KITCHENER — Karamdeep Nijjar is a venture capitalist who often works on a laptop while sitting at a table inside one of the region’s most successful startups.
Nijjar is a partner in iNovia Capital, and he works out of Vidyard, the business-to-business video-marketing firm that has filled the top two floors of 117 King St. West.
“We have someone in here on a daily basis,” Nijjar said. “And I am here a couple of days a week.”
Niijar likes working there for several reasons.
His company has about $5 million invested in Vidyard, and he has a front-row seat for watching how it grows. Niijar wants the young engineers and developers seeking investment funds for their startups to get a good look at the stunning, new-economy workplace that was built for Vidyard on the top two floors of a former furniture factory.
“That really starts to motivate people,” Nijjar said.
The venture capital firm expanded into this region last year.
“Kitchener-Waterloo is where we are shifting resources to the most over the next couple of years to capitalize on what’s going on here,” Nijjar said.
The startup ecosystem, the talent coming out of the University of Waterloo and the success of some big tech companies in this region all make for an unbelievable opportunity, he said.
During the past five years iNovia invested in Vidyard, Clearpath Robotics, Well.ca, BufferBox, Top Hat, Tulip Retail and six more unannounced pre-Seed investments that were made in conjunction with an angel fund — Garage Capital — set up by a small, local group of highly successful tech entrepreneurs.
In all, iNovia has invested more than $20 million in companies that have gone on to raise a combined total of more than $75 million.
“I don’t see any signs of that trend slowing down, only accelerating,” Nijjar said.
The investment firm was founded in Montreal, but moved to Toronto and last year to Kitchener. It has investments across the U.S. and Canada.
“Traditionally we were a Montreal-based fund, and now we look at not just Canada, but North America as a whole in terms of where we see tremendous opportunity, and Waterloo is the answer,” Nijjar said.
The venture capitalist firm maintains a head office in Montreal, and other offices in New York, San Francisco and Calgary.
“We are a distributed team, so we didn’t move the whole fund into Waterloo, but decided to open an office there in lieu of Toronto or somewhere else. It really is the most dynamic ecosystem we’re investing in these days,” Nijjar said.
“Things really picked up for us over the last couple of years,” Nijjar said.
Venture capital is among the key ingredients needed for a thriving startup scene. In this region there is the Golden Triangle Angel Network, Garage Capital, CyberNorth Ventures Inc., Infusion Angels and North Innovation Fund. Last year, Nijjar’s firm joined that short list with a permanent presence in Kitchener.
Nijjar believes iNovia has more capital invested in local startups than any other fund.
“I don’t think anyone is actually operating at a significant scale other than us,” Nijjar said. “I am hopeful that will change, and we’ll get other funds in the area who are managing tens of millions of dollars and able to deploy significant amounts of capital.”
He said it is amazing that a region with 568,500 people can produce a long list of big technology companies such as BlackBerry, OpenText, and Com Dev International Ltd.
“There is something fundamentally different happening here,” Nijjar said. “It’s a mixture of the ambition of the entrepreneurs, the type of businesses being built here.”
Nijjar graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2006 with a degree in computer science. He followed that up with an MBA from Ivey School of Business at Western. After working in software development at a bigger tech company, Nijjar realized he wanted to work with startups.
When deciding what startups get investment, Nijjar said the team and founders are the most important considerations. Nijjar is looking for people he can work with for the next five to 10 years, who also share his firm’s values.
“They have that right combination of hustle and intellectual horsepower to go out and build a big company,” Nijjar said.
The founders must have charisma to attract top talent, customers and investment. He also looks for startups that are trying to solve problems that are valuable and important to customers, and can be scaled. Nijjar stresses the area is brimming with world-class talent.
“You look at some of the larger companies in the (Silicon) Valley now that are run by people who went to the University of Waterloo or have some other connection to the school or the area, and you start to understand the calibre of talent that is here now,” Nijjar said.
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