Tag: tech investing

Metiquity Closes Investment in Calgary-based WaitWell

Calgary, AB – Metiquity Ventures is excited to announce the closing of its $300,000 equity investment in Calgary-based WaitWell Inc. WaitWell, a provider of service-delivery workflow solutions, recently raised $1 million in seed funding, backed by investors including Metiquity, Startup TNT and Be First Investments.

WaitWell was co-founded by Shannon and Steve Vander Meulen in 2020 when they saw a need for a digital workflow solution in their own business, East Calgary Registry. In the past two years, WaitWell has grown into a robust, award-winning solution, improving service delivery for over 500 locations and 4.4M users, while saving visitors a total of 1 million hours of waiting in line.

Bryan Slauko, Managing Partner at Metiquity Ventures, says the firm is thrilled to partner with Steve, Shannon, and the team at WaitWell.

“WaitWell has such a strong, seasoned team of founders who have accomplished so much in only two years since starting the business. Customer service and experience expectations are driving a structural change in the way businesses serve their customers. Consumers have higher expectations today for convenience and speed. WaitWell’s ability to digitize workflow and transform service delivery is being recognized by a growing list of businesses across North America for meeting those expectations.”

WaitWell helps to reduce wait times by up to 30% for public offices, universities and large retailers. Organizations use WaitWell to streamline service delivery and vastly improve the customer experience, leading to an increase in customer loyalty. What’s most powerful with the WaitWell solution is the ability for an organization to illuminate their service operations with robust data captured throughout the entire service delivery workflow.

“Before WaitWell, the data available to service organizations was limited to point-of-sale records captured at the last stage in the customer engagement,” said CEO Steve Vander Meulen. “This left operations blind to what was really transpiring during the service workflow. Certainly, customers love the queue management and appointment booking features of WaitWell, but the true value is in how the solution empowers them to make data-driven decisions for how to improve services, customer experiences and business results.”

“We are really grateful for the support we have received from the Calgary investment community,” said CMO Shannon Vander Meulen. “We believe that outstanding service is always possible with the right processes and tools. We want WaitWell to be the trusted digital workflow partner of service delivery organizations around the world.”

WaitWell plans to use this funding to expand their workflow solution further into the United States. It will also be used to evolve their solution to incorporate AI into its data analytics capabilities.

About Metiquity Ventures

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Metiquity Ventures is a pre-seed growth equity fund formed to unlock growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest alongside them.

Why bet on a unicorn when you can ride a camel

 

Angels, unicorns, centaurs, ponies, dragons, camels… oh my! 

Why should emerging market and early-stage investors nurture the camel before getting googly-eyed at a potential unicorn’s sparkles?

Because savvy investors place value on the real thing, not mythical creatures.

While you may hear about the latest “unicorn exits” in the headlines, it’s important to understand how we came about these “pet” names to categorize the best and brightest tech scales on the planet.

Here’s Metiquity’s who’s who in the zoo lingo cheat sheet:

What’s a Unicorn?

In tech and startup language, the most common description of a success story is usually labelled: the unicorn.

When we say the word unicorn, what comes to mind? A mythical beast resembling a horse with a single long-pointed horn between its eyes and wings on its midsection? That type of unicorn is an ever-elusive storybook creature or goal.

In the Venture Capital world, unicorns are companies that successfully reach a valuation of $1 billion or more. The reason these companies are described as unicorns is that it is extremely rare for an early-stage startup to reach such a high valuation, though it is not an impossible goal.

Becoming a unicorn can seem like a daunting journey. And while most advice focuses on raising as much capital as possible, the shortest path to becoming a unicorn is to focus on your customer and the value your company brings. A sustainable business model with a superior product or technology is what private investment firms look for, and that is the most significant defining factor to becoming a unicorn.

Becoming a unicorn is a true testament to the potential of any startup and puts a company in select groups who (usually) go on to achieve incredible things. 

Startups that gain valuations of $1 billion or more may not be as exciting or mystical as seeing an actual unicorn. But in reality, they’re almost as rare… so other creatures describe successful startup stories?

