GTMfund has closed $54 million USD for its second operator-led venture capital (VC) fund, surpassing its initial $50-million target.
Headquartered in Vancouver with an office in Scottsdale, Ariz.—where founder and general partner Max Altschuler is based—GTMfund invests in early-stage business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies on both sides of the border. GTMfund invests globally, with a focus on startups in the United States (US) and Canada.
GTMfund has already deployed more than twice as much capital in Canada through Fund II as it did via Fund I.
With Fund II, GTMfund founding partner Scott Barker told BetaKit that the VC firm plans to deploy more capital into Canadian companies and grow its office in Canada. Barker noted that GTMfund has deployed half of Fund II to date and already invested over twice the dollars in Canada as it did through its first fund.
GTMfund’s limited partners (LPs) include folks who either have worked at, or currently work at, successfully scaled software companies. This group consists largely of go-to-market (GTM) experts in marketing and sales (hence the VC firm’s name), which GTMfund leans on to help its portfolio startups navigate GTM challenges and source potential deals.
“Founders need value-add beyond capital because technology moats have become obsolete; the best product doesn’t win,” Barker said. “Above everything, founders need help with go-to-market. It’s the make-or-break and difference between winners and those who tried.”
A technology or technical moat refers to the level of complexity required to develop a product—the greater the moat, the more distinct and difficult to copy the product. Barker argued that artificial intelligence has eroded technical moats, leaving GTM “as one of the last true moats.”
At a smaller scale, Toronto-based Gambit Partners is taking a similar operator-led approach to investing in early-stage tech startups.
RELATED: Gaiia closes $18-million CAD Series a as it looks to build the Shopify for ISPs
GTMfund launched its first fund in 2021, for which it closed $22 million from approximately 250 operator LPs. For Fund II, which it began raising in January 2023 and closed in October 2024, GTMfund attracted more than 300 operator LPs and its first institutional investors. This group included Montréal’s Inovia Capital and foreign firms HarbourVest Partners—which deploys funding via the Government of Canada’s Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative—Bain Capital Ventures, Foundation Capital, Franklin Park, and Nexus Bay Capital.
The VC firm plans to back about 40 startups through Fund II, with a focus on B2B SaaS companies at the pre-seed and seed stages and the occasional Series A investment, cutting cheques of between $500,000 and $1.5 million.
GTMfund has invested in six Canadian companies to date, including Québec City-based Oxio spinout Gaiia, which sells operating software to challenger internet service providers, Toronto cannabis enterprise resource planning platform GrowerIQ, and Ottawa-based e-commerce performance and error monitoring platform Noibu.
Some of GTMfund’s biggest winners so far include San Francisco-based enterprise generative artificial intelligence startup Writer and security compliance business Vanta, which have both achieved unicorn valuations.
RELATED: GrowerIQ acquires cannabis tech competitor Ample Organics from US-based Akerna
Three of GTMfund’s four executive team members were born and raised in Vancouver, including Barker, partner and platform director Paul Irving, and vice-president of marketing Sophie Buonassisi. GTMfund has also expanded its Canadian team for Fund II by recruiting LOI Venture senior analyst Casey Van Maanen as an associate.
Barker said GTMfund views Canada as an attractive market to invest in given its growing ecosystem of successful tech companies, the country’s “deep technical talent, supported by top-tier universities,” and the cost advantages it offers.
As to how current macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions—including the weak Canadian dollar and the looming threat of US tariffs—might impact the VC firm’s plans to invest in Canada, Barker noted that “near-term volatility may influence [GTMfund’s] immediate decisions, but our focus is on long-term potential and outsized outcomes.”
Feature image courtesy GTMfund.