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About
Real Ventures started as an experiment in whether early-stage venture capital could work in Montreal at all, and became the firm most associated with building that ecosystem. Isaac Souweine, a partner there for six years, told TechTO in March 2020 that the core fund had outgrown its original Quebec-only mandate on the way to becoming a pan-Canadian seed fund — which left its Quebec limited partners, provincial pension funds and the government, without a vehicle aimed at financing inside the province. The answer was a separate $31 million fund for Quebec pre-seed and early seed, roughly a third traditional software, a third applied AI and a third deep tech drawn from Montreal and Quebec university research. That fund also invested through accelerators in what Souweine called the Real Ventures way: FounderFuel, an LP position in Techstars AI Montreal, and Front Row Ventures, the student fund that hands money to students to write $25,000 cheques themselves.
Backers
A venture fund rather than an operating company. Souweine told TechTO that the Quebec-focused fund's limited partners are Quebec pension funds and the provincial government; the core funds' investors are not disclosed in full.
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Quick answers
What does Real Ventures invest in?
Early-stage Canadian technology companies, sector-agnostic within software and technology. Its portfolio includes BenchSci, Xanadu, Transit, dcbel and Zeffy.
Why did it raise a separate Quebec fund?
Because the main fund had gone pan-Canadian. Souweine told TechTO that Real's Quebec limited partners wanted capital committed inside the province, so a $31 million vehicle was spun up for Quebec pre-seed and early seed while the core fund invested nationally.
What is Front Row Ventures?
Real's student fund. Rather than investing directly, it gives money to students who write $25,000 cheques into companies coming out of their own campuses — one of several accelerator-shaped strategies alongside FounderFuel and an LP stake in Techstars AI Montreal.