Happy New Year everyone. Here’s a heads up on key developments coming in early 2017 and some highlights of our busy final quarter last year where we were the largest investor in PitchBook’s Top VC-backed Exit of 2016.

In February, after cross-country meetings throughout 2016, the TMX-backed Advancing Innovation Roundtable is set to deliver actionable recommendations on how to increase access to scale up capital for Canadian innovation economy companies as they grow beyond the seed and startup stages.

Yaletown’s Salil Munjal chairs the 12-member Roundtable which brings together some of Canada’s finest financial minds to bring forward recommendations. Roundtable members include Paul Desmarais III Vice-President Power Financial and Power Corporation; Tamara Vrooman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vancity Credit Union; Stephen Forbes, Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial Officer of CIBC; and Helen Beck Senior Vice-President Canadian Equities and Indexed Management, Equity Markets, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

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Yaletown Partners, the first and largest investor in Bit Stew Systems, was rewarded for its emerging growth investment into Canada’s Industrial Internet of Things future when Bit Stew was acquired for more than $200M by GE Digital late last year. PitchBook ranked Bit Stew’s deal as the Top VC-backed Exit of 2016.

GE signaled serious interest in Bit Stew when it led a 2015 financing with participation from BDC Capital, Cisco and Yaletown Partners, which held a 15 per cent stake in the company. Yaletown first invested in Bit Stew in 2013, co-leading a series A financing with Cisco.

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Building on our analysis on the financing challenges that technology companies face at the emerging growth stage, Yaletown Partners’ released two further research articles in late 2016.

Intelligent Industry: Canada’s Bet on Cleantech’s Future examines the unique opportunity Canada faces to create technology that enhances the efficiency and sustainability of industry versus completely disrupting it as past Cleantech proposed.

Canada’s Technology Ecosystems: How Canada's Different Tech Regions Vary In Maturity analysis how the technology ecosystems of different provincial regions are not at the same point of maturity nor do they have the same capital needs.

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In November 2016, Alberta Enterprise Corporation announced a second early-stage fund called Accelerate Fund II with a $10 million investment. Yaletown Partners was selected to manage the Fund with The A100 acting as operators of the industry committee.

Accelerate Fund II will focus on providing startup capital to Alberta-based companies concentrated in the sectors of information and communication technology, clean and energy technology, life sciences, as well as agriculture and biotech.

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