Deloitte Ventures is pleased to be investing in Certn, an AI-driven platform that provides background screening and identity verification.

Based in Victoria, British Columbia, Certn’s vision is to transform the background-check industry using digital identity passports that empower consumers with their own data for identification, credentials, proof of employment, and more.

The company’s team uses AI and ML to expedite the background-check process from around 20 days to just a few hours. Certn’s offerings include criminal record checks, credit checks, and verifications for identity, employment, and education.

Certn is already helping thousands of teams and enjoying incredible momentum. Among many accolades, it has won Company to Watch distinction in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 program and been named one of Canada’s Top Growing Companies by The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business.

We're pleased to be investing in Protexxa, a cybersecurity firm founded in 2022 to address the human element of cybersecurity by connecting personal cyber hygiene with business risk.

Based in Toronto, Protexxa offers an AI-powered cybersecurity assessment and remediation tool that enterprise customers and their employees use to understand corporate cybersecurity vulnerabilities and identify, evaluate, predict, and resolve common cyber issues. The industry-agnostic solution is being used everywhere from the public sector to health care and academia.

With its focus on prevention and increasing global cyber literacy, Protexxa also offers personalized training and consulting worldwide.

We’re excited about the potential for this company to contribute to a secure future, both across Canada and worldwide.

We were keen to invest in Plooto, a Toronto-based fintech company that offers a cloud-based B2B payments automation platform for SMBs.

Designed with SMB owners in mind, the platform automates and simplifies complex accounts payable and accounts receivable (AP/AR) workflows by unifying payments, processes, control, reconciliation, and reporting. The solution seamlessly integrates with accounting software and banking services and is available at an accessible price point. Plooto offers its customers three key value pillars: workflow automation, payment processing capabilities, and data insights.

Enjoying rapid growth across Canada and the United States, Plooto recently reported having more than 250,000 vendors and suppliers on its network. And all the feedback we’ve heard from our clients who are Plooto customers has been really positive. Deloitte Ventures joins investors including Centana Growth Partners, FinTop Capital, Luge, iNovia, ScaleUp, Golden, and Real Ventures.

We’re excited to be investing in Optable, which offers secure data collaboration for the media and advertising industry. The Montreal-based company’s data-security SaaS platform allows brands, agencies, and publishers to improve the accuracy and performance of their digital ads by accessing aggregated audience data from Optable’s partners in a safe and privacy-preserving way.

Using cryptographic technology, Optable offers clean room technology that enables advertisers and brands to match user-level data with partners without sharing any personal identifiable information or raw data. The solution comes at a critical time for the industry, as individual tracking and targeting methods—including third-party cookies and other device identifiers—are being retired, impeding advertisers’ ability to target specific audiences.

With Deloitte's clients looking for advice on how to prepare for a cookie-less world, Optable presented a unique opportunity to help accelerate the security and privacy of the marketing landscape.

OneVest believes in empowering challengers and incumbents alike to make investing better for everyone, and Deloitte Ventures is excited to be part of that. Founded in February 2021, the company provides digital wealth management services that can be embedded in consumer-facing products via a set of simple APIs. This enables the company’s clients—established consumer fintechs, credit unions, traditional banks, and wealth management firms—to offer a digitally native user experience of personalized wealth management to their end customers.

Able to quickly integrate its technology with clients, OneVest is the first wealth-as-a-service (WaaS) platform in Canada. Its offerings include a wealth API solution and a white label wealth management application to meet the needs of its customers.

Deloitte Ventures is pleased to have invested in CentML, a Toronto-based machine-learning (ML) infrastructure startup that optimizes the cost of running large-scale ML models in enterprises. Its powerful optimization and compilation tool can reduce operational costs for enterprises by increasing the speed and throughput of ML models.

As companies increase the adoption of AI and ML solutions in the workplace, the need for large ML models will become ubiquitous, and the costs associated with these models will continue to influence operational decisions. CentML is well positioned to capitalize on this emerging trend and place itself as a core tool in the modern-day enterprise tech stack. The founding team comprises top-tier researchers and engineers from the University of Toronto and has secured partnerships with key ecosystem players such as Snowflake, Oracle, and CoreWeave.

We're excited about the potential of this company to scale its product across industries and to enhance the infrastructure of existing and upcoming ML solutions.

Deloitte Ventures is thrilled to be investing in PocketHealth, a software-as-a-service platform designed for patients and providers to securely share sensitive medical imaging information.

