BDC launches $500 million Thrive Venture Fund and Lab for Women
BDC recently announced the launch of its $500 million Thrive Venture Fund and Lab for Women.
The Thrive platform is comprised of three distinct components, providing a comprehensive approach to addressing barriers faced by women, be it through direct early-stage investment, strategic investment in women-led and focused funds, or emerging models for providing equity investments for women-led businesses in the earliest stages of development, all while continuing to develop a more robust and sustainable ecosystem for all.
More specifically, the platform will be made up of:
$300 million direct investment fund – seeking to partner with promising women entrepreneurs building Canadian technology companies at seed and Series A/B stages. Using the same investment thesis as the WIT Venture Fund, Thrive Venture Fund will remain sector agnostic and will continue to invest in companies with strong growth and scalable market potential, that bring together the right innovation, team, and resources to transform today’s markets.
$100 million lab – a new initiative designed to develop innovative equity investment models for women-ledcompanies with promising business models and growth potential, which may not necessarily be on a traditional path to securing venture capital investment. The initial focus of Thrive Lab will be to deliver its unique offering in collaboration with ecosystem partners, with the goal of filling important gaps in early-stagefinancing. Specific details regarding the lab will be made public in the coming months.
$100 million indirect investment envelope – to be invested by BDC Capital’s Fund Investment team in women-led and focused general partners across the country. This allocation builds upon BDC Capital’s leadership on DEI standards and impactful results to date with 43% of the Fund investment team’s active portfolio invested in funds that are women-led or co-led, or that have women in partner level roles; double the Canadian average.
For more information on how to take advantage of this program, visit Thrive Venture Fund and Lab for Women.
Read the full press release here.
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