Inovia Capital has completed a $200-million USD ($282-million CAD) first close of its sixth early-stage venture capital (VC) fund.
The multi-stage, Montréal-based technology investor announced the news today in a LinkedIn post. Returning Inovia limited partners (LPs) like the Business Development Bank of Canada, La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Fondaction, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Investissement Québec, and Teralys Capital supported the first close.
The first close brings Inovia more than halfway to its $325-million USD Fund VI target.
As BetaKit has previously reported, the strategy and size of Fund VI is expected to be “very similar” to its $325-million USD predecessor. It took Inovia six months to reach this $200-million USD mark, which puts the firm more than halfway toward its $325-million USD target for its latest fund, which it hopes to hit by the first quarter of 2027.
Inovia partner Karamdeep Nijjar told BetaKit over email that Fund VI will focus on AI-native startups and emerging frontier technologies across cybersecurity, infrastructure, developer operations, energy, compute, robotics, and quantum.
He said Fund VI is the investment firm’s “first completely AI-native fund where every business from day one is using AI in some way to change the world.”
Nijjar credited Inovia’s progress amid a tough fundraising market to the trust it has built among its LPs “over many years,” and the strength of its platform, which spans discovery, VC, and growth equity.
He also singled out the performance of Inovia’s fifth venture fund, which he claimed has posted top-quartile performance relative to Cambridge Associates and Carta benchmarks thanks to its investments in fast-growing startups like Cohere, Flare, Gaia, and Spellbook, among others.
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Inovia aims to make 15 to 20 core investments out of Fund VI in tech startups from seed to Series A across North America and Europe. Those efforts will be overseen by six partners: Nijjar, Magaly Charbonneau, Shawn Abbott, Kory Jeffrey, Taha Mubashir, and Steve Woods (Jeffrey and Mubashir were promoted to the position last year).
Inovia plans to source opportunities for Fund VI from its Discovery Program for emerging managers, a fund-of-funds initiative it launched a few years ago with a $25-million USD first fund. It is building the next version of that platform with Northleaf Capital Partners. Nijjar declined to share any more details on those plans at this time.
This latest milestone comes a few months after Inovia promoted Mia Morrisset to partner on its growth equity team, which has raised $365 million USD of a planned $450 million for its third such fund. That fund picks up where its VC team stops. These investment vehicles come in addition to a $100-million USD Venture Scientist Fund that Inovia revealed it is co-launching with Québec AI research institute Mila back in early 2026.
This first close of Fund VI brings Inovia’s total assets under management to $2.7 billion USD.
Feature image courtesy Inovia Capital. Photo by Eva Blue.
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