Funding Roundup: Roofr, ProNavigator, Inventys
February kicked off with some exciting and diverse investments in Canadian technology companies, spanning from cleantech to new-age roofing. Here are three stories you may have missed this week.
Roofr
Roofr closed a $4 million seed funding round led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Ace & Company, Louis Beryl, and angel investors.
This funding round comes shortly after the company graduated from the Y Combinator program in 2017. Roofr is an innovative roofing service that offers customers free roofing quotes by using satellite imagery to connect them with contractors–managing the project from start to finish.
“We’re very mission-driven and our mission is to ensure every family has access to protect their home with an affordable roof,” said Richard Nelson, founder and CEO of Roofr. “As a third generation roofing contractor, I’ve experienced the broken roofing industry first hand. Homeowners and business owners have no transparency into price and roofing contractors have difficulty sourcing high-quality potential customers. Roofr aims to solve these issues.”
Roofr will be using the funding to extend their reach from Ontario, California, and Florida to serve the Texas market.
ProNavigator
ProNavigator, an AI platform working to improve the customer experience in the insurance industry, has closed another seed round of funding led by MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF) and GreenSky Capital. Innovation Grade Ventures and angel investors also participated in this seed round which brings ProNavigator’s total funding to more than $2 million.
“In this on-demand economy, customers expect speed and convenience in all of their service providers. The insurance industry has typically been slow to adapt to this shift but is now working hard to move from legacy systems to modern, data-driven and connected systems,” said Joseph D’Souza, CEO and founder of ProNavigator. “ProNavigator is focused on delivering AI capabilities tailor-made for the insurance industry. This funding will allow us to continue to evolve our cutting-edge AI technology, offered through chat and voice, and support further expansion into the US market.”
Inventys
Vancouver-based Inventys announced the closing of a USD $5 million investment from BDC’s Cleantech Practice. The company’s Series C funding, which was led by OGCI Climate Investments, is now at USD $16 million, with a target of USD $21 million in total.
“At Inventys, we see a real opportunity to put CO₂ to work and to build a CO₂ marketplace where gigatonnes of CO₂ are traded between emitters and users,” said Inventys president and CEO Claude Letourneau. “Inventys’ solution is focusing on distributed CO₂ supply using modular plant designs.”
The funding and partnership with BDC’s Cleantech Practice will help Inventys finish their CO₂ capture plant demonstration, and reach the organization’s goal of commercializing an industrial CO₂ capture plant by 2020.
