The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) announced the winners of its annual Deal of the Year, Private Capital Regional Impact, and Ted Anderson Community Leadership awards this morning at the Invest Canada ’24 conference in Montréal.
The annual awards aim to highlight venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) players contributing to the Canadian business economy and recognize achievements in deal-making, returns, and community service in Canada. With the exception of the Community Leadership Award, each award is evaluated by the CVCA awards committee based on industry performance and impact over the year.
Toronto-based Genesys Capital won the 2024 VC Deal of the Year award for its investment in Montréal-based Inversago Pharma. Gensys led Inversago’s $7-million Series A round in 2018 which led to a $1.4 billion CAD acquisition by Novo Nordisk in August 2023. According to The Globe and Mail, Genesys invested less than $20 million into Inversago across three rounds, and was expected to net more than the entire $107-million value of the fund that made the investment.
Calgary’s Longbow Capital was recognized with the PE Deal of the Year for its investment in hydrogen and natural gas distributor Certarus after propane distributor Superior Plus purchased Certarus last year for $1.05 billion CAD. Certarus was recently given $1.2 million in funding from Alberta Innovates and Emissions Reduction Alberta to scale up and deploy hydrogen storage, compression, and blending equipment at an existing compressed natural gas hub.
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Real Ventures received the VC Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in California-based atVenu, a live event commerce management platform that Real Ventures first backed in 2013, while Clairvest Group nabbed the PE Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in New Jersey waste management company Arrowhead Environmental Partners.
Other notable winners included Amplitude Ventures’ Nancy Harrison, who received the Barry Gekiere Lifetime Legacy Award for her 30 years of work in the VC industry and mentorship in the life sciences space. Inovia Capital won the VC Regional Impact Award for Central Canada on behalf of a syndicate that includes Garage Capital, Kensington Capital Partners, and EDC with their investment in Kitchener-Waterloo’s Clearpath Robotics, which was acquired for upwards of $600 million USD in October 2023.
Meanwhile, BDC Capital won the VC Regional Impact Award for Western Canada for its investment in computer-cooling company CoolIT Systems. CoolIT won “The Most Significant Transaction in Alberta” at the Start Alberta Tech Awards last year with its exit to KKR.
The CVCA awarded former Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP chief client officer Colleen Moorehead with the Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award. The award acknowledges the commitment of time and effort to an organization or cause over several years. CVCA says Moorehead is known for her advocacy for women in business and law, and has raised nearly $6 million for women’s health causes through the Women for Women’s luncheon and other initiatives.
Feature image courtesy CVCA via LinkedIn.
