{"id":531,"date":"2014-11-03T12:39:25","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T17:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agency.theme.to\/vc\/ivp01\/?p=531"},"modified":"2014-11-03T12:39:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T17:39:25","slug":"new-venture-firm-debuts-in-canada-information-venture-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informationvp.com\/new-venture-firm-debuts-in-canada-information-venture-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"New venture firm debuts in Canada: Information Venture Partners"},"content":{"rendered":"

For several months, the rumour mill has been buzzing with speculation that RBC Venture Partners<\/strong>\u2019 principals Robert Antoniades<\/strong> andDavid Unsworth<\/strong> were on the cusp of launching a new partnership. I perhaps added to the market noise when I flagged this prospect in a June article<\/a> about RBC portfolio company Verafin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Well, it has finally happened. In an exclusive interview with peHUB Canada<\/em>, Antoniades and Unsworth reported that in early October they completed a management buyout (MBO) of RBC Venture Partners\u2019 investment portfolio, previously owned by the Royal Bank of Canada<\/strong>. They declined to disclose\u00a0the financial terms.<\/p>\n

The MBO, which was supported by a group of co-investors, has laid the groundwork for\u00a0a brand new Canadian venture capital firm: Information Venture Partners<\/strong>. Antoniades and Unsworth said the acquired portfolio has effectively become Fund I of the new firm. Capital for future follow-on rounds involving the remaining six companies has been provided by the co-investment partners.<\/p>\n

But that is not the end of the story. Co-investors in the MBO and additional LPs, most of them Canadian and U.S.-based institutional investors, have also made capital commitments to a second fund, Information Venture Partners Fund II<\/strong>. These commitments account for roughly half of Fund II\u2019s $100 million target, Antoniades and Unsworth said. The goal is to close Fund II by\u00a0mid-2015.<\/p>\n

Fund II will continue\u00a0the focus\u00a0on leading or co-leading Series A, Series B or later-stage investments in software and services for enterprise, financial and analytics applications. That includes a long-standing area of specialization: financial technology.<\/p>\n

The financial technology\u00a0sector has raised large amounts of VC and private equity of late. One study<\/a> pointed to 2013 as a record-breaking year for fintech dealmaking, with close to US$3 billion invested worldwide.<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s, Newfoundland-based Verafin, a fraud detection technology platform, is an example of the kind of fintech investments made by Antoniades and Unsworth they plan to continue making in the new venture. This year, Verafin secured<\/a> $60 million in a Series C financing led by Spectrum Equity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Information Ventures Partners also will\u00a0focus on enterprise software, another of the principals\u2019 specializations. \u201cWhether it is enterprise software or fintech, we are interested in North American companies that can sell into SME or large corporate buyers,\u201d Antoniades said.<\/p>\n

Antoniades and Unsworth spent more than 10 years investing together at RBC Venture Partners. In this period, they also completed a dozen liquidity events. In their most recent exit<\/a>, announced a couple of weeks ago, Placemark Investments<\/strong>, a U.S. developer of unified managed accounts programs for financial institutions, was sold to Envestnet<\/strong> for US$66 million.<\/p>\n

The principals did not disclose any details concerning their returns performance, about which they are clearly proud: \u201cThe track record was good enough to attract two major North American institutional LPs,\u201d said Antoniades.<\/p>\n

Concurrent with the launch of Information Ventures\u00a0Partners, Antoniades and Unsworth welcomed a third member to their team: Kerri Golden<\/strong>. Currently a general partner at JOLT Fund LP<\/strong>, and before then a managing partner at Primaxis Technology Ventures<\/strong>, Golden will serve as the new firm\u2019s CFO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In an exclusive interview with peHUB Canada, Antoniades and Unsworth reported that in early October they completed a management buyout (MBO) of RBC Venture Partners\u2019 investment portfolio, previously owned by the Royal Bank of Canada. “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[26,23],"yoast_head":"\nNew venture firm debuts in Canada: Information Venture Partners - Information Venture Partners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/informationvp.com\/new-venture-firm-debuts-in-canada-information-venture-partners\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New venture firm debuts in Canada: Information Venture Partners - Information Venture Partners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""In an exclusive interview with peHUB Canada, Antoniades and Unsworth reported that in early October they completed a management buyout (MBO) of RBC Venture Partners\u2019 investment portfolio, previously owned by the Royal Bank of Canada. 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