White Star Capital Closes New $232 Million Fund
A global VC firm has announced a massive new fund to further invest in North American and European companies.
White Star Capital has closed their second fund, valued at $180 million USD ($232 million CAD). The fund was oversubscribed and finishes above the anticipated target of $140 million USD.
The new fund will look to invest in about 20 total new companies with anywhere between $1 and $6 million USD each. So far, White Star has backed 26 companies since 2014, and eight companies from this second fund. The first fund was $70 million USD. The firm looks to fund companies that focus on data as the key advantage growing and scaling.
“We have purposely sought a diverse and global investor base for our second fund, many of whom are repeat investors from fund one, and we would like to thank them for their continued support,” said Eric Martineau-Fortin, co-founder of White Star Capital. “Our growing team has extensive operational experience and we are passionate about supporting ambitious entrepreneurs with truly global ambitions. Internationalisation represents a huge opportunity for many high-growth companies and our global reach means we can support companies looking to scale outside of their home market.”
White Star has an office in Montreal, and with this new announcement comes two new offices in Paris and Tokyo as the firm continues to expand the global reach of its investments. New partners have also been announced: Matthieu Lattes in Paris, Sep Alavi in New York, and Shun Nagao in Tokyo. White Star’s two co-founders hail from Montreal.
Many of the first eight companies this new fund has helped invest in are located in Canada. Borrowell raised $57 million CAD last year; Vention raised $3.5 million early this year; and Dialogue raised $12 million this year as well. White Star participated in all of these rounds, showing a portfolio diversity as well, considering those three are fintech, commerce and healthcare respectively.
The investor base for this latest fund is deep and spans the globe. Some of the institutional investors include Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Fonds de solidarité FTQ (FSTQ), the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and many more, with a few multinational corporate investors such as Ubisoft and Veolia as well.
Throughout White Star’s investing tenure, their portfolio companies have gone on to raise $650 million in total funding and employ 1,600 people across 20 countries. other companies White Star has invested in include Drop and Gymtrack.
