Michael Yang has stepped down from his role as head of OMERS Ventures as the Canadian public pension fund undergoes a “strategic shift” to refocus its investment activity in Canada, BetaKit has learned.
In an email sent today by OMERS managing director Saar Pikar, he noted that the pension fund has decided to increase its focus on Canadian investment “while continuing to pursue selective opportunities in the US through both direct investments and strategic partnerships.” The change comes after a strategic review of OMERS’s private equity business.
As part of the new strategy, Pikar will take on an expanded role as managing director and head of ventures and growth, reporting to OMERS head of private capital Michael Block. OMERS Ventures partner Laura Lenz has also been promoted to managing director, the email said. OMERS confirmed both appointments, Yang’s departure, and this strategic shift in an emailed statement to BetaKit.
“As the first Canadian pension plan to invest directly in early-stage technology, with years of leadership in this space, we are confident that this evolution of our strategy allows us to channel our resources where we can deliver the greatest value to portfolio companies and our members,” an OMERS spokesperson wrote.
BetaKit has also reached out to Yang for comment.
Launched in 2011, OMERS Ventures is the early-stage venture capital (VC) arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (OMERS), one of Canada’s largest pension funds.
Yang appears to mark the latest in a series of recent departures from OMERS Ventures. A Wayback Machine screencap of the firm’s website from mid-June compared to its current team page indicates that OMERS Ventures’ headcount has dropped from 19 to 12 during this time.
In addition to Yang, partner Ben Fu and principals David Wechsler and Justin Ouyang are also no longer listed on OMERS Ventures’ San Francisco Bay Area investment team.
Today, OMERS Ventures’ website indicates its US investment team consists of five members: New York-based managing partner Henry Gladwyn and four others in the Bay Area, including partner Eugene Lee, principal Marissa Moore, and investors Julianna Vitolo and Ryan Zauk.
According to the website, OMERS Ventures’ Canadian investment team includes only two others in Toronto alongside Lenz: managing partner and head of fund operations Brian Kobus and investor Taku Murahwi.
OMERS declined to answer additional questions from BetaKit regarding these recent team changes, and whether it plans to relocate any of its US investors to Canada or expand its Canadian investment team through new hires. The organization also did not say if it plans to reallocate capital previously committed to the US or fresh dollars towards Canadian VC investments.
RELATED: OMERS Ventures to be moved under new Private Capital group run by Michael Block
In September 2024, OMERS Ventures was moved under a Private Capital group led by Block. This group oversees OMERS’s Ventures, Growth, Green Tech, Life Sciences, European and Asia-Pacific private equity activity, as well as the organization’s global funds strategy.
These changes coincided with the announcement that OMERS Private Equity executive vice-president and global head of private equity, Michael Graham, would retire in February 2025. At the time, OMERS said that Block would take over some of Graham’s responsibilities as part of the transition. This March, OMERS appointed Alexander Fraser as Graham’s direct successor.
Speaking with BetaKit in September 2024, Yang said that this restructuring would not change anything at OMERS Ventures. “Strategy, brand, focus, and resources for Ventures are all the same,” he said.
Yang, who is based in San Francisco, launched the firm’s Palo Alto, Calif.-based United States (US) office in 2019 and led its US VC portfolio. In 2023, Yang replaced Damien Steel as head of OMERS Ventures when Steel left to become CEO of carbon capture startup Deep Sky. Steel has since departed Deep Sky.
OMERS confirmed that Yang’s last day at the firm was July 21. “We thank him for his contributions over the past five years,” an OMERS spokesperson told BetaKit.
RELATED: After only four years in market, OMERS Ventures is pulling out of Europe to focus on North America
OMERS’s new strategic direction is not the first time the pension fund has refocused its venture operations. The firm expanded to Europe with a dedicated fund in 2019, launched a transatlantic fund in 2020, and shared plans in early 2023 for a fifth fund with a global investment team. Later that year, however, OMERS Ventures pulled out of the European market and concentrated its investment activity on North America. At the time, the organization told BetaKit that its global ambitions remained, just on a longer timeline.
OMERS is refocusing on Canada after many in the business and tech community have called for Canadian pension funds to boost their share of domestic investment.
In early 2024, a group of Canadian business leaders urged Canada’s federal and provincial finance ministers to amend the rules governing pension funds and encourage them to invest more of their money in Canada, arguing that it would help boost economic productivity. But detractors, including Maverix Private Equity founder and OMERS Ventures founder John Ruffolo, argued that such regulations could interfere with pension funds’ mandates to provide solid returns.
This movement gained steam in recent months after the US administration sparked a trade war with Canada and threatened its sovereignty. Pension funds faced pressure to refocus on Canada when the US government said it would pass legislation hiking taxes on income from American assets held by Canadians, as retaliation for what it saw as the “unfair” Digital Services Tax (DST). Prime Minister Mark Carney scrapped the DST at the end of June, and the proposed tax hike was removed from the US bill.
For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, OMERS had 19 percent of its assets invested in Canada and 53 percent in the US, according to its annual report.
CBC reported that fund managers for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Canada’s largest pension fund, could face hearings by the House of Commons finance committee after it revealed that only 12 percent of its assets were invested in Canada, an all-time low. However, the CPP Investment Board said in May that it would be closing its San Francisco office after a strategic review of its operations.
With files from Douglas Soltys. Feature image courtesy OMERS Ventures.