Toronto-based Georgian Partners has raised $485 million CAD ($375 million USD) for its third growth equity fund, more than double the amount for its previous fund, which raised $200 million CAD in April.
The fund credits its growth to focusing on emerging trends in business software. Georgian Partners Growth Fund III will expand to focus on companies working in the areas of artificial intelligence, natural-language messaging, and security and privacy in software design.
“We’re interested in trends that are likely to have a pervasive impact on the performance of business-software companies and their ability to create value for customers,” said Justin LaFayette, managing partner at Georgian Partners. “If we’re right about these trends, every software provider will adopt the new capabilities or won’t be a market leader.”
The LPs that participated in Fund III weren’t identified, but past backers include BMO, Cisco Systems, Kensington Capital Partners, Northleaf Capital Partners and Teralys Capital.
Over the past eight years, Georgian Partners has invested in some 25 growth-stage IT companies in Canada and the United States, including Shopify.