In the Prairies and Alberta’s tech ecosystem, there are a few notable unicorns gems, including Benevity and  Solium Capital, however – we’re an emerging market, and that means to create more unicorns, we need a beast with consistent tenacity and grit, as well as the strength of character to get us over any and humps (booms and busts, rainy days and most importantly, dry spells – a zone the camel excels in). 

Enter the Camel

Stick a unicorn, a dragon and a pony out in the open desert for a week or two and see who survives… Metiquity Ventures’ bet is the trusty camel. 

This startup metaphor is based on survival and profitable risk assessment. Camels put the management of resources first. They are focused on the long-haul scaleup. Not speedy exit rounds. 

When we hear horror stories such as the dot com crash of the early 2000s and other Silicon Valley cringers we know that we don’t want that happening in an emerging market such as Alberta.

When early-stage venture capital investors focus on growth at all costs (creating unicorns) it works best in the strongest bull markets and best conditions (in which only a unicorn could survive). Emerging markets take grit and planning, business acumen and hard work, plus cash flow and careful management of resources and assets.  

Emerging markets need Camels 

The Prairies and Alberta’s technology sector market need camels. Those founders, early-stage companies and tech startups ready to survive for long periods of growth in the heat and sun, sometimes with little sustenance and watering, because they were smart enough to store their energy and resources for a non-rainy day in their hump. 

They execute balanced growth, take a long-term outlook and make diversification a pillar of all business strategies. This allows them to scale on balanced growth. They can survive more market shocks and downturns. Their tenacity over shiny facade is what gives them the advantage. 

Camels support efficient and balanced economic growth

Investors that are looking to emerging markets such as that of Alberta and the Prairies tech sector and digital innovation ecosystems are interested in sustainable models of development and business. They should also be looking for mixed portfolios with companies that drive capital efficiency and crisis-resistant models. 

Metiquity look at investment in the emerging tech market and asset class from this perspective: where are the camels?

The data is still early, but there are strong indications that this is a strategy for pre-seed investment here to succeed. For one, survival rates are higher in emerging startup ecosystems. At the same time, because they are more capital efficient (and valuations on average are more reasonable), they can generate greater cash-on-cash multiples on higher ownership

By changing the way VCs search for new investments and by valuing more economically stable companies over longer time horizons, venture capitalists can create healthier and less risky startup business environments. This also allows them to reward well-run startups and mitigate their high risks. It is a win-win-win, and in the face of current market instabilities, it seems like the right time to start adjusting venture capital strategies.

When it comes to animals, we love them allwe’re happy to feed and water potential unicorns, dragons, ponies, centaurs and the like. But we’d be telling you a  tale if we didn’t admit that the camel is our favourite of the crew.

The Metiquity team will be the first to point out — much like the desert steed need and deserves a good wrangler, so do companies and founders in the form of their investors.

“Camels commit to a long-term scaleup and aren’t about quick exits. Meaning Camels (founders) should also be critical thinkers when assessing who invests in their company. Not all money is equal. A vetted hands-on investor is almost always the better option than a spray-and-pray fund or angel who is pushing for early exit with no chops for helping guide a company to scale to full potential.”
Jacques LaPointe MBA, PEng, Director and Co-Founder of Metiquity Ventures

Other interesting creatures include: Dragons, Centaurs and Ponies

  • Dragons: You’d think a unicorn would be about as good as it gets  –  but there’s an even more giant behemoth that rarely shows its fiery breath and impact. That is the dragon, also known as a private company valued at over $12 billion or more. 
  • Centaurs: The centaurs are companies with a valuation of more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
  • Ponies: These cute but consistent steeds have a valuation of more than $10 million. 

These four-legged categories bring us to the most important animal of all. Have we mentioned how much we love the camel yet?

Camel 101

  • Not blitz-scaling 
  • Measured risk and reward with balanced & sustainable growth
  • Long-haul founders and teams passionate about the global challenges they are disrupting
  • Strategic growth focus
  • Maintain reserves for dry spells 
  • Focus on strategic movement across the desert, no sparkle bombs (no smoke and mirrors) 😉 

Can you think of a more recession-proof animal? 

