• TouchBistro

  Participated · Series A · Apr 2015

  TouchBistro is an iPad-based restaurant management platform serving restaurants with tools to manage their operations. The company secured $110 million in growth financing from Francisco Partners. The capital will be used to accelerate growth, expand its product pipeline and pursue strategic acquisitions. The financing is described in the article as growth financing and was reported in TechCrunch's Daily Crunch. The raise is intended to fund both product development and inorganic expansion plans. TouchBistro is an iPad POS and integrated payments solution built specifically for the restaurant industry. More than 16,000 restaurants in over 100 countries use its platform, which processes over US$11 billion annually. The product handles order taking, payment processing, menu management, accounting, reporting, inventory management, staff scheduling, and customer loyalty. TouchBistro emphasizes software automation, predictive data insights, and seamless access to financial services through partnerships. The company plans to use the new funds to acquire complementary products, support technology development, expand international markets, and grow its team. It offers in-depth training and free 24/7 technical support and maintains offices in Toronto, New York, Austin, Chicago, London, and Mexico City. TouchBistro offers an iPad POS that serves as the core of a restaurant’s operations, handling order taking, payments, menu management, accounting, reporting, inventory, scheduling and loyalty. Led by founder and CEO Alex Barrotti, the company serves more than 12,000 restaurants in over 100 countries and processes more than US$6 billion annually. The company is based in Toronto and also maintains offices in New York, Austin, Chicago, London and Mexico City. TouchBistro plans to use new funding to develop its restaurant operating system, build new payment solutions, expand into new and existing markets, and double the size of its team over the next year. The product is positioned as an all-in-one operational platform for restaurants, integrating both front-of-house and back-office functions. TouchBistro offers an iPad POS app that lets servers enter table-side orders, send them directly to the kitchen, and accept integrated EMV payments. The product targets restaurants, bars, cafes, breweries, food trucks and quick service restaurants to increase sales and improve customer experience. The app is deployed in over 9,000 restaurants across 37 countries. TouchBistro plans to use its new capital to enhance and expand the feature set of its mPOS solution and to facilitate expansion into global markets. The company is led by founder and CEO Alex Barrotti and has offices in New York, Toronto, Chicago and Austin. Financially, TouchBistro has raised CDN$16.3M in this Series C and has raised CDN$45.3M in total funding to date. TouchBistro offers an iPad POS app and full reporting suite for the food and drink industry, serving full-service and quick-service restaurants, food trucks, coffee shops and bars. Servers use the app to take tableside orders that are instantly transmitted to the kitchen and bar; bills can be split and totals transferred electronically to integrated card keypads or mobile wallets. The company has deployed approximately 15,000 terminals across 6,000 restaurants worldwide and processes gross merchandise volumes in excess of $4 billion annually. Recent product moves include launches in Spanish and French and integrations with QuickBooks and Square. Led by founder and CEO Alex Barrotti, TouchBistro plans to use its new funding to expand sales and marketing and to build out its POS platform through partnerships and new features. The company has raised $30m in total funding to date.

