{"id":265161,"date":"2026-01-26T19:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T19:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/265161\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T19:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T19:06:07","slug":"st-johns-venture-capital-firm-pelorus-doubles-down-on-homegrown-tech-startups-after-big-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/265161\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John\u2019s venture capital firm Pelorus doubles down on homegrown tech startups after big wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

CoLab chief technology officer Jeremy Andres, left, and CEO Adam Keating. Venture Newfoundland and Labrador LP’s early investment in the company has made it one of North America\u2019s best-performing venture capital funds.Supplied<\/p>\n

Expectations weren\u2019t high when the Newfoundland and Labrador government committed $10-million in 2014 to a new venture capital fund that would finance homegrown tech startups. St. John\u2019s was barely noticed as a tech hub. Other than the Business Development Bank of Canada, which kicked in another $2-million, just nine investors put up a further $2-million combined, despite the lure of a 30-per-cent tax credit.<\/p>\n

One of them, Shopify angel investor, philanthropist and part-time Newfoundland resident John Phillips, saw his $1-million investment as more of a \u201csocial ecosystem support\u201d effort to help \u201ca small out-of-the-way place, with an expectation we were not going to make any money,\u201d he said in an interview. <\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s has since emerged as one of the country\u2019s most fertile small-city startup centres \u2013 and the fund, Venture Newfoundland and Labrador LP, or VNLI, is one of North America\u2019s best-performing venture capital investment vehicles of its vintage, due to its early support of two of Canada\u2019s hottest startups, CoLab AI Inc. and Spellbook.<\/p>\n

Cash from away: CoLab raises $72-million as hot St. John\u2019s tech scene draws global investors<\/a><\/p>\n

VNLI, managed by St. John\u2019s-based Pelorus Venture Capital Ltd., has already repaid investors $21-million \u2013 or $1.50 for every $1 they put into the fund. It sits on a further $40-million-plus worth of investments and has generated an average net internal rate of return of 24 per cent.<\/p>\n

Its second, a $26-million fund, anchored with $13-million from the province, launched at the 2021 tech market peak. It has generated an 11-per-cent average annual return to date, putting it in the top quartile of that year\u2019s funds.<\/p>\n

Now, as St. John\u2019s companies attract global attention, Pelorus is doubling down. On Monday, Pelorus said it has secured $20-million for its third fund, VNLIII, with $15-million from the province and $5-million from Mr. Phillips\u2019 investment company, Klister Credit Corp. The goal is to reach $50-million and \u201cwe\u2019re quite confident that number will be achieved,\u201d said Pelorus managing partner Chris Moyer, who is based in Windsor, N.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor more than a decade, Pelorus has shown how early investment can help local companies grow, create good jobs, and attract new investment to our province,\u201d said Lin Paddock, Newfoundland and Labrador\u2019s Minister of Jobs, Growth and Rural Development, in a release. The new fund \u201cmarks an important step forward for our technology sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the larger target fund size, the mandate of Pelorus \u2013 named for a marine navigation instrument that helps vessels maintain their bearings \u2013 has not changed, said Mr. Moyer. The fund will aim to make 10 to 15 pre-seed-stage investments in fledgling companies in the province, providing $500,000 to $1-million apiece initially, with more set aside than in past funds for follow-on rounds.<\/p>\n

And while the province has kicked in more with each fund, its share of the capital has gone down \u2013 assuming Pelorus hits its goal \u2013 to 30 per cent in Fund III from 71 per cent in the first fund.<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s benefits from a few favourable attributes for startups. The small, tight-knit city is home to Memorial University and locals have shown a desire to stay or come back home to build their companies. That includes CoLab<\/a>, which sells a cloud-based platform for engineers to help manage collaborative projects. Co-founders Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews returned home to build CoLab after doing co-op placements with U.S. innovators including Tesla Inc.<\/p>\n

The provincial government has steadily supported startups, and another prominent local financier \u2013 Mark Dobbin\u2019s Killick Capital \u2013 has contributed investments as well. Startups must start out thinking globally, because of the province\u2019s remoteness and small population.<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s has also produced a huge winner that inspired other local entrepreneurs: fraud detection software maker Verafin Inc., which was bought by Nasdaq Inc. in 2020 for US$2.75-billion. Investors from away in Spellbook and CoLab include Silicon Valley-based Khosla Ventures and Intrepid Growth Partners, co-founded by ex-Canada Pension Plan Investment Board CEO Mark Machin. <\/p>\n

Mr. Moyer compared the province to Estonia, the small, former Soviet republic that has produced 10 tech ventures valued at US$1-billion or more, including Skype.<\/p>\n

Seven tech firms joined Canada\u2019s $100-million club in 2025 \u2013 and 2026 could bring even more<\/a><\/p>\n

Pelorus was created at the behest of a provincial government bureaucrat who encouraged the principals of the labour-sponsored GrowthWorks Atlantic Venture Fund \u2013 including Mr. Moyer \u2013 to create a new fund. The timing was good; GrowthWorks Atlantic was beginning to liquidate its portfolio and later wound down.<\/p>\n

Mr. Moyer said others cautioned him early on that Verafin was a one-off success. \u201cWell, CoLab and Spellbook have proven that wrong,\u201d he said, noting that two or three of the 16 companies Pelorus has backed are looking to raise follow-on capital this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe companies keep on coming\u201d and Pelorus doesn\u2019t fund them just because they are local, he said. \u201cWe are going to fund companies like they\u2019re anywhere else, we\u2019re going to treat them like they\u2019re anywhere else, we\u2019ll treat valuations like they\u2019re anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Mr. Phillips, who has co-invested in three Pelorus startups, agreed.<\/p>\n

Other companies in the Pelorus portfolio include Mantle, a platform for managing revenue for Shopify app developers founded by ex-Shopify employees from Newfoundland, smart thermometer maker Mysa and Sparrow BioAcoustics, whose technology turns smartphones into stethoscope replacements.<\/p>\n

Mr. Keating, of CoLab, in an e-mail called Pelorus \u201cone of our strongest supporters and a critical resource for us to lean on when making big decisions. They are almost like having another founder at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: CoLab chief technology officer Jeremy Andres, left, and CEO Adam Keating. Venture Newfoundland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[72,191,61,60,53841],"class_list":{"0":"post-265161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-nodelphi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}