The government is hoping to attract 1.5 times its investment in the new, clean technology fund from other private sector investors
The total number of deals rose by 7% while total investments dropped by 0.3% in Canada while, globally, total deals dropped by 10% and total dollars invested dropped by 23%
Portag3 Ventures LP, another VC fund, is one of the backers in the project and Paul Desmarais III of Power Financial serves as both VC funds’ chairman
Thanks to the program’s success, the VC industry is calling on the federal government to include a second VCAP program in the 2017 federal budget
However, overall, global VC activity was challenged in 2016 with the number of deals declining by 24% funding decreasing by more than 9% year-over-year
However, 2016 has been relatively slow for private equity given the “high relative valuations in the current environment”
Portag3 Ventures has three large financial services firms backing it that want to get in on the ground floor of fintech's growth
A total of $2.5 billion was raised for 446 deals in Canada’s VC market in the first nine months of the year, the best in dollar terms since 2001 and in number of deals since 2005
Toronto-based firm will open an office in Vancouver
But the decline should not be concerning to investors or startups because funding levels for VC in 2015 were “irrationally high,” says Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights