Radical Ventures raises $1B first close for Canada’s largest VC fund
What's the deal? Radical VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised a first close of more than $1 billion USD for its new Radical Breakouts Fund, a multi-billion-dollar vehicle backing AI scaleups in Canada and abroad. The Toronto-based firm secured the capital from some of the country’s largest pension funds and banks.
Who's backing it? Limited partners include the Public Sector Pension Investment BoardDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Canada Pension Plan Investment BoardDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Healthcare of Ontario Pension PlanDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, TD Bank GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, BMO Financial GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, CI Global Asset ManagementDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and OPTrustDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Why now? Radical unveiled the fund on Tuesday at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s inaugural Canada Investment Summit in Toronto. It joins a growing list of big-ticket commitments from Canadian institutions, including a planned $1-billion USD fund from the Royal Bank of CanadaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and a $525-million USD fund from Intrepid Growth PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? The fund will target AI scaleups “on a path to becoming the next trillion-dollar businesses.” It extends Radical’s 2024 move into later-stage investing, when it raised an $800-million USD growth fund. The firm backs AI startups from early to late stages and has invested in Cohere and Waabi.
By the numbers. The first close puts Radical roughly on par with GeorgianDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →’s more than $1-billion USD 2021 alignment fund.
Between the lines. Radical said the fund is built for a market where the most valuable companies stay private longer and enter public markets already worth $100 billion or more. It framed the vehicle as a way to keep home-grown value in Canada. “Canada has never had a shortage of world-class AI companies,” said co-founder and managing partner Jordan Jacobs. “What we have lacked is capital at the scale required to keep them here as they grow.”
The signal: The raise reflects a wider push by Canadian institutions to fund domestic tech at scale, keeping late-stage AI companies from turning to the US for their most important growth years. As Jacobs put it: “The result is a Canadian firm investing in Canada and globally, with the returns coming home.”
Read more: betakit.com
Image credit: The City of Toronto
