Espace CDPQ welcomes seven new partners to support the growth of innovative Québec companies and their international expansion

Espace CDPQ, the Québec venture capital hub, announces seven new venture capital funds are joining its partners in residence. In total, Espace CDPQ now gathers, as its partners, 21 investment firms within its unique business model in Canada.

Espace CDPQ has selected its new partners using well-defined criteria: complementarity, diversity, and impact. In fact, four of the new funds soon joining Espace CDPQ invest exclusively in clean technology, or in technology with a social or environmental impact. This is the case of Accelia Capital, a fund led by Christine Beaubien and Annick Charbonneau that invests in innovative companies with strong growth potential owned or led by women.

Among the new partners, four funds are based in Canada or abroad. This milestone marks their arrival in Québec and their desire to co-invest with other local funds. The advent of foreign capital has become an important springboard for the growth of local companies, considering the impact of new networks and expertise. The new partner BKR Capital, an Ontario-based venture capital fund, focuses on Black-led businesses and aims to catalyze entrepreneurial technology initiatives among the Québec Black community, which represents nearly 30% of Canada’s total Black population.

“With all these new partners joining, we have a well-rounded offering that will further energize our activities in Québec, providing more support to companies with innovative models to help them grow,” said Andrée Lemay, General Manager, Espace CDPQ.

The new funds join established Espace CDPQ partners that together represent $8.6 billion in assets under management, including Brightspark Ventures, Inovia Capital and White Star Capital. 

New partners in residence at Espace CDPQ:

• Accelia Capital invests in companies with strong growth potential that develop or integrate new technologies. This venture capital fund aims to enhance diversity, performance and impact by promoting sustainable companies that are owned or led by women.  
• Amplify Capital, a fund that supports technology companies in the startup stage, is specialized in finding large-scale solutions to complex social and environmental problems. The fund mainly makes seed-stage investments in the health care, clean technology and education technology sectors.  
• BKR Capital (formerly Black Innovation Capital) manages the first venture capital fund dedicated to Black-led technology businesses in Canada. The fund makes transformational investments in companies that disrupt the status quo and often address the unmet needs of minority communities. 
• Ecofuel Fund is a venture capital fund specialized in funding innovative seed and startup stage companies that have a real impact on sustainable development and climate change. It supports the growth of companies in Québec, Ontario and the Maritimes.
• Framework Venture Partners is a venture capital fund whose mission is to build world-class companies that make a positive impact on the world. The fund invests in software companies and possesses expertise in integrating financial products and services, as well as applying artificial intelligence (AI) to large batches of industry-specific data. 
• Sofinnova Investments is a California-based investment firm that operates in the biopharmaceutical clinical-stage and has focused primarily on therapeutic drugs over the past decade. The fund, which has been active in life sciences investments, has a mission to improve the lives of patients by investing in both private and public equities of companies focused on therapeutics.
• Theodorus is a venture capital fund operating in Belgium and Québec that mainly focuses on funding seed and early stage companies by investing in biotech, medtech, digital and engineering applications. The fund brings numerous key assets that help researchers and entrepreneurs create disruptive and innovative companies. 

Over time, Espace CDPQ has become a true space of convergence for venture capital investors, for the benefit of Québec entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the hub intends to pursue its efforts to facilitate and make accessible the networks and expertise of its partners to innovative Québec companies to ensure support at all important stages of their growth.