Canada-based venture capital firm Golden Ventures has committed more than $100 million to its fifth fund targeting high-potential seed-stage founders across technologies such as AI, climate change, blockchain, and quantum. The investment commitment has been completed.
Founder and managing partner Matt Golden founded the Toronto-based firm in 2011 and assembled a team that includes general partner Ameet Shah and new principal Nick Chen.
“This is a continuation of our core themes and was created very much to align with founders,” Golden told TechCrunch. “Amate and I are both former founders. Our first fund was mobile-focused and reflected our sector expertise in 2011.”
Since then, the company has transitioned to a sector-agnostic attitude and then placed more emphasis on Canada's tech ecosystem, which Golden said is “on a great trajectory.” The majority of Golden Ventures' investments are in this ecosystem, with the remainder in other areas.
The firm makes both core investments and investments focused on the angel side. In its previous fund, the firm invested in 25 core deals, and Golden expects to do around 30 more core deals in its fifth fund.
For 13 years, Golden Ventures has backed over 100 companies at the seed stage. The firm has also invested in talent, mentorship and built relationships with late-stage funds to help portfolio companies access downstream capital.
Examples of exits from the company's portfolio include storytelling platform Wattpad, which was acquired by Naver, and online ordering platform SkipTheDishes, which was acquired by Just Eat. The company is also an investor in his Brightwheel, his SaaS tool for daycares. Float, a spending automation company. Xanadu is a company that manufactures universal quantum processors. Horizon provides a scalable Ethereum architecture for decentralized game development.
“We've said before that we're investing in everything from temporary tattoos to photonic-based quantum computing chips,” Shah told TechCrunch. “Everything we build is focused on what value we can provide to seed-stage founders, and what value we can provide to founders who are building outside of the valley.” I'm guessing. There are subtle needs in the valley. For example, if you have a lot of talent but are looking to build and expand, you need to be more deliberate about your talent strategy. ”
Golden Ventures is still investing from its $100 million fourth fund, which it raised in 2021, and has yet to make any investments from its fifth fund.
Golden Ventures V joins a group of existing institutional partners including BDC Capital, ECMC Group, Foundry, HarbourVest Partners, Kensington Capital Partners, Northleaf Capital Partners, RBC, Teralys Capital, University of Chicago, and Vintage Investment Partners, as well as new institutional investors. Supported by Our partner is Deloitte Ventures.