Golden Ventures: Ten Years, Two New Funds and a New Partner
Today Golden Ventures celebrates ten years of supporting the most high-potential founders who seek to change the world through transformative technology. A decade into our journey, we are thrilled to share that we have closed two new funds: Golden Ventures IV, a US$100M seed-stage vehicle and Golden Ventures Opportunities Fund, a US$20M vehicle focused on investing in later-stage financing rounds of our top-performing portfolio companies.
A decade into our journey
We launched in 2011 as one of the first seed-stage micro-VC funds focused on how mobile products and services were reshaping the world. Our early-stage focus and Toronto office location gave us unparalleled access to some incredibly talented founders and companies. For Canadian founders, early-stage financial support and mentorship were lacking, and US investors were wary of early investments in new geographies without a connection to a trusted local partner. We set out to change that narrative by investing across North America, partnering with the best founders and co-investors. Our concentrated investment strategy allowed us to devote the resources necessary to be a valuable partner to our portfolio companies.
Over the last decade, as mobile became pervasive and the Canadian tech ecosystem began to flourish, we became sector agnostic, allowing us to focus squarely on top founders and their needs at the seed stage. While geographic lines continue to blur, we firmly believe that seed-stage companies benefit from local partners. With a recent crop of unicorn-level successes, a huge bench of venture-scale companies and a terrific set of existing and emerging venture capital funds, the Canadian tech ecosystem has captured global attention.
We’ve had the privilege of backing the incredible founders of over 75 companies over our first three funds. Golden Ventures core portfolio companies have realized over $1B in exit value and since January 2021 have raised more than $500M in follow-on capital. In the last six months, the portfolio has seen the sale of Wattpad to Naver for $600M, Top Hat’s $130M Series E, Clearco’s $100M Series C, Xanadu’s $100M Series B, Brightwheel’s US$55M Series C and Neo Financial’s $50M Series A. We are excited by all of these events, with much more to come soon.
Iterating on a proven strategy
Today, we remain fully committed to being a seed-stage and sector agnostic investor. Golden Ventures IV will be invested in 20–25 core seed-stage companies across Canada and the US while reserving follow-on capital for future investment rounds. We will also allocate a portion of the fund to angel investments in companies that may not meet our core investment criteria, but where we have a strong belief in the founders and the opportunity. For more details on Golden Ventures, including where we invest and who we invest in, we invite you to review our public FAQ. Sharing this information is part of creating a culture of transparency in venture capital, and we hope to see more funds make this data accessible.
Golden’s team and platform are stronger than ever- go Jamie!
We are incredibly excited to announce the promotion of Jamie Rosenblatt to Partner. Jamie has been with us for over five years and is genuinely a founder-first investor. Jamie has become a critical contributor and supporter not only to our portfolio founders but to many of the top young start-ups across the Canadian tech ecosystem. He is currently focused on opportunities in Crypto/Blockchain, Fintech & Proptech. We can’t wait to see what more Jamie will accomplish in the years to come.
We will continue to invest in additional infrastructure to better support our current and future portfolio. Our platform offering has grown stronger, with dedicated support on Talent, Network and Advisory to help founders build the foundations for their future success. We have seen the outsized impact that close partnership can play in the early days and are proud to take a service orientation to our portfolio.
Continued support from partners
Golden Ventures IV welcomes returning investment from our incredibly supportive institutional fund of fund LPs (BDC Capital, Foundry Group Next, HarbourVest Partners, Kensington Capital Partners, Northleaf Capital Partners and Teralys Capital), family offices and individuals. In addition, we’re excited to be welcoming our new institutional partners: (ECMC Group, Plexo Capital, RBC, University of Chicago and Vintage Investment Partners).
We’d like to extend our deepest gratitude to all of the founders, partners, co-investors, mentors, and community leaders who have been steadfast supporters over these ten years. Golden Ventures IV is ready to catalyze the next generation of transformative technology companies. If you are building an early-stage startup in Canada or the United States, we would love to be your seed stage partner.
Here’s to the next ten years!
Matt, Ameet, Bert, Jamie, Taylor, Mark & Ana
