Three former leaders from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), OMERS, and Creative Destruction Lab are leading a new venture capital fund to find “the next generation of AI founders.”
The news: Toronto- and London, UK-based VC firm Intrepid Growth Partners has secured $525 million USD ($730 million CAD) for its inaugural fund.
Founded in 2023, Intrepid aims to be a specialist growth investor for AI, with a particular focus on Canada and the UK, as well as the United States and Europe.
From the source: Intrepid’s inaugural fund is backed by more than 80 global limited partners, including multiple institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds like Singapore’s Temasek, the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, the British Business Bank, Export Development Canada, and the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Thirty percent of the fund’s backing came from investors in Asia and the Middle East, while 15 percent came from Europe (including the UK), 10 percent came from the US, and the remaining 45 percent came from Canada, Intrepid co-founder and managing partner Mark Machin told The Globe and Mail. Other Canadian investors included CIBC, Scotiabank, HarbourVest Canada Growth Fund, Northleaf Capital Partners, and Telus.
The context: Intrepid was founded and is led by a trio of experienced Canadian investors, including Machin, the former CEO of the CPPIB; Mark Shulgan, the former head of growth equity at OMERS; and Ajay Agrawal, a University of Toronto professor and co-founder of Creative Destruction Lab. The firm also counts Turing Award winner Richard Sutton and Shopify president Harley Finkelstein as advisors for its portfolio companies.
Intrepid invests up to $50 million USD per company, according to The Globe and Mail. The firm said it has already invested in nine companies since its inception. Its Canadian portfolio includes adtech company StackAdapt, software rollup firm Beacon Software, tax research software Blue J, and engineering collaboration tool CoLab Software.
Final thought: Intrepid’s globally backed fund brings another source of growth capital to the Canadian VC landscape just as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit kicks off. The conference aims to catalyze $1 trillion of investment in the country over the next five years, and Canadian firms have already committed billions of dollars. This includes RBC, which launched its own $1.4-billion CAD growth fund for scaling Canadian technology companies last week.
Canada has historically struggled to fund its own growth-stage companies. According to 2024 data from the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association, 67.5 percent of $50-million-plus rounds were funded by Canada-US syndicates, as domestic firms turn abroad to raise larger rounds.
Feature image courtesy Intrepid Growth Partners.