• LANDR

  Participated · Series B · Jul 2019

  Landr provides a cloud-hosted mastering dashboard that uses AI trained on data from over 10 million tracks to generate bespoke audio post-production processors and make real-time tweaks. The platform also includes collaboration tools for sharing and commenting, plus a distribution program that lets artists publish to major services without surrendering a cut of earnings. The company reports 2.5 million artists in 160 countries have mastered and promoted over 12 million tracks with its tools, and it now releases thousands of tracks weekly on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Recent product updates include multiple mastering styles, volume matching for playback, and other quality-of-life improvements. Landr has attracted backers and supporters from prominent producers and artists such as Hans Zimmer, Nas, Richie Hawtin, Pete Tong, and Tiga. The company has raised over $30 million to date and intends to use its new funding to expand its music-technology capabilities and pursue new market-shifting directions. LANDR applies big data analytics and artificial intelligence to automated music mastering through an online engine. The company offers subscription tiers ranging from $6 to $39 per month and says it has analyzed tens of thousands of files to model mastering engineers' decisions. LANDR serves about 250,000 users, many of them amateur artists who otherwise would not pay for mastering, while some professionals use the service for quick reference masters. The company has brought on roughly 50 audio and mastering professionals to refine its technology and today launched Ionian 1.0, the latest iteration of its mastering engine. CEO Pascal Pilon says LANDR aims to partner with streaming platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud to raise online audio mastering standards, and the company plans to expand its technology to tackle video as well.

• StackAdapt

  Led · Seed · Sep 2014

  StackAdapt is a Toronto-based programmatic advertising company that uses AI to power targeting and automation across native, display, video, connected TV, audio, and gaming inventory. It serves customers across verticals including political campaigns, retail, B2B, travel, healthcare, and financial services. The company says its AI was built on a decade of analyzing ad traffic patterns to help combat ad fraud and bot traffic and to improve campaign efficiency. Founded in 2014, StackAdapt grew largely as a bootstrapped business until 2022 when Summit Partners invested roughly $300M (with at least some secondary, minority components). In this current growth stage it raised $235M in equity led by Teachers' Venture Growth (the investment arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan), with Intrepid Growth Partners and four unnamed investors participating. The company is not disclosing valuation for the new round, and TVG praised StackAdapt's consistent growth and profitability while the CEO highlighted strong demand and a focus on cost-effective growth through automation and AI. StackAdapt operates a centralized buying platform that gives clients access to global native advertising inventory and branded-content distribution across publisher sites. The platform is used by Fortune 500 brands and agencies and aggregates inventory from over 30 native advertising exchanges, including TripleLift, AdsNative, InMobi and Adyoulike. It reports access to more than 35,000 publisher sites such as ABC News, Reuters, USA Today and Popular Science. StackAdapt emphasizes a conflict-free model by not working directly with publishers, focusing instead on driving advertiser ROI. The company plans to use the new funding to aggressively grow its data science and engineering teams, continue investing in its video product, and expand into areas to better understand content impact. Leadership, including co-founder Vitaly Pecherskiy, points to mobile shifts and native formats as drivers of the company’s market opportunity. StackAdapt is a Toronto-based provider of native advertising technology. Led by CEO Ildar Shar, the company has built a native advertising technology stack that allows publishers to add another channel of monetization through in-stream responsive ads and non-banner formats. It supports customized and responsive native ad units that are dynamically styled to look like a site's content while being clearly indicated as advertisements. The company raised $900K in seed funding to expand development. The round was led by IAF and Slaight Communications, with debt financing provided by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). StackAdapt intends to use the funds to grow its development team in Toronto and in satellite offices in New York and London.

• 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.