Montréal-based financial services conglomerate Power Corporation of Canada (Power Corp) is spinning up a new AI fund through its alternative asset management business, Sagard.
Power Corp and two of its operating companies, Great‑West Lifeco and IGM Financial, announced a combined $150-million USD ($206 million CAD) investment into a new Sagard AI Fund on Wednesday morning.
“Being a firm that stays in the status quo is not going to work in the future.”
Paul Desmarais III, Sagard
The fund will back AI companies that are “accelerating the adoption of AI across financial services and other key sectors globally,” according to an IGM news release. The fund is meant to provide Power Corp with access to global AI market intelligence, commercial partnerships, pilot projects, and application opportunities across its group of companies.
“We believe that AI is going to play a transformational role in our industry,” Sagard chairman and CEO Paul Desmarais III said in a video posted to LinkedIn on Wednesday morning. “I believe that being a firm that stays in the status quo is not going to work in the future.”
To lead the effort, Sagard has brought in former Georgian lead investor Evan Kerr as general partner of the AI fund. Kerr wrote in a LinkedIn post that the AI fund will remain stage- and sector-agnostic as it invests globally across the AI technology stack and helps founders leverage Power Corp’s network.
“The most impactful AI companies of the next decade won’t be found by sitting on the sidelines,” Kerr wrote.
Power Corp is one of Canada’s most valuable companies, holding a portfolio of nearly $4 trillion CAD in consolidated assets and assets under administration. Sagard is just one part of the Power machine; it has over $46 billion USD ($63 billion CAD) in assets under management, spanning venture capital through Portage Ventures and Diagram Ventures, as well as private equity, private credit, and real estate.
RELATED: Sagard hires Georgian’s Parinaz Sobhani as investment firm’s first head of AI
Sagard’s new AI fund follows the firm hiring Parinaz Sobhani, another former Georgian leader, as its first-ever head of AI in 2024 to bolster its in-house expertise in the industry. Sagard managing partner Francois Lafortune said at the time that Sobhani would give Sagard “a huge step up” in supporting its portfolio companies with AI and evaluating prospective investments. Sobhani told BetaKit at the time that she hopes to be a voice that helps underrepresented demographics, like women of colour, benefit from the AI boom.
Feature image courtesy Portage.