Q-News
October 2010
Posted in Private Equity
There were nine transactions reported this September. Seven of the announcements disclosed the
amount of capital raised, which totalled to $65.4 million. That is a slight improvement of over the
eight deals totaling $44.9 million in August of this year and close to the 10
announcements and $50.1 million in new capital reported in September of
2009. Three of the companies raising
money this September are in the tech space and all three are headquartered in Ontario. The fourth Ontario transaction involved a
pharmaceutical company. There were also
three announcements out of Quebec and one deal
in Manitoba
and BC respectively. These non-Ontario
announcements included a biotech firm, a food manufacturer, a forest products
business, a company specializing in licensed apparel, and a West Coast developer
of LED systems. Four of the nine
announced deals included participation from foreign investors, matching the
number of deals in the US
involving Canadian investors.
Financings of Canadian Companies
Kitchener’s Covarity, which provides commercial loan
monitoring and portfolio management solutions for the financial services
industry, announced that it raised an
additional $2.3 million in growth capital.
The funds came from return investors BDC, GrowthWorks, Tech Capital Partners, and the VentureLink Group of Funds, as
well as one new investor, the Ontario
Capital Growth Corporation.
Markham’s
Real
Matters, the company behind redihive,
an online community-driven real estate property database, has raised $5 million in growth
capital from Toronto’s
Wellington
Financial. The database serves
as a property inspection tool for real estate and insurance professionals.
Light-Based Technologies, a Vancouver
company working on commercializing LED technologies, raised $7.5 million from VantagePoint
Venture Partners.
Temrex, a manufacturer of forest
products, raised $20 million in financing from Société générale de
financement du Québec (SGF), a government sponsored fund that put up
the money in order to consolidate the company’s operations into a
technologically updated plant in Nouvelle (QU), thereby securing jobs in the
region for decades to come.
Winnipeg-based Manitoba
Harvest Hemp Foods & Oils, a farmer-owned hemp foods manufacturer
that distributes its product throughout North American and to European food
retailers, raised an undisclosed sum from Calgary’s
Avrio
Ventures. This new working
capital investment was the second time that Avrio provided Manitoba
Harvest with financing, the first being an A round back in April of 2009.
US and International Activity in Canada
Toronto’s Rypple, whose web-based software
facilitates intra-corporate communication and feedback among team members,
raised $7 million in financing in a deal led by Bridgescale Partners (CA).
Other participants in the transaction were Edgestone Capital Partners,
Extreme
Venture Partners, and several individual investors. The financing puts the total amount of
capital raised by the company to date at $13 million.
Nest Egg Management, a private investment group based out of New York, acquired a minority position in NTD
Apparel, a Montreal
based company with a portfolio of licensed entertainment and national brand
apparel that it sells through big name retailers.
US-based Delphi Ventures (CA), Orbimed
Advisors (NY), HIG Ventures (GA) and NeuroVentures
Fund (VA) participated in a $14 million raise by Mississauga’s Neuraxon, a pharmaceutical
company developing pain therapeutics. The
Canadian investors were CTI Life Sciences Fund, Ontario
Capital Growth Corporation, Ventures West Capital, and BDC
Venture Capital.
Epicentre Technologies
Corporation of Wisconsin was involved in a $9.6 million Series A financing completed by Alethia Biotherapeutics, a biopharmaceutical
firm headquartered in Montreal. The Canadian backers in the deal were Montreal’s AgeChem Venture Fund, Toronto’s
BDC Venture Capital, Quebec’s GO
Capital.
Canadian Investments Abroad
MMV Financial continued to stay
active in the US
by making two investments this September.
MMV was one of the investors participating in an $8.75 million raise by Qumu,
a California-based company whose software allows corporate and non-profit
clients to distribute video content and to integrate it with other forms of
media. The other investors involved in
the Qumu deal were SAP Ventures
(CA), Advanced Technology Ventures (CA), Storm
Ventures (CA), Garage Technology Ventures (CA), Halo
Opportunity Fund (CA), and the Angels Forum (CA). The other
deal that MMV participated in this
September was a $2.75 million raise by California-based SenSage, whose security
systems manage sensitive corporate information and network access in order to
mitigate corporate security, fraud and compliance risks. MMV
was the sole investor in the SenSage
deal.
The private equity arm of Ontario Teachers Pension
Plan provided $150 million in financing to NXT Capital, a middle
market commercial finance company based in Chicago, Illinois.
Penfund announced a $15 million
investment in Choice Environmental Services, a Fort Lauderdale company that provides solid waste and recyclables
management services throughout the state of Florida.
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