Large companies such as TD and Sun Life Back Venture Studio.
As domestic entrepreneurship decreases, and many founders have a desire to move to the United States (USA), Simple enterprises He hopes to return innovations and talent to Canada.
“This is a Canadian mission, but not a Canadian level of ambitions.”
Maintaining famous Canadian technological entrepreneurs and institutions, Simple Ventures was turn around At the beginning of last year, General Director Rachel Zimmer (ex-partner in Entrepreneur First and the co-founder of 5crowd) and chairman Michael Katchen (co-founder and general director of WealthSimple).
“As Canadians, we are doing two things: we remove things from the ground, and then we finance this activity,” Zimmer said in an interview with Betakit. “And if this is the story that we tell our children and our grandchildren, we are on a very terrible trajectory.”
Zimmer said that instead of “sitting on another panel, speaking about the problem”, Simple Ventures seeks to collect the best of Canada-operators and corporate partners to “do something about it”.
Venture Studio, based in Toronto, is aimed at identifying products and services that are not available in Canada, and partners with entrepreneurs and its network of investors launch startups filling these gaps. Since its launch, this mission has become more noticeable among US Trading War, “Buy Canadian” movementand the growing interest in providing both sovereignty And more Home potentialField
To date, limited liability partners (LPS), who have acquired this vision, include the president of Shopify Harley Finkelstein, the founder of Knix and President Joanna Griffiths, co-founder of ADA and general director of Mike Murchison, as well as veterans and investors, Joe Kingan and SAM cables. Other patrons are investors -angels and unsolved family offices, such as a good future (the owner of the majority of Betakit).
They were joined by institutional LP, such as TD Innovation Partners, Sun Life and Sobeys. According to Simple Ventures, LPS is more than $ 750 billion. The United States in the framework of combined market capitalization.
Together they helped simple enterprises close $ 15 million to date for their first fund. The company hopes to get the final closure of 18 to 20 million dollars by the end of 2025.
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For 18 months from the moment of its launch, Simple Ventures has created three new startups: the postnatal departure of Alma Care, the collection of the AI receivables and the luxurious company for the rental of Zero Colleective handbags. The company claims to have created more than 100 jobs throughout the portfolio.
Simple Ventures also has two more enterprises that are currently in Stealth, which plans to launch in the coming months.
Entrepreneurship in Canada was reduced, and many founders came across growing pressure to move to the United States in search of the capital and the support in which they should grow. A 2023 BDC report He found that in Canada there were 100,000 people less than in 2000, despite the fact that the country's population is growing more than 10 million since then.
Meanwhile, a 2024 Statistical analysis of Canada He found that almost a third of the founders of Canadian immigrants move to the United States. Later A survey of leaders funds He determined that each of the two Canadian entrepreneurs prefers to build in the United States and leave the country with an accelerating speed.
“I invested in ordinary enterprises because it fights the largest gap in our economy: the lack of creation of new companies,” the Canavan statement said. “Combining Canadian talents and encouraging them abroad to return and build, Simple Ventures gives our next generation of the founders the resources and support that they need to achieve success.”
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Venturenaya studio model of building startups to solve the ideas of enterprises has is becoming more and more popular in recent years. Other Canadian companies in space include recently launched AxlCarrot enterprises, The diagram of enterprisesHarvest Venture Builders, Highline Beta, R-LabsAnd TandemlaunchAmong others.
According to Zimmer, Simple Ventures is aimed at the possibilities when its LP base can provide a “unfair advantage” portfolio thanks to its know-how and distribution. For investors of the company, key points of sale were access to the flow of transactions at the beginning of the beginning and capabilities of Coinvestment. She said that these LPS can also be a source of business.
Zimmer said that Simple Ventures seeks to build a “Rashmore Mountain” consultants to give each startup of the portfolio the best chances of success. As an example, she referred to Harvest General Matt Khimel, noting that the company connected Himel with two LP, which have deep experience in Fintech at the Wave Castere Kirk Simpson Director General and Hubdoc co -founder Jamie McDonald.
The long -term goal of the Simple Ventures is to build 25 new Canadian enterprises by 2030.
“This is a Canadian mission, but not a Canadian level of ambitions,” Zimmer said.
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