StandUp Ventures is a venture capital fund investing in pre-seed and seed stage technology companies across Canada and the US, launched by Toronto-based Michelle McBane in 2017. It was created with a simple premise: there is an untapped competitive advantage in backing women-founded and women-led companies.
“The concept of StandUp was to show you can achieve better rates of return investing with a gender lens, because you’re getting a broader population to the table,” says McBane “There’s not enough capital going to women-led ventures, which is fundamentally an issue, but also we believe diverse leadership will build more diverse teams.”
StandUp is thrilled to announce a new addition to their leadership team: VC-veteran Meredith Powell who most recently served seven years with a top tier Seattle-based fund. As an exited serial entrepreneur and previous Global CMO at Microsoft for Startups, she shares a deep passion for builders and a drive to dig deep, roll up her sleeves, and do the work.
Powell says, “Standup Ventures has a reputation for setting a high bar, for deep integrity, and for using their unique approach to fund the most ambitious founders in Canada and the US. I’ve long been inspired by what they are building and could not be more excited to join the team for this next phase of growth.”
Katheleen Eva, who joined StandUp as the fund’s first full-time investment analyst 4 years ago, has been promoted to Senior Associate.
“I’m proud to be exactly the kind of partner I would have wanted as a young, ambitious founder who aimed to change the world.” shares Montreal-based Eva.
With these additions, StandUp now boasts feet on the ground in Canada’s largest tech hubs — Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. The team also newly has closed three as-yet unannounced deals, one in each of these cities.
StandUp has expanded their opportunity geography to include the fund’s first ever US-based seed stage investment into Florida-based Max Retail. Max Retail recently closed a $15m usd Series A where StandUp once again participated, co-investing with leading funds Nosara Capital, Artemis Fund, ReThink Impact and M13.
StandUp’s Fund 1 and Fund 2 ($56.5M AUM) have invested in 44 exceptional founders to date across 28 software ventures. Their inaugural $21M fund of 16 investments now boasts a collective valuation of nearly $1.2B — an impressive 4.5x increase from initial entry prices, having raised over 50x their initial investment in follow-on capital. Two of Canada’s largest Series Bs last year (Arteria AI and Odaia) were in this portfolio. Additionally, over half of the companies in this fund progressed from seed to Series B and beyond, significantly outperforming the industry benchmark of 1 in 6.
Since mid-2022, StandUp Ventures has been deploying capital out of Fund 2, of which four of the funded companies already have raised 12x the initial invested capital in follow-on commitments. The team successfully secured VCCI Inclusive Capital funding on July 30th to support the growth of Standup’s returns-focused franchise strategy.