IT services firm has already invested $10 million CAD in tech firms through its new venture division.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of the biggest tech players in a small Qu\u00e9bec town is getting into the corporate venture capital game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lavaltrie, Que.-based Devolutions, which describes itself as a productivity platform for IT professionals, announced a new venture division on Thursday. Devolutions Ventures is looking to make bets ranging from $500,000 CAD to more than $3 million USD on companies building technologies to meet IT and managed service provider needs, to create a \u201cconnected ecosystem of technologies.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very deep pockets for all kinds of opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very deep pockets for all kinds of opportunities,\u201d Devolutions CEO David Hervieux told BetaKit in an interview (all quotes from Hervieux have been translated from French by BetaKit).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hervieux said Devolutions Ventures will make investments in a few different ways: through simple agreements for future equity, purchases of common shares without voting power, and, for open-source projects, a \u201csponsorship\u201d model to support the developer team behind the project without taking equity. The goal of the venture division is to \u201cgive these products a chance to explode on the market, but also to give them a safety net\u201d by then looking to incorporate that product as a feature in Devolutions\u2019 platform, Hervieux said.<\/p>\n
Devolutions offers password management and remote desktop control, as well as other IT functions. La Presse has descr<\/a>i<\/a>bed<\/a> the 250-person firm as \u201cthe little Qu\u00e9becois Google hiding in Lavaltrie,\u201d a town of roughly 15,000 people northeast of Montr\u00e9al. It has built somewhat of a tech campus, even setting up its own subsidiary construction company to provide lodging for employees and interns.<\/p>\n Hervieux has also been a supporter of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s wider tech scene. He mentored the Laval-based co-founders of two cybersecurity startups\u2014KeepSec Technologies and Vullify\u2014both of which were acquired by Brossard, Que. tech firm Oriso this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Hervieux built Devolutions initially as a solo consultancy in 2004, then turned it into an IT services business in 2010. The company brought in $70 million CAD in revenue this past year and has scaled to more than one million users across 140 countries, all without taking on VC money. \u201cWe don\u2019t need more capital, but we\u2019re ambitious,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a very entrepreneurial vision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: Canada is gaining corporate VCs, but still has \u201ca participation problem,\u201d report finds<\/a><\/p>\n Canada\u2019s corporate VC industry is growing, but deal volume in 2025 dropped by 20 percent year over year, according to a report by Deloitte Ventures<\/a>. The low activity in Canadian corporate VC investment relative to the US has long been a source of concern<\/a> for Canada\u2019s tech industry.<\/p>\n Devolutions has so far made seven investments, acquisitions, and sponsorships as part of this new division, amounting to roughly $10 million, Hervieux said. There isn\u2019t a set amount of money it plans to invest through Devolutions Ventures.<\/p>\n In June, Devolutions invested in Montr\u00e9al performance monitoring platform Obkio; in July, it co-backed AI agent automator Mizo alongside Qu\u00e9bec VC firm Telegraph Ventures. Not all of its targets are Qu\u00e9bec-based companies\u2014a few have been international companies that have created open-source frameworks, like Estonia\u2019s Avalonia UI.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement, Avalonia UI CEO Mike James said the Devolutions team \u201cunderstand[s] our customers, our market and what it takes to build a technology company in this space.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Feature image courtesy Devolutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IT services firm has already invested $10 million CAD in tech firms through its new venture division.
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