Ottawa venture capital (VC) firm Maple Bridge Ventures has secured a first close of $10.2 million CAD for its debut fund geared towards early-stage, Canadian, immigrant-led technology startups. This brings the first-time fund manager more than halfway to its $20-million target.
Founder and managing partner Eric Agyemang, a former Export Development Canada (EDC) strategic partnerships manager who came to Canada from Ghana, wants to help the country’s next generation of immigrant entrepreneurs build tech startups to address some of Canada’s biggest challenges.
“Immigrants are critical components of Canada’s population… Let us leverage the potential in that group.”
Maple Bridge Ventures plans to exclusively back new Canadians developing tech solutions for agriculture, food, health, and enterprise applications at the pre-seed and seed stages. The firm plans to write initial cheques of $250,000 to $1 million, and will reserve 40 percent of the fund to provide follow-on support to portfolio startups.
“Our view is, immigrants are critical components of Canada’s population,” Agyemang told BetaKit in an interview. “Let us leverage the potential in that group.”
The fund’s anchor limited partners (LPs) include Farm Credit Canada (FCC) and Government of Canada Social Finance Fund-backed Realize Capital Partners. Other LPs include the Vancouver Foundation, Fairmount Foundation, former Canopy Growth CEO Mark Zekulin, undisclosed family offices, and others. Agyemang described this group of investors as “a really good mix” that could help the firm deliver on not just this fund but scale.
Agyemang said that he was inspired by the resilience of the immigrant entrepreneurs he worked with during his time at EDC, and saw both a gap in the market and an opportunity.
The managing partner argued that there is a growing recognition that immigrants and immigrant entrepreneurs will play an important role in “Canada’s future prosperity.”
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“If you have 23 percent of the general population being first-generation immigrants, and they account for roughly a quarter or so of all active entrepreneurs in the country … that is not a niche issue,” Agyemang said. “We really saw it as [a] national opportunity.”
In a statement, FCC Capital managing director Adam Smalley described immigrants as “an underserved population that is a vital source of innovation and entrepreneurship in Canadian agriculture and food.”
In addition to Agyemang, Maple Bridge Ventures’ three-person team also includes former iGan Partners principal Billy Lai, who has joined the VC firm as CFO and venture partner, as well as ex-CIBC Innovation Banking director and Silicon Valley Bank vice-president Shelley Li, who is serving as principal.
Securing a first close amid current fundraising market conditions was no “walk in the park,” Agyemang admitted, noting that getting to this point since late 2023 has taken some time and tested his resiliency. At the same time, it helped him relate to the AgTech, food tech, and healthtech founders Maple Bridge Ventures intends to back.
Feature image courtesy Maple Bridge Ventures.