Vancouver-based venture capital (VC) firm Pender Ventures has hired BDC Capital’s Cheri Corbett a month after partner Isaac Souweine departed.
Corbett joins Pender after more than a decade at BDC Capital, the VC arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada. Most recently, Corbett spent three years as a partner and team lead at its Climate Tech Fund, which invests late-stage seed and growth stage capital into companies developing technologies for the green energy transition. Before that, she led investments at its previous, $600-million cleantech fund, which is now fully deployed, and was a director of growth and transition capital.
“What stands out most about Cheri is her blend of strategic insight and collaborative leadership.”
During Corbett’s tenure, BDC Capital’s climate-focused fund invested in companies including Cyclic Materials and Deep Sky. She was recognized by the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) awards in 2024 for her investment in liquid cooling tech company CoolIT Systems.
“What stands out most about Cheri is her blend of strategic insight and collaborative leadership,” Pender said in a LinkedIn post announcing the hiring. “She’s deeply committed to supporting entrepreneurs, building high-performing teams, and driving impact through thoughtful investing, values that resonate deeply with our mission at Pender Ventures.”
The news comes nearly a month after Montreal-based partner Isaac Souweine left the firm. Souweine, who worked alongside principal Meryeme Lahmami in Montréal, told BetaKit his departure was a “mutual decision” and that he left to explore other opportunities in the Canadian tech startup and investment community.
Corbett, who is based in Calgary, will join Montréal-based Lahmami and Vancouver-based managing partner Maria Pacella. The firm hired Calgary-based associate Jacob Grainger early this year after receiving $5 million from the Alberta Enterprise Corporation toward its most recent fund. Pacella previously said that Pender’s geographic strategy remains unchanged with Souweine’s departure, and that Montréal and Québec are still “a priority” for the VC firm.
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Launched in 2019, Pender Ventures is the VC arm of Vancouver investment firm PenderFund Capital Management. Pender Ventures invests in B2B software and healthtech startups, typically in or around the Series A stage.
Some of its standout portfolio companies include Vancouver-based Jane App, which offers a platform for health and wellness practitioners, and Copperleaf, which sells analytics software. The firm won VC Deal of the Year at Canada’s venture capital association awards earlier this year for Copperleaf’s $1-billion go-private deal, which resulted in Pender achieving a 42.9x multiple on invested capital (MOIC) as well as a 30.9-percent internal rate of return (IRR), stemming from its 2010 Series B investment, according to the CVCA.
The firm is investing out of its $100-million second fund, which closed last November. At that point, Pacella said Pender’s net IRR through its first, $25-million fund was between 20 and 30 percent.
Feature image courtesy CVCA.