Following unsuccessful bid for SVB Canada’s assets, Round13 wants to target underfunded startups with TIMIA.
When Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) Canadian assets went up for auction in the summer of 2023 following the California-based, venture-focused bank’s collapse, 13 companies submitted bids to claim either a portion or all of the Canadian loan book.
Among them was a unique contender: Toronto-based venture firm Round13 Capital.
“We knew a lot of [SVB’s] borrowers, had thoroughly diligenced them, and had a strong view on the opportunity there,” Brahm Klar, Round13 Capital’s managing partner, told BetaKit in an interview.
“There’s a pretty big swath of the market that’s not optimally served.”
Michael Wallace, TIMIA
While it was not the only venture firm that sought to buy SVB assets—Inovia Capital and Founders Circle acquired SVB’s $60-million loan to portfolio company Clearco to support the company’s stabilization—Round13 had a different goal. Typically focused on equity investments in scaling tech companies, Round13’s bid signalled a desire to explore a new asset class: venture debt.
Ultimately, National Bank acquired SVB Canada’s commercial loan portfolio, but Klar noted that the process provided the firm with valuable insights into the private credit space. This led Round13 to spend much of the following year exploring whether to acquire another asset or build their own venture debt platform.
That year of reflection led to Round13’s acquisition of TIMIA Group earlier this fall. TIMIA, a Vancouver-based venture debt firm, marked Round13’s first official foray into the space.
The deal not only lets Round13 leverage TIMIA’s existing lending platform, but also positions the firm to address a growing demand for non-dilutive funding among early-stage Canadian startups.
“There’s a pretty big swath of the market that’s not optimally served,” said Michael Wallace, TIMIA’s new CEO under Round13’s ownership. “We think there’s an amazing opportunity to work with slightly smaller, earlier-stage founders who don’t necessarily have the desire to … run potentially cash-flowing, high-quality technology businesses, and are looking for the right flexible capital partner to work with them at a scale that makes sense for them.”
Round13 Capital was founded in 2011 with the goal of supporting Canadian entrepreneurs through growth-stage equity investments. Over the years, the firm has built a reputation for its focus on concentrated investments in late-stage and crypto companies.
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According to Klar, Round13 saw venture debt as a complement to its existing equity funds. He noted a persistent challenge in balancing risk-adjusted returns with the high growth expectations that are typical in the VC arena.
“We want to see most stakeholders do well in most scenarios, not most stakeholders do well in the most ambitious scenarios,” Klar explained.
Venture debt, Klar explained, offers an attractive proposition with “mid-teens-and-up returns,” faster returns to limited partners, and critical support for companies “looking to bridge to either a next financing event, break even, or potential M&A.”
He believes the acquisition of venture debt platform TIMIA provided the best vehicle for Round13 to address these gaps. Founded in 2015, TIMIA claims to have established over $200 million in loan facilities, supported 80 portfolio companies, and achieved 35 exits.
Particularly since the collapse of SVB, Canada’s venture debt landscape has been dominated by large technology banking groups like CIBC Innovation Banking and RBCx. According to a report from the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, CIBC alone deployed $138 million CAD in non-dilutive financing in the first three quarters of this year.
Round13 does not view its venture debt offering as competitive to the banks. By providing smaller loans ranging from $1 million to $10 million, it aims to act as a starting point for startups not yet ready for traditional bank financing.
“Our suspicion is that this will be a great precursor to a lot of Canadian bank lenders, and our hope is that most of our portfolio graduates [go on to] work with the Canadian banks,” Klar added.
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Wallace said he feels the acquisition allows Round13 to fill the funding gap for businesses not yet ready or willing to take on significant equity investments, with Wallace noting many of TIMIA’s borrowers are “folks who’ve chosen not to go the equity route at scale.”
“They may have angel funding or friends and family funding, or even a seed or pre-seed round in there, but they have chosen, rather than grow via equity, they want to maintain a cash-flowing business and look for non-dilutive forms of capital to help grow,” Wallace said.
Following the acquisition’s close in early November, Round13 owns TIMIA’s operating company, which manages the private debt business, as well as general partner interests in the firm’s investment vehicles, which are used to issue loans and source capital to finance those loans.
Round13 also acquired limited partnership interests in three of TIMIA’s five investment vehicles, which give it direct participation in the existing loan portfolio. One of the vehicles is now closed to new investments, while another operates as part of a partnership with American firm Arena Investors.
Through this structure, Round13 has inherited an active portfolio of 26 debt investments in primarily software-as-a-service (SaaS)-focused companies.
“We want to make sure that we’re not sacrificing credit quality in the name of doing more and more deals.”
Incoming CEO Wallace spent six years building Langhaus Financial Partners, a non-bank insurance lender that was eventually acquired by Montfort Capital, TIMIA’s parent company, prior to the Round13 acquisition. He also held leadership roles in the technology sector, including positions as CEO and president of both SaaS startups and service providers.
Under Wallace’s leadership, TIMIA’s integration into Round13 Capital comes with a goal of becoming the premier private credit platform for technology investments in Canada.
His vision involves scaling TIMIA’s lending capabilities, both in terms of deal size and the range of companies it can serve. Wallace noted that Round13’s liquidity injection into the business allows TIMIA to take on larger deals while maintaining its focus on early-stage, revenue-generating companies. The aim, he said, is to broaden TIMIA’s “credit box” to support more founders.
Wallace also sees TIMIA’s partnership with Round13 as a way to extend the reach of its origination engine, allowing it to identify and support a wider range of potential borrowers.
“We want to make sure that we’re not sacrificing credit quality in the name of doing more and more deals,” he added. “So we’ll be very judicious about how we go about it.”
Though Wallace and Klar have big ambitions for their venture debt offering, Klar acknowledges that branching into this asset class is a well-trodden path in the private equity world.
“If you look at Onex, Apollo, Blackstone, KKR—they all have both credit and equity products to their offerings, and that’s because credit makes sense for a certain profile and equity makes sense for another profile,” Klar said. “We take some of our inspiration from that.”
For now, the pair’s focus is on engaging with existing investors, management teams, and Canadian startups to fine-tune TIMIA’s growth strategy and ensure it meets the needs of the country’s tech ecosystem.
Feature image courtesy Round13 Capital.