 

Metiquity Ventures Closes Investment in my-eforce

Metiquity Ventures Closes Investment in my-eforce

Metiquity is excited to announce the closing of its pre-seed equity investment in Calgary-based my-eforce. Metiquity acted as lead investor in this oversubscribed round.

my-eforce has developed a health and safety platform providing employers with critical life saving information before everyday incidents become life-changing tragedies. my-eforce provides a unique combination of real-time GPS location tracking and automated biometric feedback through its innovative wearable bracelet technology. The my-eforce platform also provides a proprietary connection to emergency dispatch to enhance the speed and safety of emergency response times.

“Metiquity is excited to partner with Brennan Lewis and the team at my-eforce. We believe my-eforce’s ability to understand the unique biometric footprint for each person on the platform will give customers critical insights that empower them to better protect the health and safety of their lone workers and at-risk individuals. At the same time, my-eforce’s platform will digitally transform an inefficient employee check-in process and allow customers to optimize their operations.” – Bryan Slauko, Managing Partner at Metiquity Ventures.

The market for lone worker safety solutions is well defined and growing. COVID-19 has created more lone workers than ever. Many countries are developing stricter occupational health and safety regulations to protect lone workers. Employee insurance costs are rising. And organizations are placing a greater corporate focus on health and safety to attract and retain their people.

Metiquity believes my-eforce’s technology will bring needed innovation to the existing market for lone worker safety solutions, and open new markets by broadening the application of these solutions across industries and geographies.

Metiquity Ventures


Based in Calgary, Alberta, Metiquity Ventures is a pre-seed growth equity fund formed to unlock growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest alongside them.

my-eforce


About my-eforce
my-eforce has developed a proprietary understanding of each individual on the platform from a biometric perspective. This understanding allows us to tell the story of what events that individual is experiencing, enabling organizations to coordinate responses to their needs without wasting valuable time.

Metiquity Announces Investment in Calgary-based my-eforce

Metiquity is excited to announce the closing of its pre-seed equity investment in Calgary-based, my-eforce. Metiquity acted as lead investor in this over-subscribed round.

my-eforce has developed a health and safety platform providing organizations of all types with actionable, lifesaving information, long before everyday incidents become life-changing tragedies. my-eforce provides a unique combination of real-time GPS location and automated biometric feedback through its innovative and discreet wearable wristband technology. This automation ensures the story of a life-critical event is instantly told – crucial for when the wearer is unable to tell it themselves. The my-eforce platform also provides a proprietary connection to emergency dispatch to enhance the speed and safety of emergency response times.

Keeping Employees and Organizations Safe Through Biometric Technology

Organizations can now connect to individual employees to help keep them safe. The my-eforce platform understands and alerts to the wearer’s reaction to serious, abnormal, or life-critical events through acute changes in their biometric information. The more the wristband is worn, the safer the wearer becomes. Team leaders can then forward that life-critical information directly to first responders, drastically reducing time and logistics for emergency response. Any segment of industry will benefit from my-eforce, starting with higher-risk workers, then moving to the boardroom.

Bryan Slauko, Managing Partner at Metiquity Ventures, says the firm is excited to partner with Brennan Lewis and the team at my-eforce.

“We believe my-eforce’s ability to understand the unique biometric fingerprint for each person on the platform will give customers critical insights that empower them to better protect the health and safety of their employees. At the same time, my-eforce’s platform will digitally transform an inefficient employee check-in process and allow customers to optimize and automate their operations.” Says Slauko.

Market Disruption

The market for employee safety solutions is well defined and growing. COVID-19 has created more remote and disconnected workers than ever, forever changing its definition and therefore, requirements. Employee insurance costs are rising, and organizations are placing a greater corporate focus on health and safety to attract and retain their people. As the minimum standards for corporate-employee-responsibility shift, Metiquity believes my-eforce’s technology will bring needed innovation to the existing market for employee safety solutions, opening new markets by broadening the application of these solutions across overlooked industries, geographies and most importantly, employee’s themselves.

