In a bold move to advance Canada’s fintech landscape, a group of prominent Canadian fintech founders with combined exits surpassing $1 billion has launched a new venture capital fund, Exit North Ventures.
This $20 million fund, announced today, is dedicated to supporting early-stage Canadian fintech companies by offering seed investments between $250,000 and $1 million.
Exit North Ventures unites six founders who have successfully launched, scaled, and sold financial services companies across Canada, collectively generating over $1 billion in returns for investors and shareholders while creating thousands of Canadian jobs.
The venture partner team includes Michael Garrity (Financeit), Gary Schwartz (Impact Mobile), Katherine Gregory (Paradigm Quest), Catherine Dahl (Beanworks), Ali Metel (LendCare), and Norm Cappell (SAVVYY).
“We have an opportunity to plant a flag in Canada and help build up the ecosystem here,” said Michael Garrity, founder of Financeit and Venture Partner at Exit North. “The combination of exited founder expertise and the community Tal has built is incredibly powerful.”
Leading Exit North Ventures is General Partner Tal Schwartz, a prominent figure in Canada’s fintech community. Schwartz, known for founding the Canadian Fintech Newsletter and holding a leadership role in the Canadian Lenders Association, has cultivated a community dedicated to innovation within financial services. Originally, Exit North set a modest $5 million funding goal, but market enthusiasm quickly drove them to surpass that target.
“We originally set out to raise a $5 million fund,” Schwartz shared, “but our thesis of building a fund around founders who have already put money back into the pockets of their investors resonated with the market, and we quickly blew past our target.”
Since its inception, the fund has made six notable investments this year, with many portfolio companies gaining the added benefit of a Venture Partner as an advisor. Exit North Ventures focuses on business-facing technologies in lending, insurance, payments, and capital markets, aiming to cultivate Canada’s next wave of fintech success stories.
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