Major companies like TD and Sun Life back venture studio\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As domestic entrepreneurship declines and many founders are tempted to move to the United States (US), Simple Ventures<\/a> hopes to bring innovation and talent back to Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a Canadian mission but a very un-Canadian level of ambition.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Backed by big-name Canadian tech entrepreneurs and institutions, Simple Ventures was spun up<\/a> early last year by CEO Rachel Zimmer (ex-partner at Entrepreneur First and co-founder of 5Crowd) and chair Michael Katchen (co-founder and CEO of Wealthsimple).<\/p>\n \u201cAs Canadians, we do two things: we take things out of the ground, and then we finance that activity,\u201d Zimmer told BetaKit in an interview. \u201cAnd if that\u2019s the story we tell our kids and our grandkids, we are on a very scary trajectory.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Zimmer said that, instead of \u201csitting on another panel talking about the issue,\u201d Simple Ventures aims to bring the best of Canada\u2019s founder-operators and corporate partners together to \u201cdo something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n The Toronto-based venture studio aims to identify products and services that are not available in Canada and partner with entrepreneurs and its network of investors to launch startups filling those gaps. Since its launch, this mission has become more salient amid the US trade war<\/a>, the \u2018buy Canadian\u2019 movement<\/a>, and rising interest in ensuring both sovereignty<\/a> and greater domestic capacity<\/a>.<\/p>\n So far, the limited partners (LPs) that have bought into the vision include Shopify president Harley Finkelstein, Knix founder and president Joanna Griffiths, Ada co-founder and CEO Mike Murchison, and veteran entrepreneurs and investors Joe Canavan and Sam Duboc. Other backers are angel investors and undisclosed family offices like Good Future (BetaKit\u2019s majority owner).<\/p>\n They have been joined by institutional LPs like Toronto-Dominion Bank\u2019s TD Innovation Partners, Sun Life, and Sobeys. According to Simple Ventures, its LPs\u2019 companies represent more than $750 billion CAD in combined market capitalization.<\/p>\n Together, they have helped Simple Ventures close $15 million CAD to date for its first fund. The firm hopes to secure a final close of $18 million to $20 million by the end of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: <\/strong>Can one venture studio stop Canada\u2019s AI brain drain?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n In the 18 months since its launch, Simple Ventures has established three new startups: postnatal care provider Alma Care, AI accounts receivable platform Harvest, and luxury handbag rental company Zero Collective. The firm claims it has created over 100 jobs across its portfolio.<\/p>\n Simple Ventures also has another two businesses currently in stealth, which it plans to launch in the coming months.<\/p>\n Entrepreneurship in Canada has been dwindling, and many founders have faced increasing pressure to move to the US in search of the capital and support they need to grow. A 2023 BDC report<\/a> found that Canada had 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than in 2000, despite the country\u2019s population growing by more than 10 million since that time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a 2024 Statistics Canada analysis<\/a> found that nearly one-third of Canadian immigrant founders move to the US. A more recent Leaders Fund survey<\/a> determined that one in two Canadian entrepreneurs choose to build in the US and are leaving the country at an accelerating rate.<\/p>\n \u201cI invested in Simple Ventures because it\u2019s tackling the single biggest gap in our economy: the lack of new company creation,\u201d Canavan said in a statement. \u201cBy bringing Canadian talent together and encouraging those abroad to come back and build, Simple Ventures is giving our next generation of founders the resources and support they need to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: <\/strong>TandemLaunch closes $37-million Fund IV to create and back deep tech startups<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The venture studio model of building startups to address businesses\u2019 ideas has become increasingly popular<\/a> in recent years. Other Canadian firms in the space include the recently-launched Axl<\/a>, Carrot Ventures, Diagram Ventures<\/a>, Harvest Venture Builders, Highline Beta, R-Labs<\/a>, and TandemLaunch<\/a>, among others.<\/p>\n According to Zimmer, Simple Ventures targets opportunities where its LP base can give portfolio companies \u201can unfair advantage\u201d thanks to its know-how and distribution. For the firm\u2019s investors, key selling points have been access to deal flow at the point of inception and coinvestment opportunities. She said those LPs can also be the source of business ideas.<\/p>\n Zimmer said that Simple Ventures aims to build a \u201cMount Rushmore\u201d of advisors to give each portfolio startup the best odds of success. She cited Harvest CEO Matt Himel as an example of this, noting that the firm connected Himel with two LPs who have deep FinTech experience in Wave co-founder CEO Kirk Simpson and Hubdoc co-founder Jamie McDonald.<\/p>\n Simple Ventures\u2019 longer-term goal is to build 25 new Canadian-headquartered businesses by 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a Canadian mission but a very un-Canadian level of ambition,\u201d Zimmer said.<\/p>\n Feature image courtesy Simple Ventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Major companies like TD and Sun Life back venture studio\u2019s vision.
As domestic entrepreneurship declines and many…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":260378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[136463,64,607,1258,136455,136464,11652,136468,136456,136458,136467,136466,136454,136457,2150,136453,136459,136452,136462,136461,136460,8790,67,132,68,62574,136465],"class_list":{"0":"post-260377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-alma-care","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-funding","12":"tag-harley-finkelstein","13":"tag-harvest","14":"tag-hub","15":"tag-jamie-mcdonald","16":"tag-joanna-griffiths","17":"tag-joe-canavan","18":"tag-kirk-simpson","19":"tag-matt-himel","20":"tag-michael-katchen","21":"tag-mike-murchison","22":"tag-ontario","23":"tag-rachel-zimmer","24":"tag-sam-duboc","25":"tag-simple-ventures","26":"tag-sobeys","27":"tag-sun-life","28":"tag-td-innovation-partners","29":"tag-toronto","30":"tag-united-states","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-vc","34":"tag-zero-collective"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115279937471686198","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n