Toronto-based Wittington Ventures has hired former MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF) leader Zeeshan Ali as partner as it gears up to invest in more early-stage cleantech and healthtech startups.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Ali joined Wittington Ventures this month, after serving as interim managing director of fellow Toronto-based venture capital (VC) firm MaRS IAF. Zeeshan was previously a senior investment director at IAF, and spent his three years with the firm investing in early-stage Canadian tech startups. Before that, Ali spent three years as head of business development at MaRS Discovery District.
“Our mission is to provide catalytic capital that bridges the critical gap between breakthrough science and technology with real-world commercialization.”
Zeeshan Ali, Wittington Ventures
In a LinkedIn post announcing his new Wittington Ventures role, Ali said he will “launch and lead” the Wittington Innovation Fund, which has been established to back seed-stage, deep tech startups in the healthcare and climate sectors.
“Our mission is to provide catalytic capital that bridges the critical gap between breakthrough science and technology with real-world commercialization,” Ali wrote. “I am excited to work alongside the Wittington Ventures team as we shape this new chapter and support entrepreneurs tackling some of the most urgent and meaningful challenges of our time.”
Ali promised to share more regarding the Innovation Fund’s approach and areas of focus. He will be working with former MaRS Discovery District colleague Leah Perry, who joined the Innovation Fund as a senior associate last month.
Perry came to Wittington Ventures after spending four years focusing on cleantech at MaRS. She most recently served as the Toronto non-profit innovation hub’s senior manager of cleantech. Prior to that, she spent six years working with Export Development Canada.
Wittington Ventures is the tech-focused VC investment arm of the billionaire Canadian Weston family’s holding company, Wittington Investments, which controls Canadian grocery and pharmacy chains Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart.
The Weston family has donated to health and environmental causes for years. Earlier this year, Wittington Investments revealed plans to back innovative startups in both areas through a new innovation fund, alongside its first investment in Toronto’s Grey Matter Neurosciences, which develops medical devices that facilitate therapeutic brain stimulation for treatment of Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
The firm said at the time that the fund’s focus is on helping Canadians, and claimed that all profits will be reinvested in companies or used to support Canadian climate and healthcare philanthropy.
It is not clear how large this Innovation Fund is, how many investments it has made, or who else is working on it. BetaKit has reached out to Wittington Ventures for comment.
Wittington Ventures’ website lists 15 portfolio companies, only three of which appear to be Canadian: GoConfirm, Odaia, and Grey Matter. The firm’s portfolio also includes Gatik and Truvian, which have respectively worked with Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Wittington Ventures managing partner Jim Orlando told The Globe and Mail in January that the Innovation Fund would take a more focused approach to Canada, either backing Canadian startups or foreign firms that license intellectual property from domestic research institutions.
Ali and Perry’s appointments follow some other recent personnel changes at Wittington Ventures as it finishes investing out of its second VC fund and prepares for its third.
In April, Wittington Ventures promoted partner Megh Gupta (who led its healthcare investing strategy) to managing partner, director Qasim Mohammad (who specializes in commerce and consumer) to partner, and healthcare-focused associate Carley-Rose Horowitz to senior associate. The firm also hired ex-Foresite Capital healthcare investor Austin Nalen Sprole as director
Last month, Wittington Investments revealed that it is launching a $100-million fund to back Canadian food producers.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Colin Watts.