Montreal leads in venture-capital financing: report
MONTREAL Montreal-based companies raised US$399 million in venture capital during the first quarter of 2018 — more than companies in any other Canadian city — according to a report released by PwC Canada and market research company CB Insights on Wednesday.
This is the second quarter in a row where Montreal firms have raised more venture capital than businesses in any other Canadian city.
“It definitely shows that the quality of entrepreneurs that we have here in Montreal and Quebec is exceptional,” said Christine Pouliot, a partner in PwC’s deals practice.
The amount of money invested in Montreal companies during the quarter was up 96 per cent from the previous quarter, when $204 million was invested in local companies. It’s the most money raised by Montreal-based companies in a single quarter since PwC began releasing the quarterly reports on VC activity in 2012.
“The Montreal tech ecosystem is definitely maturing,” Pouliot said.
The size of the investments in Montreal-based companies has risen over the past three or four years, the result of individual companies seeing success and attracting larger investments, she said, and local entrepreneurs that have built successful companies are also now investing in new businesses.
The biggest factor driving the increase was a single deal — a US$224 million investment in Montrealbased Enerkem, which has developed a technology that turns solid municipal waste into biofuel.
That was the largest VC transaction anywhere in Canada over the past 12 months, according to the report.
Pierre Boisseau, the senior director of communications and marketing at Enerkem, said he doesn’t think the financing environment in Montreal is very different from anywhere else.
The company has previously attracted U.S. investors, as well as investors from Quebec, he said.
“I think it’s a healthy environment. The investors are interested to invest in promising technologies that have a viable future, that are innovative to some extent and I think that’s exactly what Enerkam has to offer to the market,” he said.
In total, there were 16 venture capital investments in Montreal during the quarter. That’s compared to 38 deals, worth a total of US$321 million, in Toronto and 20 deals, worth a total of $103 million, in Vancouver.
This isn’t the first time that Montreal has seen large deals — of the five biggest venture capital investments made in Canada over the past 12 months, the top three were in Montreal.
In total, US$1.014 billion in venture capital was invested in the first quarter of 2018, across 105 deals, the largest amount since 2012.
“It’s a very healthy industry right now,” Pouliot said.