After more than a decade of facilitating charity donations for Canadian tech, The Upside Foundation is taking a path sought by many Canadian startups: handing its operations over to a larger partner that’s better-positioned to continue its impact.
“Maybe this next phase is giving [us] a chance to open up more widely across Canada.”
The Upside Foundation, which allowed tech founders to pledge one percent equity in their startup to a Canadian charity of their choosing, has entered an agreement to be taken over by the SickKids Foundation’s Charitable Giving Fund. The move has received unanimous approval from both organizations’ boards.
Upside Foundation’s current pledges will now be managed by the SickKids Charitable Giving Fund, an individual entity that allows pledges to go to any registered Canadian charity. The broader SickKids Foundation, established in 1972, raises money for the Toronto SickKids Hospital and Canadian research into children’s health.
“SickKids Foundation is a perfect partner,” co-founder and board member Robert Antoniades told BetaKit. “Their values are terrific, they have the infrastructure, they can continue the vision we started.”
Twenty-one exits, nearly $4 million to charity
Founded in 2012 by Antoniades, Brightspark Ventures managing partner Mark Skapinker, and consultant Janie Goldstein, the platform helped 385 companies allocate equity and oversaw 21 exits worth nearly $4 million to 23 charities operating in Canada and registered with the Canada Revenue Agency. Ongoing pledges include prominent Canadian tech companies Wealthsimple, Borrowell, and Helcim. BetaKit has been an Upside partner since 2017.
Future pledge-makers will do what they did under Upside Foundation: pick a registered Canadian charity and pledge one percent of their company or personal equity towards it, according to SickKids Foundation’s chief development officer, Colin Hennigar.
Revenue will come through a small fee charged to charities when the equity converts into cash upon an exit.
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Hennigar said Upside executive director Juanita Lee-Garcia reached out to him to discuss Upside’s future, and he suggested that the organization consider joining with the SickKids Charitable Giving Fund.
“It really aligns with our strategic plan, which is growing sustainable revenue opportunities,” Hennigar said. “It is investing in innovation, so we thought this was a great opportunity.”
Lee-Garcia will continue to support Upside’s operations within SickKids as a strategic advisor, and is joining Toronto-based Growclass as its chief operating officer.
A changing landscape
The tech and charitable giving landscape looks different now than it did when Upside first launched. Upside was established with the mindset of a VC fund and a 10-year timeline, Lee-Garcia told BetaKit. Over its lifetime, it facilitated charitable donations as companies like Wattpad and Inkbox exited, but its pledge activity mirrored the downturn in tech after the highs of 2021. Since 2022, Canadian tech companies have wrestled with a frozen-over IPO window and low rates of venture capital (VC) investing.
“SickKids Foundation is a perfect partner. Their values are terrific, they have the infrastructure, they can continue the vision we started.”
When Lee-Garcia took the reins in 2022, she acknowledged that Upside was unlikely to see as many big liquidity events like initial public offerings or large-scale acquisitions over the next two years, due to the post-2021 economic downturn. The slowdown in tech translated to a slowdown in exits, meaning fewer opportunities for charitable giving (and fewer celebrations for Upside), making it harder to spread the word. Lee-Garcia described it as a “trickle effect” for the recruitment of new pledges and the organization’s ability to maintain members.
Lee-Garcia likened the path Upside Foundation took to that of many Canadian startups that sought acquisitions or partnerships from larger entities. Takeovers have been a source of concern for certain sectors of Canada’s tech industry, like in semiconductor technology, as multiple promising Canadian artificial intelligence (AI) chip startups either moved to the US or were acquired by larger players.
After 10 years, Lee-Garcia said, the solution for Upside was to look for a better-capitalized partner that could continue the organization’s work. “It’s knowing that the legacy is still going to be alive,” she said.
Enticing the next generation of entrepreneurs
Upside Foundation’s transition raises the question of what product-market fit looks like for charitable giving in Canadian tech. Antoniades said that Upside didn’t look to serve all of Canada as well as it could have, and most of its donors were concentrated in the Greater Toronto Area. “Maybe this next phase is giving it a chance to open up more widely across Canada,” he said.
As broader economic conditions worsened, the number of Canadians donating to charity declined between 2018 and 2024, according to a report from Canada Helps. Meanwhile, the usage of charities increased thanks to inflation and high living costs, making giving a tough sell.
“We were first to market here with this concept; there’s now a myriad of choices,” Antoniades said. “It’s been a challenge to continue to harness the next generation of entrepreneurs.”
Though other options exist, few are explicitly addressed to Canadian tech like Upside. The StartUp Pledge for Waterloo allows Waterloo University alumni to donate a portion of their future equity to support the school. Global options include Founders Pledge, a United Kingdom-based organization that takes a small amount of pledged future equity from entrepreneurs for a given charity.
To Lee-Garcia, a “thriving charitable giving ecosystem” would look like successful founders—even billionaires—paying their success forward through these charitable giving models and venture philanthropy, where they look to support future companies. “I think that’s part of the Canadian ethos,” she said.
Feature image courtesy Dillan Payne via Wikimedia Commons under license CC BY-SA 4.0.