This is the sixth in a series of articles in our special report on alternative investments in Canada. To see all the articles, click here.
Western Canada has been a key driver of Canada’s emerging venture capital economy, with Calgary standing out as a centre of innovation activity. Whether focused on the agrifood or energy technology sectors or on women-led ventures, managing partners of emerging funds say it is an exciting time to be investing and partnering with founders across Canada and around the world to drive success for companies and investors.
Ahead of Invest Canada ’25, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s (CVCA) annual conference being held in the city May 27-29, three Calgary-based funds spoke with Canadian Family Offices to discuss new trends, how they approach investing as a true partnership, and why they’re optimistic about the future.
Tall Grass Ventures
From deglobalization to climate change, the agriculture sector is at the centre of broad macro trends that have been building over time—and global populations are starting to feel the impact.
For Tall Grass Ventures, looking beyond farming tech to the broader universe of technologies impacting global agriculture and food—from the molecule all the way to the calorie—opens exciting opportunities to invest in innovative solutions worldwide.
“You’re roughly, plus or minus, a third of the global economy when you think about processing, logistics, all the finance and support that goes with it, as well as primary production, commodities, brokerage and then the upstream manufacturing,” says managing partner Wilson Acton.
Acton’s firm is seeing startups developing interesting opportunities at the intersection of fintech and agriculture. In other cases, companies are taking sustainable chemistry approaches to crop protection or food preservation ingredients or using agriculture as feedstocks for advanced materials like bioepoxy resins or aviation fuels.
With a deep history in both business and agriculture, from fifth generation farming to M&A law, private equity turnarounds and scaling and selling startups, Acton and his team spend a lot of time on due diligence, looking for highly scalable businesses with the potential to generate outsized returns.
But they drive additional value through collaboration and true partnership—ultimately helping management teams build great businesses.
Indeed, a great fit occurs when founders see Tall Grass as a strategic asset, not just a source of capital, much like a high-performance coach working with a star athlete.
“We want management to see a dollar of investment from Tall Grass to be greater than a dollar worth of value, and by a wide margin,” says Acton.
This approach, he says, extends to finding synergies between each of the portfolio companies, encouraging founders to collaborate and act as a support network for one another.
“Nobody’s got the market cornered on good ideas,” Acton explains. “And so, we can all do better by approaching things with a growth mindset and being curious and exploring and working together.”
While Tall Grass is identifying opportunities around the world, Calgary is home. With an inherent entrepreneurial spirit, the city’s move to build out a technology startup ecosystem should come as no surprise.
“The culture, the mindset, the infrastructure, from advisors to just the willingness to talk about and take risk, is something that’s very much baked in the city,” he says.
The51
With its roots in Calgary and 32 investments in pre-seed and seed companies in its funds I and II across Canada, The51 is not just deploying capital, but actively reshaping who holds it, who allocates it and who benefits from it.
“If we think about a resilient innovation economy, it’s not just diversified by industry—it’s diversified by who participates in it,” says managing partner Lauren Robinson. “And at The51, we’re building that future from both sides of the table.”
That involves backing women-led founders who are building high-performing, category-defining businesses, she says, but also engaging a broader set of investors, including a collective of limited partner (LP) investors that is composed of more than 90 per cent women.
“Our community and network of limited partners includes a growing number of women who are experienced and first-time investors, alongside institutional funds,” she says. “We really believe that this approach helps democratize access to venture returns and builds a greater impact.”
By operating as both a venture firm and a financial ecosystem—a combination of capital, community and education—The51 provides women-led companies with commercialization support, coaching, a values-aligned influential network and national visibility, which drives value for both investors and founders.
Canadian Family Offices wants your input
Help us better understand how investors like you are thinking about alternative assets in 2025. Take our quick Alternative Investments Survey — it only takes 2 minutes, and your insights will help shape our upcoming coverage.
With a focus on early-stage founders who are committed to collaboration and are building high-growth companies with a deep customer understanding, Robinson and her team are increasingly seeing interesting investment opportunities at the intersection of health, wellness and longevity, infrastructure for the future of wealth, fintech and the future of work.
Artificial intelligence, she says, has also become a major catalyst across all sectors, with founders leveraging AI to compress product development timelines, reduce operating costs and more efficiently scale customer acquisition.
“These founders are tackling important problems with scalable, commercially strong solutions,” she says. “There is a real market opportunity that we see towards the future and are really excited about this moment particularly.”
PillarFour Capital
Canada has always been an innovation hub for energy technology, and with demand for traditional oil and gas products continuing, Calgary and London, UK-based PillarFour Capital sees a key opportunity to invest in and scale private energy technology companies developing sustainable solutions focused on the production segment of the oilfield.
“There’s still a strong desire within the space for new technologies that can improve efficiencies and reduce costs for operators,” says Matt Colucci, managing partner. “I think right now, the energy technology market is ripe for opportunities at very attractive valuations.”
Launched in 2016, PillarFour is currently raising its third fund, focusing on companies with low capital-intensive businesses and unique, commercialized technologies that reduce carbon intensity in the oilfield and are scalable into multiple geographies.
“A lot of the companies that we’ve invested in have grown outside of Canada and/or are based in the U.S. or internationally, and we have assisted to move their products or services into the Canadian market,” he says. “We find that it’s a successful strategy to scale an energy technology-focused business.”
Colucci describes PillarFour as a later-stage venture capital/early-stage private equity fund, as the companies they partner with have a consistent track record. That typically means having commercialized technologies in place and generating between $10 and $50 million of revenue before the fund makes an investment.
Having the chance to see what the margins or customer profile look like before investing can significantly take some technology adoption risk out of the equation, he adds.
In addition to focusing on the success of a company’s technology, Colucci says the biggest factor in assessing a potential deal is knowing they can align with the management team to execute on their collective strategic vision.
Once that alignment is established, he says, the PillarFour team provides guidance and expertise to help them scale and achieve greater success.
“A lot of the companies that we partner with don’t actually realize the potential of their business or technology,” Colucci explains. “Accelerated growth or entering unfamiliar international markets can feel overwhelming without the right support and relationships.
“Partnering with us, I think a lot of the management teams feel comfortable, given our track record, that we can help grow these businesses and, in doing so, generate outsized returns for our investors.”
Please visit here to see information about our standards of journalistic excellence.