Tech Archives - InBC Investment Corp

InBC Invests in ThoughtExchange

inbc_admin — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 16:19:00 +0000

InBC is excited to announce our investment into ThoughtExchange, an AI-accelerated engagement and survey experience platform helping organizations to improve decision-making. We invested $7.5 million alongside other investors.

ThoughtExchange combines deep artificial intelligence capabilities with proprietary survey methods to bridge the gap between data and actionable solutions. Designed for respondents to feel comfortable answering questions candidly and deeply, ThoughtExchange is enabling employees to feel heard and valued, communities to listen to diverse perspectives and leaders to build people’s voices into their decision-making.

“It is awesome to have an investor that understands that inclusion and business success are not in opposition and are, instead, correlated directly. Our mission is to accelerate change by including people in solving problems that affect them and as a B.C.-based company with headquarters in Rossland, B.C. in the Kootenay region, we are more than thrilled to be partnering with a strategic fund that aligns with our mandate and can foster our growth.”
— Dave MacLeod, Co-Founder & CEO, ThoughtExchange

Organizations are using ThoughtExchange to engage in thoughtful discussion, listening, and understanding of even the most complex topics. School districts across North America are using the platform to identify where investment is needed, putting money back into the classroom. Communities such as Simpcw First Nation are using it to consult members living on and off their territory on self-governance initiatives. Enterprises such as SAP and Vancouver Island’s Coastal Credit Union are accessing diverse voices and extracting collective intelligence across their organizations to help achieve their goals.

In addition to the potential for financial returns and benefits to B.C., this investment aligns with our impact objectives to innovate for the future and elevate inclusive communities.

Read the Press Release

See InBC’s portfolio

Are you an innovative company generating economic, social or environmental impacts for B.C. and looking for an equity investment to support your scale up? InBC is investing alongside other investors in companies raising a Series A or later round. Learn more about our investment objectives and consider us as an investor here.

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InBC Announces New Investments into B.C.-based Companies

inbc_admin — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 17:53:00 +0000

We are excited to share our recent investments into a few B.C.-based companies that are driving innovation, creating quality jobs and generating impact in the province. In addition to the potential for financial returns and benefits to British Columbia, these investments align with our impact objectives to innovate for the future and elevate inclusive communities.

To continue growing our investing capacity and the number of investors in the province, we have also invested into additional venture funds. These funds are committed to investing in B.C.-based companies and specialize in specific sectors to support companies across various stages of growth in their respective industries.

4AG Robotics

InBC has invested $4 million into 4AG Robotics, an agritech company which develops and builds leading robotics solutions for agriculture producers to grow sustainably. 4AG’s harvesting robot is helping mushroom farmers to improve their yields and increase operational efficiencies, while addressing labour challenges and reducing food waste in the agriculture sector. Learn more

Clarius Mobile Health

InBC has invested $5 million into Clarius Mobile Health Corp., producers of wireless handheld ultrasound scanners enabling healthcare practitioners to manage and perform exams from anywhere. Clarius is improving patient outcomes and accessibility to care with scanners that are affordable, ultra-portable and using artificial intelligence to deliver accurate and high-definition imaging. Learn more

Amplitude Ventures

InBC has invested $10 million into Amplitude Ventures Fund II, a venture fund that will invest in life sciences and biotechnology companies, bringing healthcare innovations to market to help improve the lives of patients. Amplitude’s Fund II will invest in early-stage companies in the areas of high-value therapies, medical technology, and artificial intelligence and machine learning. Learn more

Pender Ventures

InBC has invested $10 million into the Pender Technology Inflection Fund II, a venture fund investing in healthtech and B2B technology startups to drive efficiencies and improve clinical decision-making, patient outcomes and healthcare operations. Pender’s Fund II is focusing on companies at the growth stages between commercialization and scale up. Learn more

InBC’s investments are working in parallel with the province’s Stronger BC Economic Plan to accomplish inclusive and clean growth over the long term, including the strategic growth of sectors playing a significant role in the B.C. economy, such as agritech, life sciences and biomanufacturing. These investments are driving innovation, creating quality jobs, increasing research and development spend, and retaining intellectual property in the province.

We are currently investing in growing, innovative companies looking for an equity investment. Are you a company fundraising a Series A or later round? Consider InBC as an investor by learning more and expressing your interest here.

See InBC’s Portfolio

Read the press release

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Impact Spotlight: Evok Innovations & Yaletown Partners

inbc_admin — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 19:52:00 +0000

InBC invests in companies and venture funds with strong connections to British Columbia (B.C.). After the launch of our Investment Policy Statement, we began investing in venture funds to effectively reach a broad range of companies at different stages of growth, leverage the sector expertise of existing fund managers and increase the number of investors in the province who can provide capital to businesses.

Since our first investments, the funds in our portfolio have been actively sourcing and investing in B.C.-based companies that are driving innovation, creating quality jobs and generating measurable impact. We are excited to profile some of the companies two of our portfolio funds, Evok Innovations and Yaletown Partners, have invested in.

Evok Innovations

Driven by the global momentum towards a net-zero future, Evok Innovations is investing in technologies that are accelerating the energy sector’s transition to clean energy. InBC invested $10 million in Evok Innovation’s Fund II, aligning with our impact objective to drive climate action.

Learn more about Evok Innovations and the companies they invest in with their 2022 Impact Report.

