Canadian impact venture fund Cross-Border Impact Ventures (CBIV) has secured $58 million USD ($81 million CAD) so far for its second fund, which will invest in companies that improve health outcomes for women and children.
The Toronto-based firm announced on Thursday that it closed the first tranche of funding for its Women’s and Children’s Health Technology Fund II. CBIV is targeting $125 million USD for the fund, and it hopes to secure it by the second half of 2027. Limited partners (LPs) include German national development bank KfW, the Skoll Foundation, Capricorn Investment Group, Ceniarth, Equality Fund, RockCreek Group, and Wire Group, as well as unnamed family offices and high-net-worth investors. KfW is returning as a concessionary capital investor, which means that it allows other LPs to earn higher internal rates of return and provides them with downside protection.
“We’re seeing less in Canada than in the US or in Europe, but I’m hopeful that the tide might turn here in the coming years.”
Annie Thériault,
CBIV
Launched in 2021 by managing partners Annie Thériault and Donna Parr, CBIV invests in women and youth-focused healthtech companies with strong global commercial potential, including in emerging markets.
With the second fund, CBIV will continue to write Series A and Series B cheques between $2 million and $5 million USD into roughly a dozen companies making biotech, medical device, diagnostics, and other healthtech plays with a global lens.
Ideally, Thériault said in an interview with BetaKit, target companies will have a “good line of sight to commercialization and regulatory approval.”
CBIV’s Fund I, which is now mostly deployed, backed 11 companies worldwide, with one exit so far in France’s Sonio, a fetal ultrasound software company acquired by Samsung Medison for a reported $92 million USD (CBIV would not confirm an amount). Other highlights from its portfolio include UK-based Daye, a company that makes tampons to reduce menstrual pain and screen for vaginal health.
The Toronto-based impact fund hasn’t yet invested in a Canadian company, but is hoping to find Canadian ventures to support with the new fund. The partners say a sparse early-stage landscape for medtech—and women’s health diagnostics and devices in particular—has made it difficult to find deals at the early growth stages, where they invest.
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Despite recent activity among VCs investing in femtech, studies have indicated a women’s health funding gap in both research and industry. In addition, a recent report from the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association indicated that life sciences saw a 39-percent year-over-year drop in funding activity this past quarter.
More globally, Thériault is optimistic about the interest from investors in impact-driven healthtech ventures. Fundraising is still a slog, she said, but “those that deeply care about women’s health are twice as motivated.”
“A couple of years ago, there was negative talk around impact investing,” Thériault said, referencing a global slowdown in environmental, social, and governance investing. But she added that many women investors and women-led foundations doubled down, but were just quieter about their support.
“There is movement,” she said. “We’re seeing less in Canada than in the US or in Europe, but I’m hopeful that the tide might turn here in the coming years.”
Feature image courtesy Cross-Border Impact Ventures.