Frontier Tech

BDC Capital's Deep Tech Venture Fund is a dedicated venture capital fund established in 2021 by BDC Capital, the venture and growth capital arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Canada's federal development finance institution. The fund was designed to address a persistent financing gap in Canada's deep technology sector, providing capital to Canadian startups commercializing transformational technologies requiring longer development cycles and specialized expertise to reach commercial scale. The fund targeted investments across four foundational technology areas: quantum computing, advanced electronics and photonics, next-generation semiconductor applications, and foundational artificial intelligence systems. With a mandate to invest in 15 to 20 companies over at least 12 years, the fund committed CAD 200 million to build Canada's deep tech commercialization pipeline, focusing on companies at the intersection of scientific research and commercial viability, often bridging the gap between university spin-outs and Series A institutional venture rounds. The fund made 12 investments before BDC's broader portfolio review led to a strategic restructuring of its venture capital activities following a CAD 220 million write-down in the value of BDC Capital's VC portfolios in fiscal year 2024 (ending March 31, 2024). BDC subsequently wound down the Deep Tech Venture Fund after approximately four years, shifting focus to a defence-technology successor mandate. The fund achieved Closed status as BDC redirected resources toward next-generation technology investment programs, having demonstrated early commercialization potential in several portfolio companies operating in quantum, photonics, and AI infrastructure.

Backed 3 is the third seed-stage venture fund from Backed VC, the London-based firm focused on backing Europe's most ambitious early-stage technology founders. The fund held its final close in November 2025 at its hard cap of $100 million (approximately £76 million), reaching its limit after strong demand from institutional fund-of-funds and a growing base of family office and entrepreneur investors. Backed's first fund has achieved top-decile performance and returned an additional 35 percent of capital to investors in October 2025, providing strong validation for the firm's approach and helping catalyze rapid fundraising for Fund 3. The investment mandate for Backed 3 is concentrated around three frontier technology themes: AI therapeutics — the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to drug discovery, clinical research, and personalized medicine; blockchain and banking infrastructure — foundational layer-1 and layer-2 protocols, as well as B2B blockchain applications transforming settlement, custody, and cross-border payments; and manufacturing automation — robotics, industrial AI, and advanced production systems enabling the re-shoring and upgrading of European manufacturing capacity. Backed leads pre-seed and seed rounds with initial check sizes of $500,000 to $5 million per company. Close to 50 percent of Backed 3's capital was committed by ten leading institutional fund-of-funds, with new investors including Isomer Capital and Wunderland Capital joining the LP base. The fund also counts over 50 family offices and founders from Backed's existing portfolio as investors, creating a flywheel of founder capital that provides both financial resources and strategic value-add for new portfolio companies. With Backed 3, the firm continues its mission of supporting founders with generational ambitions building transformative companies that can compete on a global scale from a European base.

The fund is designed as a European closed‑end venture capital vehicle managed by Kibo Ventures. It aims to back early‑stage software businesses with global ambition, leading or co‑leading pre‑series A and series A rounds. Its investment policy places a geographic emphasis on companies whose center of operations, management or strategic base is in Spain, with the intention that at least two‑thirds of invested capital goes into Spanish companies. The duration of the fund is estimated at ten years from the first close, extendable by up to two additional one‑year periods, and it targets a portfolio of B2B software companies with differentiated technologies and scalable international models. Typical checks are in the order of ~€2 million into early‑stage rounds, seeking minority positions (~10‑20%) in companies ready to scale, demonstrating product‑market fit and growth potential.