Information Venture Partners

WHO WE ARE

Information Venture Partners is focused on early stage, business-to-business (“B2B”) Software as a Service (“SaaS”) applications for the financial services industry. The fund focuses on minority investments (average $5-10M/company) in North American companies in B2B FinTech Applications, SaaS for Financial Services, Financial Software, and Cybersecurity. The fund seeks companies with a SaaS or recurring revenue model, approaching ~$1M in annual revenues, customer traction and proven use cases, and management teams that can effectively champion their ideas and visions to enterprise audiences.

100,000,000

TARGET SIZE OF FUNDS

Sector

Fintech, B2B

Stage

Series A

Region

North America

Countries

Canada, US

Founder(s)

Dave Unsworth

Dave Unsworth co-founded Information Venture Partners in 2014. Dave has led investments in eSentire (exited, 2017), Verafin, Sensibill, Igloo Software (exited, 2017), Viigo (acquired by BlackBerry), Coconut Software, BigID, Knowtions and LendingFront. Dave is focused on FinTech and Enterprise software and is particularly interested in cybersecurity, mobile, enterprise 2.0 and ventures that create highly valuable data assets by being at the centre of large-scale financial transactions. Prior to founding Information Venture Partners Dave worked as an investor with RBC Venture Partners from 2001. Prior to his career in venture capital Dave had a successful career in operating roles focused on e-commerce strategy development, technology enabled financial services product development, technology project management and retail/commercial financial services. Dave is an active member in the start-up community in Toronto and Waterloo as a mentor to early stage CEOs and founding teams. Dave also serves as a mentor in the Kaufmann Fellows program and more recently with the Holt FinTech Accelerator and as an investment committee member for the Investment Accelerator Fund. Dave has been a frequent contributor to Private Capital Magazine. Dave is an original member and past Chair of the Financial Services Venture Capital Alliance. Dave was granted an MBA from Queen’s University, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also a graduate of the NVCA’s Venture Capital Institute and the Rotman SME Board Effectiveness Program.

Robert Antoniades

Robert Antoniades co-founded Information Venture Partners in 2014 with Dave Unsworth to work with startups in the field he knows best: financial services. Robert is interested in finding the disruptive ideas and entrepreneurs that believe new or better information is foundational to businesses. He believes that financial institutions need technology to service their customers, reduce cost and compete. Some of his main areas of interest include SaaS, next generation analytics including artificial intelligence and machine learning, capital markets, banking, wealth management and insurance technology. While at Information Venture Partners, Robert has led investments in and currently serves on the boards of Flybits, Postbeyond, Q4 and YayPay. Prior boards include Adaptive Insights (acquired by Workday, Inc.), Igloo Software (exited, 2017), Placemark Investments (acquired by Envestnet), Varicent (acquired by IBM), ITM Software (acquired by BMC) and Verafin Software. Prior to co-founding Information Venture Partners, Robert was managing director of RBC Venture Partners where he led direct investments in a broad range of software and technology companies. Prior RBC, Robert was Vice President at BMO Nesbitt Burns Equity Partners and Executive Director of CIBC Capital Partners’ Silicon Valley office. Collectively in these roles he made investments in financial services software, internet service providers, enterprise an internet software, e-healthcare, wireless application development, security products, optical networking and semiconductor companies, among others. As a proud Canadian, Robert believes in giving back to the community in which he lives and works. In 2013 Robert helped co-found the Upside Foundation, a platform that helps Canadian startups and high growth companies give back to their favourite charity when they have a liquidity event. In 2018, Robert was awarded the CVCA Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award for his work with the Upside Foundation. In addition to his work with the Upside Foundation, Robert is the past Chair of the Distress Centers of Toronto and past Chair of Flemingdon Neighbourhood Services. In his spare time, Robert is also a youth basketball coach, has visited over 50 countries and has enjoyed many wines in his journey. Robert has a BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute and a Certified Investment Manager.

Kerri Golden

Kerri Golden joined Information Venture Partners at inception in 2014 and works with the investment team to help select and support the fund’s investee companies and manage the financial operations of the fund. She has over 30 years of general management and finance experience in a variety of technology industries and she’s been active in securing financings of over $1 billion in equity and debt and in negotiations of a number of merger and acquisition transactions. Kerri was a General Partner of Primaxis Technology Ventures for eight years where she led and managed several investments in early-stage companies in the IT, software and communications sectors and also served as CFO of the fund. Kerri had a successful corporate career with high growth technology companies. She was a mobile pioneer at Rogers Wireless, joining prior to service launch and experiencing start-up challenges and opportunities as company grew from zero to $200M in revenue during her 2.5 year tenure. She was a public company CFO at Alliance Atlantis Communications and Lorus Therapeutics and ended her successful 7-year career at Bell Mobility as CEO, Paging Division after progressive leadership positions in Finance and IT. Kerri is an experienced start-up executive. She co-owns a small business Urban Flats Toronto and served as COO at SeaWell Networks and CFO at Infobright. She serves the start-up community as an active mentor at MaRS, where she co-founded the JOLT Fund and continues to serve as a volunteer general partner. Kerri obtained an HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and earned her CA designation while working with KPMG in Toronto.