Charlottetown-based Tracktile announced it raised $575,000 CAD in pre-seed financing, the first investment announced by the Business Development Bank of Canada’s (BDC) Seed Venture Fund.
BDC, which is a Crown corporation, and Island Capital Partners led the all-equity priced round with participation from the New Brunswick Innovation Fund. Tracktile CEO Jordan Rose and CTO Jarred Kenny founded the Prince Edward Island company in September 2019, initially to streamline manufacturing operations and reduce costs in the food and beverage industry.
It’s our mission to help manufacturers globally get access to the best operational software without the need for expensive consultants or custom-built software.
Jordan Rose
It uses cloud-based software and integrated hardware that allows established companies and small businesses to manage inventory, plan production, and analyze real-time operations data.
“Securing this funding is a huge step forward for us,” Rose said in a statement. “It means we can dive deeper into our mission of empowering manufacturers with the modern solutions they deserve.”
BDC launched the pan-Canadian Seed Venture Fund last year to finance startups from underrepresented regions like Atlantic Canada and the Prairies at the earliest stages of raising capital. Market conditions have been challenging for companies trying to source capital at both ends of the fundraising spectrum, with venture-capital dollars invested dropping 34 percent year-over-year to $6.9 billion CAD in 2023.
The Crown corporation’s seed-stage fund aims to back 40 companies with cheque sizes ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, though there’s room to go up to $2 million. Approximately 60 to 70 percent of its capital will go towards new investments, with the remainder allocated for follow-on support of those portfolio startups, including at the Series A level.
Rose and Kenny left their jobs in consulting to work on Tracktile full-time two years ago.
“I grew up around the seafood processing industry, working in plants and eventually going on to build bespoke traceability solutions for seafood processors and the potato industry,” Rose told BetaKit in an email.
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Rose said the two founders saw an opportunity to apply modern solutions in an industry that relies on “incredibly expensive and legacy” technology.
“We started with interviewing 100 manufacturers in the food space, learning about their individual problems and gauging interest in a solution that didn’t make the floor workers’ lives harder, and helped management understand the business,” he said.
Tracktile currently has nine full-time employees and eight contract workers around the world, the CEO added. The pre-seed funding will allow the startup to add to its engineering, customer success, and sales teams, with plans to hire five to six new team members to build out to product and grow users.
Rose said Tracktile’s customers are coast to coast and range from $100-million manufacturers with thousands of products to a five-person operation that makes bubble tea products. The fundraise will help the company expand both into other manufacturing verticals and the United States, he added.
“It’s our mission to help manufacturers globally get access to the best operational software without the need for expensive consultants or custom-built software,” Rose said.
Feature image courtesy Tracktile.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that cheques sizes from the Seed Venture Fund can go up to $2 million.