Pelorus Venture Capital and the Venture NL Fund took centre stage at the 2026 NACO Summit on Wednesday, drawing applause for funding successful ventures, returning money to shareholders and attracting more capital.

Pelorus Founding Partner Chris Moyer was featured Wednesday in the first fireside chat at the National Angel Capital Organization’s annual get-together in Ottawa. Joined by NACO CEO Claudio Rojas, Moyer told how his group grew from a single $14 million fund in 2015 to now being on the verge of closing its third fund, worth $50 million. Its portfolio companies include CoLab Software and Spellbook, which together raised US$120 million last year.

NACO represents more than 4,000 angel investors, and Moyer noted that one of the strengths of the Venture NL model is that it draws capital from angel investors as limited partners. Many of these private investors decide to become angels in the companies that Pelorus backs, ramping up the support for Newfoundland and Labrador startups.

“These angels are a key for us,” Moyer told the session. “They invest in us and they invest alongside us, and that has become a real strength in Newfoundland.”

The story began in 2015 when Daryl Genge – then a civil servant in the provincial economic development department and now the CEO of Springboard Atlantic – began discussing how Newfoundland and Labrador could address the lack of early-stage funding in the province. He didn’t want a Crown corporation or government department investing directly in companies, said Moyer.

The provincial government decided to become a limited partner in a new fund, the Venture NL Fund, and put up $10 million, asking for other investors. Local angels and the Business Development Bank of Canada came in with a further $4 million and Pelorus was hired to manage the $14 million fund.

That fund invested in some great companies, like Spellbook and CoLab, and in 2025, it returned $21 million to investors – or $1.50 for every dollar invested. Not only that, the remaining companies in that first fund are worth $50 million today, said Moyer.

Pelorus has since raised a second Venture NL fund, with a value of $26 million and is nearing the close of Venture NL III with a value of $50 million – some $15 million of which is coming from the provincial government. Moyer noted that the NL government has increased its commitment with each new fund, but claimed a smaller percentage of each subsequent fund because the private investment keeps growing.

Rojas said the Venture NL model could and should be repeated in a lot of smaller markets across Canada, and he mentioned Yukon and Victoria, B.C., as markets that would be well suited to its blend of government and private funding.

“This shouldn’t be news,” said Rojas, referring to the success of the Venture NL program. “It’s a loss to the country that it is news.”