treatment company Axine Water Technologies. Chrysalix Energy III is a $123 million early stage fund with a first close in 2008, according to Thomson Reuters, publisher of this blog. The firm offered no additional details on the fund's performance.
Naurex Inc., a clinical-stage company focused on psychiatry and neurology, raised $38 million in Series B financing led by new investor Baxter Ventures. New investor Savitr Capital also participated in the financing, along with existing investors Adams Street Partners, Latterell Venture Partners, Genesys Capital, PathoCapital, Druid Bioventures, and Northwestern University, the company announced. Corporate investors Lundbeck, Takeda Ventures and Shire also contributed to the round. Naurex is based in Evanston, Illinois.
Toronto and San Francisco-based Influitive, a business-to-business marketing startup, has raised $7.3 million in Series A financing, the company announced. Investors include Hummer Winblad, Relay Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Illuminate Ventures, Resolute.VC, and Common Angels. As a result of the round, Lars Leckie from Hummer Winblad and Alex Baker from Relay Ventures will join Influitive's board.
If you ever have doubts about the role of venture capital in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in Canada, I have four words for you: Canadian Technology Fast 50.
Canopy Labs has closed a $1.5 million investment led by the BDC Venture Capital IT Fund with participation by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and a number of angel investors. A recent graduate of the Y Combinator program, the company will use the funds to scale operations and launch new analytics products. Based in Toronto, Canopy Labs provides tools and customer models to mid-sized customer-facing businesses wanting to understand their customer feedback.
OMERS Ventures, the Toronto-based venture capital arm of the OMERS pension plan, has brought aboard David Crow as an "evangelist in residence," a role Crow will use to act as an advocate on behalf of OMERS Ventures within the tech community. Crow is a startup advisor and cofounded the venture capital blog StartupNorth.ca, among other things.
Cognitive Networks Inc., formerly known as TV Interactive Systems Inc., announced that it has raised $2.5 million from Rogers Venture Partners. Based in San Francisco, Cognitive Networks partners with television companies to enable content providers, advertisers and others to provide greater engagement and interactivity to TV programming. Rogers Venture Partners was launched in 2009 by Canadian media giant Rogers Communications Inc.
Openera, Inc., which provides a cross-cloud content manager that automatically moves e-mail attachments into cloud services such as Google Drive or Dropbox, has secured the first tranche of an expected $750,000 seed financing, reports the Ottawa Business Journal. The initial $250,000 investment in the Ottawa, Ontario-based company comes from BDC Venture Capital, Prolific Ventures and various angel investors.
Coveo Solutions Inc., a Québec City-based provider of advanced enterprise search technology and information access solutions, announced that it has secured C$18 million. The financing round was led by Canadian late-stage investor Tandem Expansion Fund and included existing investors BDC Venture Capital, Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ) and Propulsion Ventures. Coveo has been venture-backed since the company's founding in 2006.