{"id":683432,"date":"2026-05-21T04:37:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/683432\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T04:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:37:21","slug":"power-corp-s-sagard-alternative-asset-manager-launches-150-million-ai-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/683432\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Corp.\u2019s Sagard alternative asset manager launches $150-million AI fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Sagard CEO and chairman Paul Desmarais III at the Wealthsimple office in Toronto in 2020. Sagard\u2019s key holdings include stakes in Wealthsimple, Koho and Nesto.Christopher Katsarov\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Power Corp. of Canada POW-T<\/a> and its two main publicly traded subsidiaries announced a combined US$150-million investment Wednesday in a new fund focused on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Power, along with Great-West Lifeco Inc. and IGM Financial Inc., provided the funding to establish Sagard AI Fund LP. The fund will back AI companies focused on accelerating use of the technology across financial services and other sectors, Power said in a release.<\/p>\n

Evan Kerr has joined Sagard to lead the fund as general partner, after serving as a lead investor with Georgian, the Toronto-based growth capital firm. He follows Parinaz Sobhani, the former head of AI at Georgian, who joined Sagard in a similar role two years ago. <\/p>\n

Mr. Kerr said in a LinkedIn post he is \u201cboth humbled and excited\u201d to take on the new role, adding that the new fund would invest globally \u201cacross the technology stack, remaining stage and sector agnostic, with a focus on helping founders scale by leveraging the network, experience, and global access of Sagard and the Power group of companies.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sagard is Power\u2019s alternative asset management arm and has more than US$46-billion in assets under management in venture capital, private equity, private credit and real estate. Power is controlling shareholder of Sagard, and it has added minority investors in recent years that include Bank of Montreal, Robert W. Baird & Co., Groupe Bruxelles Lambert and Abu Dhabi-based investment company ADQ.<\/p>\n

The Power-controlled unit is led by Paul Desmarais III, son of the conglomerate\u2019s chairman, Paul Desmarais Jr. On his watch, Sagard\u2019s assets under management have ballooned from US$3.6-billion in 2020. Sagard\u2019s goal is to reach US$100-billion in assets under management by 2029.<\/p>\n

Sagard\u2019s key holdings include stakes in Canadian financial technology powerhouses Wealthsimple, Koho and Nesto. Its Denver-based real estate arm and the Caisse de d\u00e9p\u00f4t et placement du Qu\u00e9bec recently teamed up to buy $490-million of industrial outdoor storage properties located near major U.S. ports.<\/p>\n

Sagard has been bulking up with acquisitions, buying Swiss boutique asset manager Unigestion\u2019s private-equity business<\/a> last year. Baird also agreed to distribute Sagard\u2019s products through its U.S. private wealth arm when it bought its 5-per-cent stake in the business last year. <\/p>\n

Sagard\u2019s Portage Ventures earlier this year took over management of Point72 Ventures\u2019 fintech portfolio, comprised of stakes in 40 private companies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Sagard CEO and chairman Paul Desmarais III at the Wealthsimple office in Toronto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-683432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}