The departing president of Lightspeed is joining Montréal venture capital (VC) firm Boreal Ventures in the new year, as he hopes to bring his revenue-scaling experience to portfolio companies.
Earlier this month, JD Saint-Martin announced he was stepping down from e-commerce and point-of-sales company Lightspeed at the end of March 2026. He is set to become co-managing partner of Boreal Ventures, an early-stage VC firm focused on companies building software for blue-collar industries, as well as FinTech and digital health, in the new year.
In an interview with BetaKit on Nov. 27, Saint-Martin said the move marked a return to his roots in VC. He started his career at General Electric’s private equity fund and Québec’s Teralys Capital. “I told myself I wanted to go back to that role after I acquired important experience,” he said. “So I can walk the talk.”
Saint-Martin plans to bring go-to-market expertise as an investor in companies with strong product-market fit potential. To Boreal founder and managing partner David Charbonneau, this revenue-scaling experience will help address a persistent issue for Canadian tech startups.
“Founders find product-market fit, [raise] their first round, then they hire a [vice-president of] sales and they see their sales plateauing,” Charbonneau told BetaKit. “I have seen this pattern over and over again.”
Saint-Martin’s expertise will help our portfolio companies overcome this hurdle, Charbonneau said. He co-founded Chronogolf, sold it to Lightspeed, worked his way up to chief revenue officer, and eventually became president. During his tenure, Lightspeed grew annual revenue from $75 million USD ($105 million CAD) to nearly $1.2 billion USD ($1.7 billion CAD), Saint-Martin said.
RELATED: Lightspeed upgrades yearly forecast with revenue beat in fiscal Q2 earnings
Launched in 2021 in partnership with Montréal incubator Centech, Boreal Ventures has nearly deployed all of its $26-million CAD first fund, including into software startups for gym management (FliiP) and corporate background checks (Trustii). Charbonneau said that the fund started at a time of overheated valuations; once markets normalized after 2021, the team turned its focus to software startups building for “overlooked,” blue-collar industries, and is now raising its next fund.
Charbonneau will co-lead the fund with Saint-Martin, along with Samuel Larivière, a partner and CFO. All three were at Montréal’s inaugural RevStar Summit in October, a conference dedicated to go-to-market strategy.
Lightspeed, dual-listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, hit $1 billion USD in revenue this year, but its share price has struggled to regain its 2021 high. Its market capitalization is around $2.1 billion CAD.
Saint-Martin will stick around until March to ensure a “smooth transition” for Gabriel Benavides, who is joining as chief revenue officer. Lightspeed told BetaKit it isn’t looking for a replacement for the president at this time.
At Boreal, Saint-Martin hopes to encourage young companies to stay in Canada. He argued that staying in the country has some competitive advantages: a culture of capital efficiency, a fertile ground of test customers, and a diverse and multicultural population, which is an asset for hiring talent.
Feature image courtesy JD Saint-Martin via LinkedIn.