About Metiquity Ventures

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Metiquity Ventures is a pre-seed growth equity fund formed to unlock growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest alongside them.

About my-eforce

my-eforce is the next generation of high-tech employee safety solutions, consisting of real-time GPS, automated biometric feedback, and emergency dispatch integration. Our Alberta developed technology includes a wearable wristband and is connected to a proprietary cloud platform. The my-eforce system is the first to understand and react to people’s unique health and wellness traits, allowing us to tell the story of what events that individual is experiencing in the field during a potential emergency where they may be cut off from other communications. Our technology enables organizations to better protect their workforce through coordinated responses to their workers needs without wasting valuable time.

Metiquity Ventures Closes Investment in Arolytics

Metiquity is excited to announce the closing of its equity investment in Calgary and Halifax-based Arolytics and its oversubscribed $700,000 seed funding round.

Arolytics has developed a software platform to help clients track and disclose greenhouse gas emissions performance while leveraging data to optimize emission reduction opportunities. Arolytics’ platform provides reliable and consistent reporting to management, regulators and investors. It also empowers clients to optimize long-term business sustainability by finding a balance between a responsibility to mitigate climate risks and a need to drive competitive and sustainable returns to shareholders.

“Metiquity is thrilled to partner with Liz, Emmy and the team at Arolytics. They have already achieved strong early traction with leaders in the energy industry. With new methane regulations, increasing ESG pressure, and rapidly growing global investment industry demands for better climate risk disclosures, we believe Arolytics is well positioned to be a leader in helping oil and gas firms meet their emissions disclosure and reduction targets.” – Bryan Slauko, Managing Partner at Metiquity Ventures.

Metiquity is also proud to have partnered with M-Tech Innovations and Startup TNT in providing the early-stage funding that will unlock Arolytics’ growth potential. “Continued growth of our ecosystem will not happen without more support from investors who are willing to invest in the early-stage funding gap faced by so many founders. M-Tech and Startup TNT are great partners who understand the need to work together to mobilize capital into this gap.”

Metiquity Ventures

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Metiquity Ventures is an early-stage growth equity fund formed to unlock growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest alongside them.

About Arolytics

With proprietary algorithms and emissions modelling, Arolytics has developed AROviz, a SaaS platform that optimizes energy sector emissions management while unlocking significant cost savings. Aggregating data from any sensor or source, the platform manages greenhouse gas emissions for compliance, disclosure, and ESG purposes, equipping everyone from the field to the board with readily available and verified emissions information. Formed in 2018, Arolytics originated out of one of Canada’s largest emissions research labs and has locations in both Halifax and Calgary.

Metiquity Ventures Announces Investment in Calgary-based Takemetuit

In keeping with its commitment to help Alberta’s founders navigate a significant funding gap and unlock early-stage growth potential, Metiquity Ventures today announced the closing of its $300,000 equity investment in Calgary-based Takemetuit. Metiquity acted as lead investor in the current $700,000 round.

Takemetuit has developed a unique indoor positioning technology that navigates people to products within 10cm of accuracy in three-dimensional space, without the need for chips or tags to transmit location data. Takemetuit’s patent protected acoustic-based technology is designed to operate in a similar way as GPS technology, using standard mobile devices. Metiquity believes there is a clear need for reliable, cost-effective sub-metre accuracy in the market that is not being met.

Takemetuit has initially targeted the grocery retail industry, which is known for very thin operating profit margins and is currently struggling to deal with the broken economics of its online distribution channel. The global acceleration of online grocery shopping during the pandemic threatens to massively dilute retailer profits without action to improve the economics of the channel. Employee inefficiencies with online order fulfillment and product stocking are major challenges that Takemetuit can solve today

“We are extremely excited to partner with the team at Takemetuit. Takemetuit’s technology provides an indoor positioning solution with low cost infrastructure, that is scalable with large numbers of devices, uses low battery strength, and can deliver the high accuracy the market needs. We believe that Takemetuit has the potential to transform the rapidly growing indoor positioning market the same way that GPS transformed outdoor navigation beginning in the 1990’s.” says Bryan Slauko, Managing Partner at Metiquity Ventures.

