Announcing Maple 2: The Fund for the Canadian Diaspora
Andre Charoo, General Partner, Maple VC
Shopify. Uber. Slack. Instacart. Cloudflare. What do all of these companies have in common? Aside from being some of the most iconic, category-defining companies in tech, they all have at least one founder with Canadian roots. After years of producing entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of innovation, Canada is finally getting its due: in the first half of 2021, investment in Canadian startups is already twice what it was for all of 2020.
Still, I think there is more that can be done to foster and support Canadian entrepreneurs — both at home and abroad — and to highlight Canada’s largest and most influential export: talent. This is why I am so excited to announce the latest $16.5M fund for Maple VC, the seed stage fund I launched in 2016 whose mission is to invest in exceptional Canadian founders, regardless of their location. What has been particularly gratifying for me is that Maple’s mission and early results have resonated with a diverse and influential group of LPs who have decided to invest in this new fund, including Tiger Global, Foundry Group, Recast Capital, Insight Partners and Plexo Capital.
My passion for working with and investing in Canadian entrepreneurs was inspired by my own early professional experiences. I first came to the US out of college after trying and failing to get a job in finance in Canada. When I got to the US, I received multiple offers and eventually worked as an investment banker for a couple of years. It left me feeling frustrated and rejected by my own country — why was I good enough to get a job on Wall Street but not the Canadian equivalent?
What’s interesting is that many of the founders I meet who leave Canada have a similar story — they find the success in Silicon Valley that eluded them in Canada. The upside to this phenomenon has created a cohort of founders who are incredibly driven. I’ve been blessed to engage with many of them as a charter member of the C100 — an organization dedicated to inspiring, supporting and connecting the most promising global Canadian leaders in tech, and for which I am now proud to serve as co-chair. I’ve also invested in many Canadian entrepreneurs as a venture partner at Montreal-based Inovia Capital.
My goal with Maple is to invest in and be a strategic partner to promising Canadian entrepreneurs in the areas of international expansion, talent acquisition and attracting follow-on funding. As of today, I’ve written 27 checks totaling $12M to companies working in everything from restaurant tech (All Day Kitchens) to fintech (Sivo) to consumer goods (Faculty) to cloud storage (Playbook) to construction (RenoRun) to digital health (Vision) and climate (Patch). Maple’s portfolio across both funds have a combined valuation of $2B, and have attracted follow-on funding from top-tier investors including Sequoia, Greylock, Founders Fund, Lightspeed and a16z.
My experiences as one of the first 25 employees at Uber and Hired (both of which have Canadian founders!) showed me just how critical this cohort of employees is in the life of a startup, and also the kind of unique expertise that comes from being part of the very early team. This insight inspired me to create a bench of experts composed of individuals who were one of the first 25 employees at well-known tech companies like Instacart, Airbnb, Away and Flexport, all of whom help Maple portfolio companies with operational expertise in product, engineering, operations and more.
Canadians have created a disproportionate number of multi-billion dollar companies in the last decade, and I truly believe this is just the beginning. I’ve never been more bullish about or inspired by the caliber of talent coming out of my home country and am so proud to help build and support the global network of Canadian entrepreneurs. If you are a founder with Canadian roots looking for seed stage funding or a LP interested in participating in my next fund, you can get in touch with me at andre (at) maplevc (dot) com.
