Isabelle Hudon
“For us at BDC, it is important to translate our commitment to sustainability into tangible and impactful initiatives,” said Isabelle Hudon, President and CEO of BDC. “Innovation is imperative to speed the transition to net-zero, as much as it can spur the growth of our economy. With the new fund, we have an immense opportunity to ensure that Canadian start-ups have access to the capital they need to compete and drive meaningful impact to Canada’s journey to reach net-zero and meet its sustainability targets.”
“Climate and environmental sustainability will require trillions of dollars of investment globally over the coming years and forging our net-zero future will only be achieved by building a more coordinated approach. We need every actor’s expertise, know-how and resources aligned and in motion,” said Jérôme Nycz, Executive Vice President at BDC Capital. “This new fund allows us to help cultivate a nascent industry in Canada which has tremendous market potential globally, providing innovative solutions to operationalize resiliency and sustainability in an evolving world economy.”
Led by Joseph Regan, current Managing Partner of BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, this new Fund will be dedicated to making equity investments in sustainability-oriented businesses with SaaS, hardware-enabled software, and software-led business models. It will invest in seed to Series A and B, highly scalable and economically durable Canadian companies that are creating sustainability-enhancing technology systems, with light capital requirements over time, said BDC.
This new Fund complements BDC Capital’s existing $400-million Climate Tech Fund II, which offers equity investment and flexible financing for clean and climate tech firms with higher, more intensive capital needs and those that are building technologies demonstrating material GHG emission reduction potential. With these two funds, the Bank now offers solutions broadly encompassing the entire spectrum of capital needs for technology firms oriented toward the net-zero transition, it said.
“Sustainability technologies will be at the forefront of innovation all around the world. Over the coming decades, we will witness an acceleration of adoption across sectors and industries,” said Regan. He added “It is a privilege to be working to ensure Canadian innovators have the capital they need to develop and commercialize world-class technologies that have the potential to tackle the most urgent challenges of our time.”
(Mario Toneguzzi is Managing Editor of Canada’s Podcast. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald, covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He works as well as a freelance writer for several national publications and as a consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named in 2021 as one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the World by PR News – the only Canadian to make the list)
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