“Metiquity is a perfect fit for Takemetuit as we begin to commercialize our proven indoor positioning technology platform. They bring both seed funding and advisory depth as we launch our first projects in the retail sector.” says Don Thompson, President of Takemetuit Inc.

The global indoor positioning market is currently a $7 billion industry and is forecast to grow at an annual rate of over 25% between 2020 and 2025. Metiquity believes Takemetuit is well positioned to capture significant growth in this market.

Metiquity Ventures

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Metiquity Ventures is an early-stage growth equity fund formed to unlock growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest alongside them.

Takemetuit Inc.

Takemetuit’s high-precision indoor positioning platform helps businesses and consumers easily find what they are searching for.

Metiquity Ventures Announces Investment in Calgary-Based Helm

In keeping with its commitment to helping Alberta’s early-stage founders grow their businesses despite the challenges they face in an inefficient and unstable early-stage risk capital market, Metiquity Ventures today announced its $300,000 equity investment in Calgary-based cash flow management software company Helm. This is the first investment made by Metiquity’s new fund.

At a time when many investors have paused their activity, Metiquity identified an opportunity to help a business on-the-cusp of commercialization and growth to accelerate its path and help solve a real problem faced by small businesses around the world. “While Alberta has a growing and supportive ecosystem and has even seen strong venture capital investment growth, the need for investment where we need it the most, in innovative pre-revenue and early-revenue companies, is not being met” says Bryan Slauko, Managing Partner at Metiquity Ventures. “We believe this is a great time to invest in Alberta’s early-stage founders, and with our capital they can focus on building a strong foundation for long-term growth”.

Founded in 2018, Helm provides a software-as-a-service solution that streamlines the cash flow management process, one that is often overly complicated, unfamiliar and not truly accessible to entrepreneurs. Helm empowers business owners and their advisors to make better business decisions by providing a simple, easy to use, yet powerful tool that integrates and digitally transforms the entire process of forecasting future cash flows, scheduling and approving payments, and collecting receivables. Most businesses fail because they don’t understand cash flow. Helm will change that.

The cloud accounting software industry has been growing at a rate of over 30% per year over the past three years, in North America and internationally. Metiquity believes Helm is well positioned to grow with the industry, especially given the industry experience and recognition of its co-founders, Kelvin Gieck and Twyla Verhelst. Kelvin and Twyla own their own cloud accounting firm and that has given them real insight into the stress and anxiety that business owners, their accountants and bookkeepers face around cash flow.

“We believe Helm can be an international success story, built right here in Calgary. We’re excited to partner with Kelvin, Twyla and the team at Helm for our very first investment” says Slauko.

Metiquity Ventures

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Metiquity Ventures is an early-stage growth equity fund formed to unlock growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest alongside them.

Metiquity Ventures Launches Inaugural Early-Stage Equity Fund

With the close of its first investment, Metiquity Ventures is excited to announce the official launch of its inaugural investment fund. Metiquity Ventures Fund I is a Calgary-based early-stage growth equity fund created to help modernize Alberta’s early-stage funding ecosystem by unlocking growth potential for innovative founders on-the-cusp of growth and pioneering investors who invest capital alongside them.

Metiquity believes Alberta’s early-stage risk capital market is broken.

Pre-revenue and early-revenue start-ups on-the-cusp of growth are in desperate need of capital that traditional venture capital funds are not going to provide and local investors are not ready to provide. Alberta’s early-stage capital market is very unstable as a result. A substantial early-stage funding gap persists where promising companies cannot access the capital they need when they need it the most.

Metiquity will make meaningful lead investments in up-and-coming companies using technology to digitally transform and fundamentally disrupt the way traditional industries operate. With the close of its first investment, a $300,000 lead investment in Calgary-based Helm, Metiquity is expanding formal fundraising and will continue to make investments as it works towards its fundraising goal. The fund expects to raise capital primarily from high net worth individual and family office investors in Alberta and western Canada.

“We need to demystify the innovation ecosystem and make early-stage investing more accessible to our local high net-worth investment communities to unlock this important source of capital” said Bryan Slauko, co-founder of Metiquity.

