VC gets huge win from EcoSynthetix IPO
Delightful news in a tough market.
EcoSynthetix, a Canadian clean tech / nano play, has successfully raised $100 million for its initial public offering. As I think back, I can’t recall too many triple digit Innovation Economy Canadian IPOs of late. Let alone any domestic VC IPOs with a $450 million pre-money value! The $100MM deal was led by UBS (Ted Larkin), Canaccord Genuity (Steve Winokur) and RBC Capital Markets (Robert Nicholson).
For VC fund VentureLink, this will likely wind up to be a “deal of the year” type of outcome. 8 to 10x returns are hard to come by these days, on both sides of the border, and they are to be celebrated when they come to pass. VentureLink led multiple investment rounds on this one, dispelling the notion that Canadian VCs always exit their best names too early. EcoSynthetix also raised capital from Cargill’s corporate VC arm. Beyond VentureLink, other very early investors included: H.B. Fuller Ventures, 401 Capital Partners Inc., Northern Rivers Innovation Fund, Nadal Investments, Ltd., Tera Capital, L.P., Delta Northern Rivers Fund and H.J.G. Partnership.
Can someone in Ontario’s Department of Finance, or even Premier McGuinty, help me understand what would have happened to this company had there not been an Ontario LSIF program at the time (see prior representative post “The great LSIF myth” July 2-08)? I think the answer is that the company would’ve gone out of business for lacking of funding, but I can’t be entirely sure….
Congrats to everyone involved.
MRM
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