Innovacorp, Nova Scotia’s provincial innovation agency, invested a total of $5.9 million in 14 companies in the fiscal year ended March 31, including a previously unannounced $1 million funding of Halifax-based QRA Corp.
The data are contained in the Crown corporation’s accountability report for the 2014-15 fiscal year, which was released a few months ago but has not been reported on. [Full disclosure: Innovacorp is a client of Entrevestor.]
For the most part, the report is a summary of Innovacorp’s activity in the past year, including the venture capital deals it announced during the last fiscal year.
The investment in QRA has not been previously announced as the company is known to be working on a funding round involving several investors, some of whom have not closed yet. A year ago, QRA Co-Founder and CEO Jordan Kyriakidis said he was targeting $4 million in equity and other forms of capital in the current funding round. The Innovacorp statement shows the company has closed on $1 million of the total.
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QRA helps machine manufacturers to detect problems with their designs early in the development process. It grew out of research that Kyriakidis and his team performed at Dalhousie University under a contract for Lockheed-Martin, the world’s largest defence contractor.
QRA is one of two companies to receive $1 million or more from Innovacorp in the 2014-15 fiscal year. The other was Reno-Sub-Systems of Halifax, which received $1.76. The company reportedly closed a total funding last year of $8.5 million led by Intel Capital.
“In addition, in 2014-2015, our portfolio companies generated about $26.3 million in revenues . . . and directly employed about 376 people,” said the report. It added that the employment “resulting in a payroll of roughly $27.4 million (an increase of 7 per cent), most of which was in the form of high-value jobs.”
The other companies that received funding and the amounts they received from Innovacorp are:
Information Technology
Livelenz $390,000
Dash Hudson $350,000
The Rounds $250,000
Proposify $250,000
SupplyStream $250,000
LeadSift $187,000
Life Sciences and Oceans
Spring Loaded Technology $250,000
Ocean Executive $100,000
Performance Genomics $150,000
Clean Technology
TruLeaf $520,000
Cellufuel $250,000
Atlantic Motor Labs $250,000
Innovacorp had invested previously Livelenz and Performance Genomics and decided to make a follow-on investment because the companies had reached certain milestones.
The accountability statement said that these 14 companies attracted $12.7 million in additional funding from other venture capital and private equity investors, mainly based outside Nova Scotia.
Innovacorp’s main fund is the Nova Scotia First Fund, which was financed with a commitment from the province of $25 million a few years ago. The accountability statement said that as of March 31, some $14.19 million had been drawn from the fund. It added that an additional $14.5 million has been committed to the fund, leaving $25.3 million available for investment.
