The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) is preparing to roll out more new direct investment vehicles as it continues to reshape its leadership team.
A BDC spokesperson has confirmed to BetaKit that BDC’s investment arm, BDC Capital, is hiring a managing partner to lead a new Life Sciences Fund, six years after spinning out its previous healthcare venture capital (VC) fund and creating Amplitude Ventures.
Nine months after BDC allocated $1 billion and an expanded mandate to growth-stage VC, managing partner Dominique Bélanger is out.
This is far from the only new project BDC has in the works. The Government of Canada-owned Crown corporation recently launched a $50-million search fund for women entrepreneurs, unveiled a $200-million second Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, and committed $100 million worth of loans to rural entrepreneurs. BDC is also working to spin up its $100-million Black Entrepreneurs Fund (led by Jason Baibokas) as well as a $100-million Indigenous Entrepreneurship Fund. A job posting indicates BDC is still looking to find a managing director for the Indigenous fund.
These moves come as another senior leader has left an existing BDC Capital fund. Dominique Bélanger, managing partner of BDC Capital’s Growth Venture Fund, left in early November, nine months after the project received a nearly $1-billion injection and an expanded mandate.
Bélanger told BetaKit that he left BDC Capital on November 7. He said it was BDC’s decision and that the organization “desired a change of leadership” for the fund. An active job posting indicates that hiring is underway for Bélanger’s replacement.
“We are grateful for what [Bélanger] has accomplished during his time at BDC, and steps are currently underway to ensure a smooth transition,” a BDC spokesperson told BetaKit, describing the move as “a normal part of increasing operational efficiency and productivity.”
The spokesperson said BDC is launching its new Life Sciences Fund in 2026. They noted that BDC is recruiting a managing partner to set the investment thesis and hire a team, and promised to share more details “in the coming months.”
Bélanger had been with BDC Capital for more than 15 years and led its Growth Venture Fund since 2017. During his time at the helm, Bélanger said he took it from an $80-million coinvestment pilot to a nearly $1-billion coinvestment and direct growth fund. “It is time for someone else to take this to the next level,” Bélanger said. “BDC and I came to an agreement.”
Bélanger said he plans to spend the next few months focusing on his family before evaluating his next move, but he intends to remain involved in the Canadian technology ecosystem.
Major shakeup in the C-suite
Bélanger is the latest in a string of senior executives who have left BDC Capital over the past 18 months. Longtime BDC Capital head and executive vice-president Jérôme Nycz abruptly announced his retirement in July 2024, and Geneviève Bouthillier has replaced him.
As first reported by The Logic and confirmed by BetaKit, BDC also closed its Intellectual Property-Backed Financing program—merging it with Growth and Transition Capital—and laid off staff from its Deep Tech Venture Fund earlier this year. Departures from the Deep Tech fund included partners Thomas Park and Charles Lespérance, who have since taken respective new roles at InBC and Celesta Capital. BDC president and CEO Isabelle Hudon has told BetaKit that this fund will be replaced by a defence tech-focused successor.
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This June, Michelle Scarborough left after eight years overseeing BDC Capital’s women-focused investment funds, and Mona Minhas has been handed the reins in her stead. Last month, Climate Tech Fund partners Cheri Corbett (who has joined Pender Ventures) and Vivian Kan also left after nearly 19 combined years working at BDC Capital.
A LinkedIn post from BDC’s senior advisor of talent acquisition, Nathalie Paillé, states that the Life Sciences Fund will make early-stage investments in biotherapeutics, medical tech, and related innovations. In a LinkedIn post, BDC Capital senior managing partner of VC Joseph Regan described the managing partner role as “a rare opportunity … to lead the charge and drive innovation in a sector where Canada can compete globally!”
Another Life Sciences Fund?
Speaking with BetaKit on condition of anonymity, a source familiar with BDC’s operations said that the organization has allocated $100 million towards its Life Sciences Fund—something that Peter van der Velden, founder and managing partner of life sciences VC Lumira Ventures, appeared to back up in a LinkedIn post yesterday. BDC told BetaKit that the exact size and strategy of this new Life Sciences Fund remains “to be determined.”
BDC Capital created its initial Healthcare Venture Fund in 2013. Across two funds, it allocated $270 million to more than 25 startups developing innovations in precision medicine, biotech, and medical imaging ahead of its spinout into Amplitude. Its portfolio companies included Calgary-based Circle Cardiovascular Imaging and Vancouver’s Zymeworks.
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Today, BDC Capital also serves as a limited partner (LP) in Amplitude and other life sciences-focused Canadian VC funds, including CTI Life Sciences, Genesys Capital, and Lumira.
Multiple Canadian VC sources expressed surprise to BetaKit when they learned that BDC is launching another life sciences fund, given how recently it spun out Amplitude, and questioned the rationale behind doing this rather than putting more LP dollars behind existing Canadian funds at a time when some have been calling for more capital.
When asked about this, the BDC spokesperson told BetaKit that its new Life Sciences Fund “will target a different stage of development” compared to its predecessor. They said the fund’s launch was informed by a third-party analysis of market gaps, and it will use “a two-pronged, complementary approach” that focuses on “the needs that are not currently met by other funds.” BDC said this fund “will not change” its commitment to indirect investment.
“A step in the right direction”
The Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) singled out domestic life sciences VC investment as an area “of strength” in its Q3 report, with nearly $1.07 billion deployed across 82 transactions this year thus far, putting 2025 on pace to narrowly miss 2024 in terms of total dollars invested but surpass 2022 and 2023 by wider margins. However, that amount has been invested across fewer, larger financings. Perhaps most notably, it includes a $500-million secondary transaction by Vancouver-based Jane Software, which sells practice management software to health and wellness clinics.
In a LinkedIn post, Van der Velden, a former CVCA chair and past critic, claimed that excluding Jane’s financing from these results, “2025 is trending to be the worst year for new life sciences investment activity in a decade.”
Lumira Ventures’ Peter Van der Velden called BDC Capital’s new Life Sciences Fund “a step in the right direction” but argued more needs to be done.
In an interview with BetaKit, Van der Velden said Lumira currently tracks about 125 Canadian life sciences companies, and estimates that the top 25 to 30 of them will need to raise $1 billion over the next two years. “That capital doesn’t exist in this country,” he said. If those businesses are not able to raise enough capital from experienced domestic investors, Van der Velden argued that many of those businesses will “end up being orphans” that either fail or move to the United States.
While investing in early-stage life sciences companies is risky, given that few therapies make it from lab to market, Canadian life sciences VCs have delivered stronger overall returns than peers in other sectors. Van der Velden, who is currently raising $200 million USD for Lumira’s fifth general fund alongside a new, $30-million CAD Cancer Breakthrough Fund, called now “an incredible time for domestic capital formation in life sciences.” He pointed to the sector’s outperformance in exit value generated relative to dollars invested over the past decade, as reported by RBCx last year.
Van der Velden described both the Life Sciences Fund and the feds’ recent allocation to Canada’s life sciences sector in Budget 2025 (as part of the $1-billion re-up of the Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative) as “a step in the right direction.” However, he contended that more needs to be done to scale the entire funding ecosystem. This echoes his comments on LinkedIn yesterday, where he claimed every dollar deployed into Canadian life sciences startups at the early stage will require $20 of follow-on capital to succeed.
Feature image courtesy BDC.