Canada's Kensington Capital fills C$300 million venture fund

By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO, March 3 (Reuters) - Canadian wealth managers,
foundations and individuals helped fill Kensington Capital
Partners' C$300 million ($223.3 million) venture capital fund 16
months after it was launched, the Toronto-based investment firm
said.
The Kensington Venture Fund opened in November 2014 with
C$160 million in commitments, one of several vehicles set up by
Canada's former Conservative government to breathe life into the
venture capital sector.
With the government committing to provide one-third of the
cash, Kensington had a target of C$300 million in investments.
It ended up with C$306 million.
The fund's manager said recent Canadian tech success stories
such as Shopify Inc SH.TO , which went public last year, have
helped bring new investors to the industry. He said potential
investments in the western province of British Columbia were
particularly enticing.
"In B.C. we are finding very strong opportunities ... it is
a very attractive market right now," Rick Nathan, a Kensington
managing director, said in a telephone interview.
He added that the tech cycle kicked off by the arrival of
Apple Inc's AAPL.O iPhone in 2007 and now incorporating
booming use of mobile devices, social networks and other
Internet-enabled services offers several more years of upside.
"This cycle is very strong and in my opinion it still has a
long way to go," he said.
The new investors, which Kensington did not name, join early
institutional and corporate backers Richardson GMP, Open Text
Corp OTC.TO , Royal Bank of Canada RY.TO , Bank of Montreal
BMO.TO , CIBC CM.TO , Toronto-Dominion Bank TD.TO , and Bank
of Nova Scotia BNS.TO .
"We're investing in companies with real products in the
market with real customers, typically with revenues from a few
million dollars to C$40-C$50 million," Nathan said, adding that
roughly half of the fund has so far been invested.
That includes the backing of content provider Blue Ant
Media, investment curator Brightspark, retailer marketplace
Hubba and point-of-sale software provider TouchBistro.
($1 = 1.3435 Canadian dollars)