Vistara Growth wants out of “tweener” category as private credit firm gears up to close fifth fund

Ten years ago, founder and managing partner Randy Garg spun Vancouver investment firm Vistara Growth out of a Beedie family office fund he was running at the time.

The plan was to go after a gap in the private credit market by continuing the strategy he had deployed for Beedie since 2010 as a standalone entity, and Garg brought on Vistara partner Noah Shipman shortly afterwards to support those efforts.

“We set out 10 years ago with a strategy … and we haven’t deviated from that.”

Since 2015, Vistara claims it has raised more than $900 million CAD to date over its five funds, with 40-plus investments, more than 20 successful exits, and zero losses. The firm also says it has delivered a net annualized internal rate of return of 15 percent across its funds along the way.

This 10-year milestone comes as Vistara readies to close its fifth technology-focused private credit fund amid what has become an increasingly hot venture debt market and cool venture capital (VC) fundraising environment. Vistara has already raised over $370 million CAD ($265 million USD) for Fund V on the back of strong support from existing limited partners (LPs).

In an interview with BetaKit, Garg attributed Vistara’s growth and performance during this time to its consistency. “We set out 10 years ago with a strategy … and we haven’t deviated from that,” he said. Garg expects the next decade to bring more of the same for Vistara as it looks to raise larger funds and expand its investor base to include more institutions.

Vistara provides growth capital to mid- and later-stage tech companies across North America, including debt, convertible debt, and structured equity. The private credit investor creates tailored investment structures comprised of debt, equity, or some combination of the two to help finance organic growth, mergers and acquisitions, or shareholder liquidity initiatives.

The firm targets enterprise software companies, including B2B SaaS, FinTech, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud, IT infrastructure, and healthtech businesses with between $10 million and $100 million CAD in annual recurring revenue. While Vistara typically invests in venture-backed tech companies at the Series B stage and beyond, it also finances businesses that have taken a different path, such as bootstrapped firms.

The firm claims the vast majority of the LPs from Fund IV have returned and collectively contributed even more to its fifth fund. This group includes the Beedie family office, other undisclosed family offices, private foundations, and successful entrepreneurs from fields like tech, real estate, and hospitality.

Garg credited the continued commitments to Vistara’s execution and the large sums of cash that it has been able to return to its investors.

Shipman told BetaKit that Vistara’s Distributed to Paid-In Capital ratio (DPI) has been “a key theme” given the lack of returns VCs have generated recently. “We’ve really shone on that.”

Vistara claims the DPI of its second, $43-million CAD fund, which it launched in 2016, is 2x, and the private credit firm says it has already distributed nearly all of the $200 million CAD LPs invested in Fund III from 2018 onwards. Last year, market research company Preqin ranked both funds among the top 10 performers in their asset class by vintage and size globally. Vistara claims it has also already returned more than half of its $270-million CAD fourth fund (2021 vintage) to LPs.

Since 2022 alone, Vistara claims to have distributed more than $260 million CAD ($190 million USD) to its investors across 10 exits despite “choppy” market conditions that have featured little VC liquidity thanks to fewer exits.

“In the last three years, we’ve been able to grow the team, we’ve been able to double from our last fund size and produce record returns when it hasn’t been quite as easy for others,” Shipman said. “I think that’s just testament to the strategy that was set 10 years ago that we carry through to today, and the internal culture that we’ve built to manage in all seasons.”

As many LPs look to invest more capital and build deeper relationships with fewer fund managers, Shipman said Vistara is grateful that its investors have prioritized the firm.

Garg attributed Vistara’s lack of losses to the strength of its now 15-person team, the quality of its underwriting and due diligence, and its active involvement in the companies it backs, including through board observer seats. He said the firm is “reasonably conservative” in terms of its loan-to-value estimation. Shipman emphasized that Vistara’s strategy is not reliant on massive outcomes like initial public offerings to generate meaningful outcomes.

Vistara claimed it took only four weeks to secure an initial close of $200 million CAD back in late 2023. However, the firm acknowledged that raising the remainder has proven more difficult as the fundraising markets for VC and private credit funds have deteriorated.

The firm intends to hold a final close for Fund V in late September. Garg anticipates that Vistara will ultimately land somewhere between $412 million and $447 million CAD ($300 million and $325 million USD)—below its initial target of $540 million CAD, but much larger than its $270-million CAD fourth fund.

Garg said he would not be disappointed by that result. “We set out a pretty ambitious target, admittedly,” he added. “We’ve done well against it.”

Vistara’s current portfolio includes Alida, Brim Financial, D3 Security, and Sama, and the firm counts Martello, Mobify, Reach, and Zafin among its exits.

The firm has already made eight of a planned 15 to 18 total investments through Fund V thus far, backing companies like Vancouver-based government technology provider Clariti Cloud, Florida software firm DataCore, Columbus-based insurtech Matic, and Philadelphia healthtech company Tendo. Vistara has already called 60 percent of the capital it has raised. The firm expects to build a Fund V portfolio with a 70 to 30 percent split between the US and Canada.

During the first half of 2025, venture debt activity in Canada spiked to $628 million CAD across 36 deals, a 188-percent jump in terms of dollars invested and a nearly 90-percent increase in deal count relative to H1 2024, according to Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) data.

This marks the highest mid-year total since CVCA began tracking venture debt. For comparison CVCA reports there were 36 venture debt transactions totalling $886 million CAD in 2024. However, this 2025 amount does include several large loans exceeding $100 million CAD, which Garg highlighted have skewed these figures a bit.

“We set out a pretty ambitious target, admittedly. We’ve done well against it.”
Randy Garg,
Vistara

But Garg noted that Vistara has seen a rise in demand for venture debt and its offerings lately as the equity fundraising market has become less favourable. “Our solution works perfectly in that environment,” he said.

Regardless of what is driving this, Shipman expects debt—including the type of growth debt that Vistara provides—to play “a much bigger role” for tech companies going forward.

To date, Vistara has predominantly raised money from non-institutional sources, but the firm is hoping to broaden its LP base for Fund V and successive funds to include more institutions with its existing investors and network now largely tapped out.

Despite Vistara’s large size among Canadian tech funds, Garg and Shipman maintain that getting the attention of large institutions as a sub-$500 million fund is difficult. The pair noted that institutions like banks and pension funds have larger minimum cheque sizes for private credit funds than their VC counterparts, putting Vistara in a “tweener” category at the moment.

“We’re having to scrap our way around and raise the capital that we’ve been raising,” Garg said. “But as we look forward to Fund VI and beyond, I think we’re going to be in a better spot.”

Feature image courtesy Vistara.