- TechTO
- Posts
- What three Canadian VCs actually back
What three Canadian VCs actually back
Hint: it's not your idea. Plus Float's $85M and a new customer feedback booth for founders on July 6.
You are receiving the Community Edition of today’s newsletter - upgrade to a Member to receive additional perks and experiences
🎥 What Makes a VC Lean In
We asked three Canadian investors a simple question: what makes you lean in? Each of them had founded and sold a company before they ever wrote a cheque, so the answers came with specifics, not platitudes.
Mike McCauley of Garage Capital starts with the person.
"For me, it's all about the why of the founder doing what they're doing."
Thirteen years of investing taught him the idea you hear in the first meeting is rarely the one that wins, so he backs the people who'll find the next one. "The team is the number one thing because oftentimes the idea will change."
Janet Bannister of Staircase Ventures wants to see past the launch. She reads every cold email she gets, and most make the same mistake.
"They think of why their business is going to win today and don't spend enough time explaining why they are going to win for the next 10 years."
What earns her attention is a team going where nobody else is looking - her example was a Calgary company using AI in oil and gas, run by people who'd worked the industry for years. "This is not a business that's probably going to be found in Silicon Valley."
Her bar is high, and so is the backing behind it: "we have extremely high expectations of our founders, but we have the support systems in place to help them achieve those very high expectations."
Eva Lau of Two Small Fish Ventures runs a test before she even opens the deck.
"I actually practically do not take cold emails or cold calls because I think that's my first test for you. Can you get someone to stick their neck out for you?"
In deep tech, where she funds companies with zero revenue, she leans on two measures instead: "validation and velocity." Does the technology actually work, and how fast can you go from here to a much bigger here.
Three investors, three tests: the founder's why, the 10-year moat, the warm intro that proves you can sell.
▶️ Catch the next TechTO conversation
🌟 Member Spotlights
Two TechTO members shipped something worth celebrating this week.
KixCare - A Clinic Visit, From Home
More than 1.5 million Canadian kids don't have a family doctor. For most families that means a packed ER or a walk-in clinic for things that never needed one.
KixCare, the Montreal- and Toronto-built pediatric healthtech, launched Kix360° Vitals - pairing Nonagon's Health Canada- and FDA-approved N9+ device with its 24/7 bilingual pediatric team.
Parents run nine clinical-grade exams from the kitchen table: ears, throat, lungs, heart, skin, oxygen, temperature. Pick the exam, follow the screen, and the readings go straight to a KixCare clinician. Minutes, not a week-long wait - enough to assess the usual suspects like ear infections, asthma, and tonsillitis without leaving home.
The track record holds up: 30,000+ patients, 86,000+ appointments, and over 90% of cases resolved without an in-person visit. Air Canada, Bell, Manulife, and TD already offer it to their people.
CEO Adam Saperia put it plainly: “parents shouldn't have to choose between a six-hour ER wait and doing nothing.”
Float Raised Again - and It's Still Compounding
Float, the Toronto fintech building business banking and corporate cards for Canadian companies, closed an $85M Series C at a $548M valuation - roughly 70% above its January 2025 round. Inovia Capital led, with BDC Capital, Northleaf, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, and Garage Capital joining in.
More than 7,500 Canadian companies now (including TechTO) run on Float - high-limit cards, expense management, bill pay, FX, and banking - and it recently shipped Float Intelligence, an AI layer sitting inside the software.
CEO Rob Khazzam has been blunt about the bet from the start: build the financial backbone Canadian businesses were missing instead of renting one from south of the border.
💼 NEXT BIG GIGS
Find your next "big gig" in tech - a featured short-list of interesting job opportunities from our job board :
CoLab Software - Strategic Development Specialist. The St. John's engineering collaboration platform is building out its commercial side, and this role sits at the front of it. St. John's or Toronto. Plus 17 other openings.
Relay - Influencer Marketing Specialist. The Toronto fintech wants someone to own creator relationships end to end. Fully remote. Six more roles open.
Clutch - VP & General Counsel. A company's first senior legal hire usually means something bigger is coming. A real signal role, based in Toronto. Plus 29 other spots.
Spellbook - Senior People Operations Partner. The legal-AI rocketship is scaling and wants someone to keep the culture intact while it grows. Remote, C$109k–137k. Six other roles open.
commonsku - Software Engineer II. Remote-first, Toronto-HQ'd, reshaping the $26B promo products world. Two more on their board.
Have a job you want to share? Currently looking to find your next gig? Check out the full list of jobs we curated just for you on our job board
Powered by GuruLink
TechTO members receive complimentary access to monthly TechTO-hosted Together events, quarterly industry vertical events and socials.
Annual: $249/year | Founding: $1,199 One-time payment, lifetime access
Want to showcase your company, events, and opportunities to thousands of tech leaders, professionals, and investors across the country?
Contact us about potential partnership and advertising opportunities
Reply