“We are investors first and use a disciplined investment process to rigorously evaluate investment potential. But we know that capital alone is not enough. If the potential is there, we offer our operational expertise to actively support and encourage companies to develop strong business fundamentals. We want to allow founders to focus on stability and long-term value creation over short-term growth at all costs.”

The fund partners with founders in emerging innovation hubs who are creating long-term, systemic business value and are on the cusp of commercialization and significant growth, regardless of industry. Metiquity will make early-stage investments where it can amplify the impact of its expertise and help partner companies accelerate growth by implementing the efficient use of systems, processes, and a well-defined purpose.

Metiquity is partnering with pre-seed and seed stage founders, acting as a strong lead investor and investing $250,000 to $750,000 per portfolio company. With a target size of $15 million, the fund will partner with 20 to 30 companies across Alberta and western Canada. Metiquity will leverage its investment and expertise to help companies access additional equity investment and to unlock non-dilutive funding available through publicly funded programs.

The group behind Metiquity Ventures has been active in the Alberta entrepreneurial and technology communities for many years as investors, advisors and founders. Metiquity is co-founded by Bryan Slauko, Dennis Nerland and Jacques LaPointe.

Jacques LaPointe brings over 25 years of experience in the Alberta technology ecosystem including 13 years in operational roles in industry and 12 years as an investment portfolio manager, angel investor, director and advisor. Most recently, Jacques was a co-founder and former President of Calgary-based Attabotics. He led Attabotics through its very first equity and grant funding and the significant investment and growth that followed during his three-year tenure. Jacques is keenly aware of the significant funding gap that exists for true early-stage risk capital in Alberta.

“Alberta is home to many strong, emerging early-stage businesses with the potential to do great things outside of Alberta’s borders. But it is extremely difficult for founders to go out and raise that first $500,000 from investors. Particularly for businesses that are pre-revenue or early revenue. So many are on-the-cusp of something great but don’t make it because they can’t find the capital and guidance they need to get there.”

Dennis Nerland is an experienced angel investor and respected member of the Canadian legal and business communities. He is a co-founder of the law firm Nerland Lindsey LLP, practicing primarily in the areas of tax and estate planning. Dennis has also been active as a trustee of several private investment trusts and as a director of several public and private boards in the energy, technology and services sectors.

“We need Albertans to support the growth of our early-stage innovation ecosystem. Many of the natural investors in these up-and-coming companies are the families who earned most of their wealth right here as innovators in the energy sector. Our challenge is in mobilizing their capital. Many of these investors and the children they are now transferring their wealth to are not experienced with investing in today’s ecosystem.”

“With Metiquity we’ve created a professionally managed investment fund designed to focus exclusively on investing the smaller dollar amounts needed by early-stage startups in Calgary, Edmonton and other emerging regional markets. We have a team that knows how to evaluate risk and effectively lead these early-stage investments. We believe we can help mobilize capital that’s sitting on the sidelines and start to fill the major funding gap founders are experiencing here in Alberta.”

Bryan Slauko manages the daily activity of the fund. Bryan brings over 20 years of experience as an investment professional, advisor, entrepreneur and director. For the past 10 years Bryan has combined his expertise in investment analysis, market research, due diligence and early-stage growth equity with experience in business strategy, corporate governance and business building, to help unlock growth opportunities, create value and effectively manage risk for investors, early-stage companies and the communities he works in.

Metiquity looks forward to adding new investors and growing the Calgary-based, early-stage fund over the coming months. The need in Alberta is greater than ever. The pace of digital transformation has accelerated. The opportunity to partner with high-growth innovators, job and wealth creators is real.

Is Alberta’s Early-Stage Risk Capital Market Broken?

Bryan Slauko, CFA, June 2020

Alberta’s early-stage startups are in desperate need of capital that traditional venture capital funds are not going to provide and local investors are not ready to provide. Alberta’s early-stage risk capital market is very inefficient and unstable as a result. A massive early-stage funding gap persists where promising companies can’t access the capital they need when they need it the most. Continue Reading

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