Canadian VC's have a terrible habit of stringing along founders for months to try and gather more info/data on the companies and never giving a firm answer. It is one of the most destructive forces possible, it causes Founders to waste months chasing money when they should be building their product/teams, I've seen it kill many good companies with great founders who should have been given a chance to build a team/product, not chase money for months. Hopefully this fund will force Canadian VC's move faster, as long as there aren't any landmines in the terms... But with the government money invested I worry about the terms.
Second this. I had similar experience in 2003-2004. I guess things haven't changed much in last decade.
Another issue was the Canadian VCs being followers. It was funny when I was raising money in Canada. A few Canadian VCs I talked didn't return calls until I sent them email mentioning that I am visiting U.S. VCs tomorrow. The C. VCs called me at 11pm few minutes after I sent emails. I came back to U.S. by end of 2005.
It is most probably handout by politicians to their favorites. I had some interesting experiences trying to get govt funding too in Canada.
IMHO, government money is so tough to divy out. Mainly because there is a large group of people who are cheerleading for the investment to fail. That is, the opposition party and their supporters.
Just a guess here (I'm not affiliated in any way) but the "Ontario Centers of Excellence" is listed on their partners page - the OCE is a gov't funded body which provides ~$55K of matching funds in the form of grants to early stage companies (i.e. you raise $55K from accredited investors, they provide the other $55K as a grant) - that could be why their max commitment is $110,000.
FWIW, I saw this fund after reading about their first investment [1], I thought the fund itself was noteworthy in its quick turnaround on funding decisions.
Are there any VC-type investment groups that aren't chasing huge returns? For instance, I'm working on some technology that could relatively easily get to be a several million dollar company - a similar product was sold to Oracle for $20M. I need about $80K to develop and launch it solidly, though I'm trying to bootstrap (got a $100K/yr verbal commit from a potential customer -- but I need the product first).
Or is it simply not worth looking for outside investors and instead should I just bother family and friends and whatnot?
Mla48 isn't the creator. They're a middleman between the company and te money. It's not a direct comparison with drug manufacturers. in terms of patent protection, how much can of the drug does the government actually fund? The drug company is still assuming risk by developing the drug despite some grant funding. What I would suggest is that grant-funded research include a provision that the drug be provided at cost to the government if it were successful. This would allow the company to profit privately but it would also benefit the public. This would actually work as a clever disincentive to reduce the reliance on government money and thus resulting in an opportunity to lower taxes. I don't want to pay taxes for Merck to make a billion dollar drug. Merck can assume that risk themselves. However many of the government programs are for Orphan drugs which would not have been produced otherwise. These drugs typically result in no or minimal profit to the manufacturer, thus a need for government help. Patent protection is essential for these drugs: if you patient population is 500; if someone steals your drug, you have still lost money despite the government assistance. Grants don't cover the full cost of drugs or research, thus a patent is important ther wise drug companies would not assume the finial risk for a reward that would be immediately eliminated. You'd have drug vultures: companies that would wait until someone else does all the work, then they swoop in and manufacturer and market the drug. Imagine if Stephen King had no copyright protection; he would not have had a career writing books; he'd probably be teaching English at some small New England prep school instead of entertaining millions.