Based in Toronto, PocketHealth has developed a sticky, patient-centric platform. Patient engagement drives the adoption among providers, including hospitals and medical imaging clinics. The platform allows patients to share their medical images in real time with anyone, anywhere, on any device. It also offers permanent, personal storage of their image records, allowing patients to play a more active role in their health care journey—a growing desire throughout the industry. Providers benefit from the elimination of CDs as a method for sharing medical images with patients and other providers, as well as increased patient engagement and administrative efficiency.

PocketHealth is used by more than 1.5 million patients and trusted by over 775 hospitals and clinics, including University Health Network (UHN), SickKids, and Southern Illinois Healthcare (SIH). The company continues to expand its reach in the United States and to optimize its product features, including the integration of AI.

With impressive growth and traction thus far, we are excited to watch PocketHealth build on this success as it improves the health care experience for both patients and providers.

We’re delighted about our investment in StandUp Ventures Fund II, a Canadian venture capital fund that champions breakthrough companies led by women.

Women-led startups are typically underrepresented, underfunded, and underestimated. In 2021, these businesses received only 2.2% of venture capital, yet they outperformed their male-led counterparts by 63%.*

Throughout our extensive due-diligence research, StandUp Ventures truly stood out. It is a $35-million seed-focused fund that largely invests in B2B enterprise software. The team has an excellent track record of identifying emerging-technology leaders: 100% of the seed investments it has made so far went on to raise Series A—or higher—rounds of funding at significant increases in valuation.

As investors in StandUp, we joined an impressive base of limited partners, including Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Business Development Bank of Canada, and Export Development Canada.

Beyond its strong financial performance, StandUp is purpose-driven organization that exemplifies Deloitte's Shared Values. We're excited to help make an impact in developing the next generation of women entrepreneurs.

*Sources: Crunchbase; CFA Institute​.

Deloitte Ventures is delighted to have joined Framework Venture Partners Fund as a limited partner. Framework is a Canadian venture capital fund that targets Series A and Series B investments in fintech and integrated AI companies that are applying ML to proprietary, industry-specific datasets to create new and highly scalable products.

The leadership team at Framework leverages their deep industry connections throughout the financial services and tech industries in Canada and the United States, enabling them to access financing for some of the top venture-backed companies on both sides of the border. They also get rave reviews for their strategic value-add and for providing support in areas such as hiring, strategy, and fundraising.

Framework stood out for its category-leading returns, proprietary private company datasets, strong leadership team, and compelling reviews from its limited partners (LPs) and portfolio company founders, who identify the fund as a global best-in-class investor.

We’re excited to be investing in Inovia, a full-stack technology investing platform that operates across North America and Europe. Outside of its core portfolio, the company has been making direct investments since 2007 and investing in emerging funds in North America since 2015 through its successful pre-seed/seed (“Discovery”) investment strategy. With its expertise in the Canadian landscape and demonstrated experience in the pre-seed/seed space, Inovia recently launched its Discovery Fund I (“DF1”) to further commit to emerging fund investments.

The fund seeks to invest in managers with strong Canadian ties who can outperform the market through their unique networks and deep industry knowledge. A dedicated team at Inovia scouts for top emerging managers and works with them to identify the most promising startups and accelerate their growth. DF1 also reserves a portion of the fund for direct investments in the early-stage companies with the highest potential, sourced through the program.

Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Active Impact is a B Corp Certified firm investing in technologies solving the biggest and most urgent environmental challenges. Founded in 2018, the company is now Canada’s largest climate tech seed fund. Active Impact Fund III is a continuation of the firms Fund II strategy that focuses on four investment verticals—clean energy and transportation, infrastructure and carbon solutions, sustainable food and water, and the circular and sharing economy. Active Impact invests in founders with high-margin products—the majority are enterprise B2B SaaS—and a profit-first motive.

We’re proud of our investment in Golden Ventures, a sector-agnostic venture fund seeding the next generation of young Canadian startups. Since its launch in 2011, it has been instrumental in shaping the early-stage ecosystem in Canada, providing crucial support to founders across various industries. Earning a stellar track record, it has contributed to the success of some of the country’s top-performing technology companies, including Skip the Dishes, Wattpad, Neo Financial, and Xanadu.

Our collaboration with Golden Ventures since 2022 has validated our belief that its team shares not just our values, but also our mutual commitment to going beyond providing capital. It delivers exceptional support and value-add to its portfolio companies through its expansive network of talent and follow-on funding—both crucial for startup success. Working together, we leverage Deloitte Venture’s reach and access to industry specialists and Golden Venture’s network in the early-stage ecosystem to support visionary Canadian founders and companies.