Written by Damien Steel, Global Managing Partner
10 years. It feels like yesterday that we were announcing OMERS’ first ever venture fund. At CAD$180M it was the first of its kind in Canada. At a time when venture investing was still referred to as angel investing. It was a bold…
Written by Eugene Lee and Thom Ryan
When one considers the areas for innovation in enterprise SaaS, tax probably isn’t the first thing to come to mind.
Taxtech has the characteristics of a very attractive pond to fish for a couple of reasons; 1) it occupies a massive addressable market…
Written by Lily Shaw and Charlie Renzoni
While the much discussed ‘summer lull’ in VC didn’t materialise for us at OMERS Ventures, we have found some time to reflect on where we are seeing a concentration of exceptional founders, and where we think segments of the market remain underfunded, and…
Written by Michael Yang, Managing Partner, OMERS Ventures
Today, Landed announced a $31M Series B financing led by Learn Capital and Navitas Capital, along with other new investors, First American and MassMutual Ventures. We eagerly re-upped in Landed to support the company’s mission to help essential professionals like teachers, nurses…
Written by Mert Yucesoy
Today a top performing company uses an average of 37 tools in its tech stack. I personally have used 30+ solutions at work in the past 2–3 years and am not sure if I increased my efficiency or made things worse. …
Written by Laura Lenz and Charlie Renzoni
There was a record number of funding rounds announced in the first half of 2021, a total of 414 deals (compared with 617 in all of 2020). According to Refinitiv, the average size of disclosed rounds was C$26.3 million, up 77% from C$12.8…
Written by Silvio Memme
As we have continued to expand the team globally at OMERS Ventures, we’ve talked a lot about the value of bringing in investors from non-traditional backgrounds. In fact, our UK-based Managing Partner Jambu Palaniappan blogged about it earlier this year when we were hiring in the…
Written by Shawn Chance, Partner, OMERS Ventures
A few years ago, I made the jump from startup operator to venture capitalist. It’s been a wild, humbling and rewarding ride so far. I must confess that although the pandemic has taught me a lot and allowed me to meet with and…
Written by Eugene Lee, Principal, OMERS Ventures
Something Harley Finkelstein, of Shopify, said a couple of weeks ago has really stuck with me “You can have the greatest product in the world, but if people don’t understand your why or what your product is being hired to do, you aren’t…
Written by Damien Steel, Managing Partner, OMERS Ventures
A startup’s board of directors plays a critical role in steering the direction of a business, so being intentional about who sits on it makes sense. But that’s easier said than done — especially for first-time founders who might not have the…