• QuickPlay Media

  Participated · Equity · Mar 2015

  Quickplay operates an end-to-end managed video platform that powers premium video and TV to any device for service providers and content providers. The company distributes 700 live channels, manages 2 million VOD assets, maintains content connections to 250 premium content providers and serves an addressable market of over 700 million subscribers. Quickplay counts major service providers such as AT&T, Bell and TELUS among its customers and has received more than $150 million of total investment since its 2003 inception. The company will use recent financing to scale its managed video platform, reduce content-delivery inefficiencies, and further monetize live and on-demand premium video using cloud economics. Quickplay accelerated its LTE Broadcast strategy with the March 4, 2015 acquisition of Roundbox Inc. to enable multicast and unicast delivery across mobile networks. It operates facilities in Toronto, San Diego, Singapore, Chennai and Frankfurt and plans continued investment to support Next Generation TV capabilities such as Android TV and LTE Broadcast. QuickPlay Media is a Toronto, ON-based provider of cloud-based infrastructure and managed service solutions for distributing premium video to IP-connected devices. Led by CEO and founder Wayne Purboo, the company serves large communications and media customers including AT&T U-verse, Bell, Research In Motion (RIM), Rogers Communications, Samsung, SIRIUS XM Radio, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) and Verizon. In June 2011 QuickPlay acquired the network operations center assets of FLO TV from Qualcomm as part of its U.S. expansion, broadening its abilities to manage on-demand content and live TV coverage of major sporting and news events. The company received an approximately $100m equity investment from funds affiliated with Madison Dearborn Partners. Following the close, Madison Dearborn and QuickPlay’s employees own the majority of the company, with a limited number of minority shareholders including Toronto-based Difference Capital Inc. QuickPlay intends to use the proceeds from the investment to continue to expand. QuickPlay Media provides mobile video services and powers Sirius' smartphone service. Its offering includes several dozen TV shows and is currently available only on BlackBerry devices. The company has obvious expansion plans, and the article suggests an iPhone play may be likely. QuickPlay announced a $12 million financing led by GMP Securities with participation from existing investors. Industry heavyweights such as Qualcomm and Cisco are increasing efforts to push mobile video, particularly as an advertising medium. The company is positioned to benefit as smartphones become powerful enough to play more video. QuickPlay Media operates the OpenVideo platform, which powers mobile video services for 10 major mobile operators in Canada and the United States. The platform delivers both live and on-demand content from more than 120 different media companies. Key features of the OpenVideo service delivery platform include a content management system, open APIs for partner integration, and advanced service delivery capabilities. The company provides its technology to carriers to enable mobile TV and video services. Financially, QuickPlay announced it has raised $15 million in a third round of capital. QuickPlay Media is described in the articles as a leading provider of mobile video and rich-media services. The company announced the completion of a $12 million Series B during the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment Conference. The announcement is datelined Toronto & Los Angeles. The articles repeat QuickPlay's positioning around mobile video and rich media but do not provide details on product roadmap or specific future plans. No operating metrics, investors, or uses of proceeds were disclosed in the provided text.

• bitHound

  Led · Seed · Nov 2014

  bitHound is a Kitchener, ON-based provider of a software analytics solution that gives developers the information required to deliver maintainable code. Led by CEO Dan Silivestru, the platform surfaces relevant actions to improve code quality in software projects. The company closed an over $2 million seed funding round. The round was led by Michael Wekerle of Difference Capital, with participation from BDC Capital and additional angel investors. bitHound intends to use the funds to further accelerate growth. The article did not disclose additional operating metrics or past financing rounds.

• Carta Worldwide

  Led · Series D · Sep 2014

  Carta Worldwide develops a digital transaction processing platform and technology stack for building, deploying and managing transaction solutions. The company is a certified Third Party Processor with MasterCard and Visa and is PCI-DSS compliant. Carta has invested over $50 million in development of its platform and began development in 2007. It serves clients in financial services, telecom and retail across four continents. The company maintains offices in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Morocco and operates two data centers in Canada and Europe. Brian Semkiw serves as CEO.

• SHOP.CA

  Participated · Series B · May 2014

  SHOP.CA is a Toronto‑based online shopping destination that runs daily sales events and offers over 3 million products from thousands of brands, free shipping and a 365‑day return policy. Launched in July 2012, the company emphasizes personalized customer service and customer loyalty as core parts of its offering. SHOP.CA will use the new capital to build out its proprietary technology stack and expand its merchant network. It also plans to enrich customer loyalty initiatives, pursue partnership opportunities in Canada and globally, ramp up digital marketing and hire additional partner‑employees to scale toward profitability. Financially, SHOP.CA closed a $31 million Series B and reports $52 million in total cash raised in less than two years. Scotiabank acted as exclusive financial advisor on the transaction.

No current team members are available.