Mobile Fund: How We Do It In Canada

JLA Ventures and our friends at RBC Venture Partners have teamed up and are co-managing a new $150 million dollar Venture Fund called the Blackberry Partners Fund.  I thought I'd put up a post that will give you the simple facts, process, and opportunities for you.  If you remember nothing else, the simple message is there is a new $150 million dollar fund dedicated to investing in the mobile space and your friendly Canadian venture firms are ready start talking to you. Any mobile platform. Any of them. Come speak to us.

Some background

The prime motivation: To make good investments that have excellent returns for our limited partners.  We collectively believe that with the arrival of super smart/fast/functional devices sitting on top of super fast networks, a radical change in usage was going to happen just as rapidly as the changes which were brought about by the hyper-expansion of the Internet infrastructure.  Before that, by the way, was the telegraph.

[Bonus: If you can find it, get a book called "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage.  This book is a roadmap to all that has been and it coming. Again.]

What We are Doing

This is a standard Private Equity Venture Fund with all the associated characteristics.  The fund is an independent and arms length from any of the Limited Partners.  It means that the investing decisions are made by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners collaboratively. No other party is involved.  Are we going to get help from Thomson? Absolutely. Are we going to ask RBC Bank for an opinion? Without Question.  But we aren't sharing plans or getting sign off from anyone, including RIM, on the investments. 

What We are Targeting

The Fund has a broad mandate but will be looking for applications and services in the following areas:

• Mobile commerce (payments, advertising, retailing and consumer banking)
• Vertical and horizontal enterprise applications
• Communications
• Social Networking
• Location-base services (navigation and mapping)
• Media and entertainment
• Lifestyle and personal productivity

What Platforms?

All of them. No, really, all of them.  Does that mean if somebody has an application on another mobile device but it isn't running on a RIM device we would fund them? Assuming it was a good investment, yes.  We would expect the RIM devices to be on the roadmap and would certainly fund for that roadmap. 

The word of the day - Partnership

That's the fun/joy out of working in Canada; the partnerships.  I was involved, up close and personal, to witness the CEOs of Canada's biggest and most successful companies argue passionately for partnerships.  That's the real story in my view.  For example, it's too bad everyone couldn't be in the room listening to Jim Balsillie speak passionately about Canada, the great opportunities and how RIM was excited/delighted to be a part of this initiative.  The same can be equally said for chief executives of RBC and Thomson Reuters.  It was great.

Come talk with us as we'd like to fund some great companies. Including, maybe yours.

Comments

[Stewart]

Would 'Adult' entertainment figure in Lifestyle? :)

[Chris S]

Congratulations on this fund. This an excellent opportunity for Canadians to show leadership in developing apps & services for the next great platform - mobile. No excuses...it's time to build. Telecommunications has a great history in Canada and it is sure to become the new quick path to international success.

It is very smart to take a mostly device agnostic approach and let the companies optimize for various devices over time. At some point covering off on Blackberry support should be a requirement even if this fund was not associated with RIM. Having these great partners in the fund will kick down a lot of doors for funded companies.

Can't wait to see what comes out of this. Can't wait to get some beta invites :)

[Jaafer Haidar]

Rick,

Congratulations on the new fund. You guys continue to push innovation forward in Canada, thanks!

I emailed your post to TechCrunch, get ready for prime time! :)

Thanks,
Jaafer

[Jaafer Haidar]

Rick,

Congratulations on the new fund. You guys continue to push innovation forward in Canada, thanks!

I emailed your post to TechCrunch, get ready for prime time! :)

Thanks,
Jaafer

[Martin Edic]

Congrats on the new fund. I think you have to be device-agnostic because so much action is going to be in the browser rather than on the device especially as networks get faster and free-er (freer?). iPhone showed that with its real browser and larger screen. Even with the SDK, building a browser-based app opens unlimited future markets (of course I'm a little prejudiced being involved with an SaaS company!)

[Shai Berger]

Awesome news! I'm working up a presentation for you right now...

[Agoracom]

First thing to make me tingle out of the Canadian VC scene in quite a while...but not surprising that Rick et al were involved.

I don't know who the mastermind was but I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say thanks for opening the door. Let's see if Canada is up to the challenge.

Best,
George

[Kumar Ratnam]

Congratulations on the new fund. You guys continue to push innovation forward in Canada, thanks! we need more VC's in canada and accessable to start-ups.

Kumar
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