Evok Innovations participated in MineSense’s Series E funding round which closed at $42 million. MineSense is a pioneer in smart mining solutions allowing the mining industry to deliver more metals with less impact on the environment.

In 2017, MineSense partnered with B.C.-based Teck Resources in a successful trial of its signature solution, ShovelSense, a robust sensor installed on mining equipment that instantly and accurately characterizes ore mined with each bucket. This real-time visibility into the orebody improves grade control and ore recovery, and reduces power, reagent and water consumption. Along with its complementary product, BeltSense, which is installed at the plant, MineSense is optimizing the entire mining process. Its technologies have been adopted by both major mines in B.C. and some of the largest copper mines in South America.

MineSense’s Series E funding is being used to accelerate its commercial growth and its expansion into additional types of critical metals. Its technology is enabling the mining industry to maximize ore recovery, enhance efficiencies and reduce the carbon intensity of their operations. It is supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy by improving access to sustainably mined minerals needed for electrification, energy generation and storage components.

MineSense is expanding locally and globally. The company will relocate its B.C. headquarters to a new 32,000-square-foot space in Vancouver in the fall and opened a regional headquarter in Chile this April. As a proud contributor and collaborator in the B.C. technology ecosystem, its growing team, which includes top data scientists, data engineers, geoscientists and software engineers, is creating opportunities for high technology jobs in B.C.

MineSense’s growth and innovation are well recognized, including by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) as one of Canada’s Sustainability Changemakers for 2023, the 2023 BC Export Awards in the Natural Resources category, Deloitte in its 2022 Technology Fast 50 TM list and Cleantech Group’s 2022 Global Cleantech 100 which lists the top global innovators across 20 countries. More recently, it is a finalist in BC Tech’s 2023 Technology Impact Awards.

Visit MineSense

Yaletown Partners

Yaletown Partners invests in the Intelligent Industry of companies using the application of data and technology to digitally transform and modernize industries. InBC invested $10 million in Yaletown Innovation Growth Fund II, aligning with our impact objective to innovate for the future.

Yaletown Partners led Zenhub’s Series A funding round which raised $10 million. Zenhub is a leading project management platform enabling software teams to become more efficient through agile automations. With Zenhub, development teams can manage projects entirely in GitHub. The platform facilitates team collaboration and gives stakeholders both internally and externally visibility into project progress.

Zenhub’s Series A funding is being used to expand its platform to give non-technical users access to create issues, tasks and track projects. As non-technical users are increasingly becoming involved in the development process, this expansion is making Zenhub approachable to more employees and bringing its productivity solutions beyond technical teams. Organizations are benefitting from the enhanced security, cost savings and improved collaboration.

Zenhub is certified as a Great Place to Work® by Great Place to Work® Institute Canada. Recently, the company published a Software Developer Happiness Report from a survey of 380 developers around the world.

Visit Zenhub

Yaletown Partners participated in Inverted AI’s seed funding round which closed at $1.4 million. A spinout from UBC’s Creative Destruction Lab, Inverted AI is a research and product company using deep learning and generative AI to predict the behaviour of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, for companies developing self-driving vehicles.

Inverted AI builds AI agents known as non-playable characters (NPC) that behave like humans and simulate real driving behaviour, including the irrational human element, based on learning from massive quantities of video data. Its simulated environments are statistically accurate, with human-like NPCs that are reactive, realistic and diverse. By minimizing the amount of programing and replay required to validate and train autonomous vehicles, Inverted AI is accelerating the development of self-driving cars and advanced driver-assistance systems.

Inverted AI was recently highlighted by Business in Vancouver (BIV) in its feature on B.C. companies using machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Visit Inverted AI

InBC is investing in companies and venture funds to generate financial returns alongside measurable economic, social and environmental impacts. Are you an innovative company or fund with strong connections to B.C. and seeking investment to support your growth? Learn more about our investment criteria and impact objectives and consider submitting your information through our website to be reviewed by our investment team.

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InBC Announces First Investments

Eva Zhu — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:33:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce our first investments, starting with venture capital funds that have strong connections to B.C. and are aligned with our impact objectives to drive climate action, advance reconciliation and innovate for the future. Our investments into these funds build on their momentum to support entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of their industries.

Evok Innovations invests in technologies that are accelerating the energy sector’s transition to clean energy and the transition towards a net zero future. It is focusing on next-generation technologies, ranging from hydrogen to carbon-to-value and long-duration energy storage. Learn more

Raven Indigenous Capital Partners is the only Indigenous-owned and led impact investment firm on Turtle Island (North America) and invests to revitalize the Indigenous economy. It is investing in innovative, scalable and purpose-driven Indigenous enterprises. Learn more

Yaletown Partners invests in the “Intelligent Industry” of technology companies that are working to digitally transform traditional industries. It is investing in technologies that enable industries to increase their operational efficiencies, ranging from artificial intelligence to software-defined systems. Learn more

InBC’s investment per fund aligns with the portfolio concentrations outlined in our Investment Policy Statement. For specific dollar amounts, we are respecting each fund’s communications plan for when they are ready to publicly announce.

These are just the beginning of the investments that InBC will be making. We continue to assess investment opportunities into funds, and in the spring will launch our program for investing directly into businesses. Due to the volume of applications, we are processing submissions on an ongoing basis. Learn more about our criteria

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