Women’s Equity Lab (WEL) Manitoba has closed its third fund, and at $300,000 CAD it marks the first time the Manitoba chapter of the venture capital collective has reached full subscription.
“We’re having to turn people away that have expressed interest now that we’ve reached our full subscription.”
WEL Manitoba announced the closure of the fund on May 1, stating that Fund 3 had raised the $300,000 from 60 limited partners, each of which contributed $5,000 in capital. That funding will be deployed into “three-to-five early-stage, Canadian-headquartered, technology-enabled startups,” according to a statement released by WEL Manitoba.
WEL describes itself as a North American network of angel investment groups aimed at helping women become early-stage investors. The organization boasts chapters in nine cities and regions, including Toronto and Vancouver. It counts some 400 investors throughout its various chapters. The Manitoba chapter was founded in 2023.
Katie Hall Hursh, a managing partner with WEL Manitoba and the vice-president of private holding company Megill-Stephenson, told BetaKit that Fund 3 not only reached full subscription, but did so in record time, maxing out in roughly a month. She called the response “immediate and phenomenal.” Hall Hursh credits that spike in interest to a maturing profile in Manitoba and the collective’s prior successes.
“Right now we’re able to point to the quality of the companies we’ve made investments in in Fund 1 and Fund 2. They’re ongoing, buzzworthy, and they have their own respective wins,” Hall Hursh said. “So when we can point to those and say WEL can be a part of those stories, then people are paying attention.”
WEL Manitoba’s two prior funds raised a total of $140,000 from 28 limited partners in Fund 1, followed by $185,000 in Fund 2 from 37 partners. Those funds included investments into companies like Ginger Desk, a medtech virtual assistant, SalonMonster, a booking and management platform, and Taiv, an AI-enabled platform allowing venues to manage advertisements on their TV screens.
Image courtesy WEL Manitoba.
Hall Hursh said WEL Manitoba plans to deploy investments of between $35,000 and $80,000 out of this fund, with plans to continue the organization’s sector-agnostic focus on investing in companies that have a degree of validation to their business model. Hall Hursh said the chapter would also look favourably upon companies with diverse founding teams as it seeks potential investees this round.
“We certainly would love to … see more success stories coming from women-founded teams, just because of the dearth of capital that has historically gone to women-founded teams,” she said.
According to Queen’s University’s Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, women-owned businesses in Canada receive under four percent of available venture capital, despite owning 21 percent of businesses.
“We want to be a part of changing that,” Hall Hursh added.
On a local scale, WEL Manitoba is setting its sights on buttressing the growing tech and innovation ecosystem in the province.
“Being based in Manitoba, we want to continue to be a part of growing the Manitoba innovation scene. We did that with Fund 2 and an investment with Taiv,” Hall Hursh added. “We want to know what else is out there and really be a part of helping to mobilize getting capital into Manitoba.”
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None of Fund 3’s dollars have been deployed yet, with WEL Manitoba still engaging due diligence around potential recipients. Even so, Hall Hursh said the group is already looking toward Fund Four, which it hopes to launch next year. Aspirations for that fund are higher given the success of this most recent raise.
“We’re at the point where we’re having to turn people away that have expressed interest now that we’ve reached our full subscription,” Hall Hursh said. “So I think there’s going to be pent-up demand to get involved [in Fund 4]. I have no doubt we could go even higher with funds. ”
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Pixabay.