Amiral Ventures recently announced the first closing of our target $75M fund dedicated to the next generation of Canadian technology flagships. The journey took 3 years and was not without its challenges. We want to share more on why we believe a new early stage VC fund is necessary, what we’re trying to build and the opportunity ahead.
Genesis story
The three Amiral partners came together through shared relationships that eventually converged into a joint project. Fred and Dom first met in 2014 while Fred was raising capital for Mnubo and Dom was at XPND Capital. They connected immediately, but XPND was between funds and could not invest; Dom was transparent about this, and the honesty created the basis for a long-term relationship that continued informally for years until they reconnected in the summer of 2022, both between roles and independently thinking about launching something new. In parallel, Nectar first met Fred through his former podcast, which led to a consulting mandate with PNR focused on value creation and go-to-market strategy at Mnubo. When Fred and Dom began shaping the new fund, Fred reached back out to Nectar, seeing his experience as complementary. What ultimately became Amiral was born from timing, mutual respect, candor and a shared desire to build a founder-centric venture firm in Canada.
At the heart of this project is a deep belief, Canada has to become the home to tens of thousands more technology companies. All the ingredients are in place, our country has the potential to develop many more global leaders. We believe that building a vibrant technology industry is at the heart of economic and social prosperity.
Building Amiral
We are founders ourselves, and we believe we must earn the right to partner with the best founders. That privilege is not granted by capital alone. It is earned by building a firm that consistently delivers real value beyond the cheque.
What that means in practice:
Build conviction quickly. We move fast. Our goal is to assess opportunities with rigor and speed, and to be decisive in putting forward a clear proposal.
Lead the round. We aim to write the term sheet and lead or co-lead financings, leaning in with responsibility, expertise, and support. Leading with conviction is also the best attribute to rally a strong set of co-investors.
Be a trusted partner. We aspire to be a sparring partner when things are working and a steady sounding board when there is the inevitable crisis.
Together, these principles define the kind of firm we are building: one that founders actively choose, not just accept. We aim to help founders as much as we can but also get out of the way if needed.
Building Amiral required the same kind of conviction we look for in the founders we back. It took three years of persistence, countless setbacks, and an unwavering belief that the market needed a new kind of firm. You cannot build a fund in 2025 unless you are fully committed; there is no plan B. That experience sharpened our empathy for founders, the lonely moments, the doors that do not open, and the resolve required to keep going. The conviction that carried us to our first close is the same conviction we now put behind the companies we back.
Our fund strategy and thesis
At the core of our firm’s thesis is a simple idea: Canada’s prosperity depends on its builders. Prosperity Decoded means investing in technologies that make our economy more productive, sustainable, and resilient - three essential pillars of long-term prosperity. We look for companies that address real challenges, from enterprise modernization to energy optimization, cybersecurity, defense and supply chain resilience.
Our investment criteria focuses on exceptional founding teams with global ambition, demonstrated traction, and scalable business models. Typical initial investments range from 1–2 million, with the ability to follow on up to 6-7 million over time, usually targeting minority stakes (10–20%) with constructive governance involvement.
Strategically, Amiral’s capital strategy centers on supporting startups at critical inflection points, typically late seed and Series A rounds, where founders are ready to turn early validation into market leadership.
We do not see ourselves merely as capital providers. Our ambition is to be an active partner to the founders we back, bringing hands-on experience in building, scaling, and exiting technology companies. Capital is the starting point; what matters just as much is judgment, pattern recognition, and the ability to help founders navigate the critical moments that define outcomes. Furthermore, Amiral has over 50 founders backing the fund as LPs. We intend to connect our founding investors with our portfolio to bring in the necessary expertise when needed.
We believe that if we execute with discipline and outperform, we can help attract significantly more private capital into the Canadian market, capital that backs ambitious founders and builds enduring companies here. Ultimately, performance is the only thing that matters, the responsibility is the same: deliver results. We aspire to be in the carry business, not the management fee business.
Our goal is to build a lasting franchise, not a personality-driven fund. This is not about any one individual. It is about creating an enduring platform and brand that exists in service of founders, persists beyond any single partner, and compounds in value over multiple fund generations.
The opportunity at the early stage
While we are optimistic about Canada’s innovation ecosystem, we are also clear-eyed about the structural challenges early-stage founders face. A significant portion of Canada’s most promising seed and Series A financings are led by foreign investors, particularly from the United States. Estimates suggest that approximately two-thirds of early-stage rounds in Canada have foreign led participation, a reflection not of a lack of talent, but of a lack of local institutional leadership capital.
This dynamic stems from two forces:
US venture capital actively recruits and backs Canadian founders, often offering more scale, global networks, and follow-on capital.
Canadian founders, especially first-time founders, view US backing as a competitive advantage, and with good reason: access to capital, market credibility, and broader distribution can accelerate growth.
These realities are not inherently negative. US participation has helped globalize Canadian innovation and create pathways for breakout success. However, if left unchecked, the steady export of early leadership dilutes local ownership of our most valuable companies and risks positioning Canada as an economy of subsidiaries rather than originators of category-leading global brands.
The only durable counterbalance is substance over geography, building local venture platforms that offer founders more than capital. That means differentiated operational support, international networks, deep sector knowledge, and genuine partnership through scaling and exit. We believe that by delivering real value, we can help shift founder preference toward local leadership without forgoing the benefits of global capital and collaborating with US and international investors as co-leaders.
We do not see foreign capital as adversarial. On the contrary, we welcome it. But to retain ownership of Canada’s future champions, and to build an ecosystem that sustains multiple generations of startup success, we need more local leadership capital that stands shoulder to shoulder with global peers.
The path to building 100+ “Shopify-scale” companies in Canada will not happen in a single cycle. Ecosystems mature through repeated loops of company creation, growth, and exit. Liquidity events are not a failure of ambition; they are often the mechanism through which talent, capital, and experience recycle back into the ecosystem. We welcome exits when they move us closer to a future in which founders do not have to exit by default and when the entrepreneurs who succeed reinvest their time, capital, and know-how into the next generation. Many of our 50+ private LPs are proof of this virtuous cycle in action.
Rising tides lifts all boats
We believe prosperity is built, not inherited. Canada already has the talent, ideas, and ambition to create world-class technology companies; what is needed is sustained belief, patient partnership, and the courage to think in decades rather than quarters. We see Amiral as one small but deliberate contribution to a larger national project: building an economy where founders have the confidence, capital, and community to build global companies from Canada.
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and we intend to pay that forward by supporting the next generation of builders. If we do our work well, the impact will extend far beyond our portfolio: more founders starting companies, more global leaders headquartered here, and a stronger, more resilient economy for the next generation.
Back to work.