Tony Lacavera, the Canadian Entrepreneur who established fourth largest wireless carrier Wind Mobile is making a venture capital fund worth $100 million which will be focused on technology investment.
Last year he made five investments in startups such as Kira Talent, Revlo and Chargespot. He has also sponsored some of the leading startup incubators such as OneEleven and MaRs.
The startup scene in Canada is brimming with energy. Venture-capital investing has doubled in the last five years to US$2.4 billion and companies like Shopify and Kik Interactive have made their names world famous.
“The Canadian ecosystem has really matured a lot and there is a lot of angel and seed investment available to Canadian entrepreneurs,” Lacavera said.
However there is something missing though, Lacavera said. There is plenty of funding for companies just starting and once they succeed there are U.S. venture firms or investors like Toronto based OMERS Ventures to invest millions of dollars. But in between there is little funding for startups to accelerate growth.
Lacavera wants to fill this gap by investing in funding rounds of $5 Million to $25 million by contributing $2 million to $5 million. He will look to invest in US startups too.
His company Globalive will make follow on investments in some of the startups that he has already invested in and also look for new opportunities.Lacavera is now a startup coach and investor at University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab and is mentoring to turn breakthroughs in science into startups.
“We’re operators and we’re going to invest in companies that are related to our existing operating experience” he said. His experience with Wind Mobile where he challenged an established wireless market will give Globalive a strong grounding in helping startups it has invested in become world leaders.
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