White Star Capital has closed its fourth global VC fund at $350 million CAD, as the firm hopes to continue delivering strong returns amid a tough fundraising landscape for Canadian VCs.
Eric Martineau-Fortin,
“We’re seeing an interesting new trade route that is being developed for Canadian companies and for North America.”
White Star Capital
The global venture firm with Canadian roots announced on Wednesday morning that it had closed its Fund IV at $350 million CAD, with backing from a number of Canadian and European institutional investors. Though the firm did not share a full list, it includes returning Canadian backers Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Investissement Québec, Desjardins, Teralys Capital, as well as some Canadian banks—a “small subset” of the Canadian LP base. European backers included Italian sovereign wealth fund CDP Equity, France’s Swen Capital Partners and Groupe ADP, as well as the pension fund of the States of Guernsey.
The team plans to build on White Star’s previous fund strategy—leading rounds at the Series A and Series B stages, writing cheques of between $5 million and $15 million USD, and reserving about half the fund for follow-on investments. It has already invested in eight companies, including Montréal’s investment intelligence platform Tetrix.
It’s also adapting to the current moment: general partner Christopher Bourque told BetaKit that since “everything is about AI” right now, the White Star team plans to focus on areas where it has “deep expertise and a solid track record,” including in physical AI, AI-powered commerce infrastructure, healthcare, and financial services. While some AI products are vulnerable to disruption by advances in frontier models, Bourque added that White Star is looking at differentiated AI strategies—either with serious deep tech, commercial traction in legacy industries, or a unique data moat.
White Star was founded in 2014 by Canadian managing partners Eric Martineau-Fortin and Jean-Francois Marcoux, as well as former co-leader Christian Hernandez Gallardo. It is headquartered in the United Kingdom (UK) and New York, with a strong presence in Canada—including a $50-million North American Seed Fund that it launched last year.
A bright spot
White Star marks a bright spot amid a dim venture fundraising landscape in Canada; it has managed to close another sizable fund amid a notoriously difficult time for Canadian VCs to raise money. According to an RBCx report, Canadian VC funds only raised a total of $2.1 billion CAD from LPs in 2025.
Martineau-Fortin acknowledged that a lack of liquidity has made it harder for investors to commit. He said the fundraise took 18 months, slightly longer than in past fundraises. However, he added that, “we’ve been having exits and distribution, and I think that that talks a lot in this market.”
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Though White Star wouldn’t share specific internal fund return rates, Marcoux noted some recent successes that have boosted its profile. He claimed that the acquisition of New York FinTech TheGuarantors by Warburg Pincus notched the firm 23 times its initial investment, and that the proceeds from the exit were equivalent to White Star’s Fund I.
Another factor boosting White Star’s profile, according to the managing partners, is its diversified LP base across North America and Europe, where the investment cycles are not totally synchronous. As White Star goes back out to fundraise in 2027 for Fund V, Martineau-Fortin also sees Middle Eastern countries as an important market for Canadian investors. White Star recently joined the Qatar Science & Technology Park as an inaugural co-investor in its $30-million tech venture fund.
“We’re seeing an interesting new trade route that is being developed for Canadian companies and for North America,” Martineau-Fortin said.
Feature image courtesy Isaac Sloman via Unsplash.