StandUp Ventures

Fertility care in Canada is fragmented, expensive, and hard to access, and Canadian employers are feeling the pressure to offer better support. But to date there has been no scalable, cost-effective solution tailored to our healthcare system. Sprout Family is changing that. We’re so excited and proud to announce our lead investment in their oversubscribed $1.7M pre-seed round alongside MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Blue Collective, Boon Fund, and The51. Led by the truly exceptional Jackie Hanson and Suzanne Mason, CPA, CA, Sprout is bridging the gap between employees, employers, and insurers, while making fertility care more accessible, transparent, and supportive for millions of Canadians. See our investment thesis in the comments ⬇️ #Fertility #Preseed #Fundingnews #Insurtech https://lnkd.in/e57VgXgh

We’re excited to announce Glassbox’s $1.2M USD pre-seed round, led by FinTech Collective and StandUp Ventures, with participation from Watertower Ventures. Glassbox is accelerating deal analysis by bringing AI-driven solutions to corporate finance workflows, enabling faster, more transparent decision-making while maintaining compatibility with Excel. While we’re building for broad applications, we are currently focused on transforming financial analysis in energy, infrastructure, real estate, and natural resources. Join our waitlist to gain early access! (link in the comments)

📢 New Investment Alert! We’re excited to welcome Glassbox to the StandUp Ventures portfolio! 🚀 Built by finance professionals, for finance professionals, Glassbox blends AI, automation, and structured modeling—without forcing teams to abandon the tools they already know. Allison Harris (ex-Wall Street/Princeton-trained financial engineer) and Ian Kennedy (seasoned technical leader), the team has lived this problem firsthand—and are solving it with a fresh, scalable approach. We’re thrilled to have co-led Glassbox's $1.65M pre-seed round alongside FinTech Collective and with participation from LA-based Watertower Ventures. Welcome to the portfolio Allie & Ian!! 🚀 #funding #preseed #fintech #ai #venturecapital https://lnkd.in/eZKh6siA

We're so lucky!

Does investing in women ACTUALLY drive strong returns? 📈👩💼💰 We're on a mission to prove we can build one of the best early stage venture funds ever BY investing in women ✨ and here's how it's going so far ✨ Across our portfolio of two funds we manage nearly $57M = 49 founders across 28 portfolio companies Our first (still young) $21.5M fund of 16 investments now boasts a collective valuation of nearly $1.2 billion — an increase of 4.3x from our initial entry prices, having raised over 50x our initial investment in follow-on capital Two of Canada’s largest Series B's last year (Arteria AI and ODAIA) were in this fund Close to half of the companies have already progressed from seed to Series B and beyond, significantly outperforming industry benchmarks closer to 1 in 6 Since mid-2022, we’ve been deploying capital out of Fund II, of which 4 of the first companies we invested in have already raised 12x our initial invested capital in follow-on And our first ever US-based seed recently announced an oversubscribed $15M USD Series A (Max Retail) I believed in Michelle McBane's thesis when I joined StandUp Ventures 4 years ago, but my conviction has only grown over time We now have offices in Vancouver 🌊 , Toronto 🍁 , and Montreal 🥐 , and have freshly closed oversubscribed and unannounced deals in each of these cities If you invest in the very best founders - your portfolio should be FILLED with women - end of story Thank you to VCCI for recognizing the merit of our work (alongside Pender Ventures, Amplify Capital, Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, TandemLaunch Inc.) with an early commitment to our next fund 🎉 See the inspiring Michelle McBane talk at the announcement this week below #venturecapital #founders #women

Part three of Hard Knocks, presented by Mantle, is out now, featuring Michelle McBane, who breaks down the key lessons she’s learned as an early-stage investor #CDNtech

StandUp Ventures' Founding Partner Michelle McBane has had an incredible career in venture that has spanned over 2 decades! Check out this story and learn how her journey to date inspired the mission for the work we do supporting world-class founders at StandUp Ventures. #venturecapital #women #career https://lnkd.in/effibvMi

Wonderful news for StandUp Ventures portfolio company Max Retail led by the incredible Melodie van der Baan! 🚀 🛍 👚 👔 👗 👠 The company has successfully closed an exciting $15M USD Series A led by Nosara Capital, with participation from Rethink Impact, LP, M13, and The Artemis Fund to continue supporting the profitability of independent retailers! Learn more about our investment thesis below ⬇ #fundingnews #seriesa #retaildata https://lnkd.in/ebyZrWkJ

I am not sure I deserve this, but have to admit I am a bit chuffed to be named to the 100 Most Powerful Canadians for 2024! Thank you, as always, to the incredible Arterians, who are responsible for this happening. Apparently, the Maclean's magazine annual Power List "celebrates the individuals shaping the course of our nation." Tee hee. Mostly, I am just pleased to even be near the same category as AI powerhouses like my friend Patricia Thaine (and of course, the little known folks like Yoshua Bengio, Ilya Sutskever and the Cohere gents). #MacleansPowerList2024 #ai #artificialintelligence #arteria cc. Arteria AI, Abrar Huq, Jonathan Wong, Brent Taylor, John Wallace, Jason Diller, Amir Hajian, Mark Bennewith, Bailey Dougherty, Illuminate Financial, Notable Capital, Citi, Katya Chupryna, CFA, Information Venture Partners, Robert Antoniades, Chelcie Taylor, Jeff Richards, Alexander Ross, Mark Beeston, Guy Cogan, BDC, StandUp Ventures, Golden Ventures