• ACTO

  Participated · Equity · Sep 2024

  ACTO offers an AI-first IFE platform focused on closing gaps in HCP omnichannel engagement for life sciences commercial teams. Its product roadmap centers on the LAICA suite, announced in 2022, and integrated Generative AI capabilities. Planned GenAI features include field rep real-time knowledge assistance, simulated rep–manager roleplay and coaching, commercial learning content creation assistance, and commercial leader field insight assistance. The company announced a dedicated US$10M investment into GenAI to accelerate those capabilities. Funding for this effort comes from ACTO’s venture capital backers alongside public and cloud partners, and the company is piloting real-world use cases with customers via the AWS Jumpstart Program. Executives and investors frame ACTO as an early AI-focused category leader on the commercial side of life sciences, citing work that began as early as 2019. ACTO provides an AI-powered omnichannel learning and enablement SaaS platform that helps global life‑sciences companies educate and engage field teams and learners across the care continuum. Commercial and clinical leaders use ACTO to deliver unified educational experiences and sales enablement at scale. The company maintains a network of partnerships with content agencies, data providers, and technology companies to build an ecosystem for life sciences. ACTO recently introduced a conversational assistant, LAICA™, as part of its product roadmap to make commercial learning easier and more engaging. The company is experiencing robust user and revenue growth, reporting a 500% increase in annual recurring revenue since 2018 and total invested capital exceeding US$30 million. Proceeds from its latest financing will be used to accelerate growth, expand capabilities, and pursue business and partnership opportunities. ACTO builds an AI-powered mobile platform that educates and supports stakeholders in life sciences, enabling training, content delivery, and sales enablement. The platform offers self-paced modules called ActionPacks containing multimedia, quizzes, 3D content, authoring tools, and event engagement features. ACTO has launched conversational AI capabilities that surface information about drugs and medical devices to support doctors, nurses, and other providers. Managers can certify reps with digital signatures and PDF certificates, run assessments, and deliver AI-personalized notifications and reference guides. The platform includes deep search, multi-channel integrations, permissioning, tracked mail/text links, and CRM integrations that generate reports by individual, team, and territory. ACTO says tens of thousands of reps rely on it across 50 life sciences companies, including AstraZeneca, Teleflex, and Philips Respironics. The company closed an $11.5 million funding round to bolster these capabilities and accelerate digital engagement.

• ProNavigator

  Participated · Seed · Feb 2019

  ProNavigator offers a purpose-built SaaS knowledge management platform for the insurance industry that leverages AI, chat, smart dialogue systems, machine learning and natural language processing to surface mission-critical information. The platform helps insurance professionals store, manage and use documents that sit outside policy management systems and AMSs, and the company says thousands of insurance professionals use the award-winning product daily. In September 2022 ProNavigator closed $10.0M in growth equity financing to support expansion. The round was co-led by Graphite Ventures and returning investor Luge Capital, with participation from EDC, Tactico and CIBC Innovation Banking. ProNavigator will use the proceeds to accelerate U.S. and Canadian sales, advance product development, and grow the team. Founder and CEO Joseph D'Souza will lead the U.S. expansion from a new second headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina. ProNavigator provides an AI-powered natural language platform offering chat and voice virtual assistants tailored to the insurance industry. Its models are trained on hundreds of thousands of real insurance conversations and the company offers packaged assistants for sales, service, underwriting, and claims. Products include a chat assistant and a voice assistant that can integrate with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and the assistants can be customized and integrated into existing insurance platforms. ProNavigator says its virtual assistants have automated or semi-automated more than 50% of customer claims, underwriting, service, and sales tasks for clients. Since launching in 2016 the company has signed 80 clients in North America, roughly 75% of which are in Canada, and has opened a satellite sales and marketing office in Chicago. The company plans to use recent funding to expand into the US, grow its Waterloo R&D team (adding about 10 employees to its current 20) and build out phone-line voice calling slated for release in the latter half of 2019.

• Nicoya Lifesciences

  Participated · Equity · Jan 2018

  Nicoya Lifesciences builds digital proteomics solutions centered on Alto, a benchtop surface plasmon resonance (SPR) platform that integrates SPR with digital microfluidics to digitize label‑free protein characterization. The company positions Alto as a high‑throughput, label‑free biosensor for academic, biotech, government, and pharmaceutical users. Nicoya says its tools are used by over 500 researchers across more than 50 countries and that the business grew to a team of over 100 employees following earlier financing. The company plans to use the new funding to continue development and commercialization of Alto and to expand into new international markets. Financially, the firm has raised a total of $35 million since inception, including prior Series A capital announced in early 2020. Nicoya provides advanced analytical instruments used by hundreds of researchers in over 40 countries and is leveraging its expertise in nanotechnology, microfluidics and biochemistry to develop Atlas, a portable COVID-19 diagnostic. Atlas is a single-use, disposable, saliva-based test that detects SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins and is designed to deliver lab-quality results to a smartphone app in under 20 minutes. The company aims to make testing more accessible in remote communities and frontline screening settings and to support public-health reopening strategies. Development of an Atlas prototype is currently underway, and Nicoya says the funding and advisory support will expedite research and development toward public availability. The company is headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario. Nicoya develops analytical instruments for biotech and pharma, leveraging nanotechnology, microfluidics and AI to help scientists study diseases and accelerate therapeutic development. Its first product is OpenSPR, a benchtop surface plasmon resonance (SPR) instrument. The company focuses on enabling research into conditions such as cancer, hepatitis, Alzheimer’s and cardiac disease. Nicoya plans to use new funding to expedite development of drug-discovery products and pursue additional opportunities within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors. It intends to grow its team from 50 to 80 employees over the next year and expand into more international markets. Nicoya Lifesciences, launched in 2012 as a University of Waterloo spin-out by CEO Ryan Denomme, develops sensitive biosensors and nanotechnology-enabled scientific instruments to make laboratory tools more accessible. The company uses nanotechnology to lower the cost and complexity of instruments that help scientists understand diseases and develop new drugs. It is based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The article reports a $2M financing that the company will use to support new product development and to expand sales and marketing. The financing underscores a focus on commercial growth rather than reported operating metrics; no revenue or user figures are provided in the article. The company’s core technology and university origins are emphasized as foundational to its product roadmap and commercialization efforts. Nicoya Lifesciences builds a personal, portable Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) solution designed to make protein testing simple, quick and accessible. Their device reportedly delivers testing for less than one-tenth the cost of current solutions. The lower cost and portability aim to speed and broaden testing for life-changing and life-saving drugs. Nicoya plans to use the $50,000 award to grow its sales team, though leadership said they will first do something special for the team after the Rev program. The company’s prize and recent exposure came via Communitech’s Rev Centre Stage pitch event, part of Rev’s six-month sales-and-marketing accelerator. Rev does not take equity from participating companies.

No current team members are available.