Venture investing platform unlocks ability to access flagship portfolio index fund through registered savings accounts
Global venture investment platform OurCrowd has made the fourth series of its flagship portfolio index fund, OC50, to individual investors in Canada.
With unprecedented low minimum contributions and the ability to invest from their registered savings accounts, thousands of Canadian accredited investors have a new access point into the rarefied world of VC investing.
“The kind of investments that used to be reserved exclusively for billionaires and well-connected financial institutions are now available to all accredited Canadian investors through the OC 50 Fund,” said David Shore, vice president, Investor Relations at OurCrowd. “Additionally, because we want Canadians to be able to maximize the full long-term value of this investment, we have structured the Fund to ensure it is RRSP- and TFSA-eligible.”
Because of the influx of seed and growth capital going to private companies over the past two decades, more firms have delayed their IPOs until much later in their life cycle, leading to more limited potential returns among public companies. The majority of companies elect to avoid IPOs altogether, instead going down the route of M&A exits to capitalize on their market value. The upshot for investors has been a generally less lucrative pool of opportunities in the public space.
“For the first time, individual accredited investors can invest small amounts in a private venture fund that counted as two of its recent investments among the top performing IPO’s of 2019 and 2020, Beyond Meat and Lemonade,” said OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved.
Created as a hyper-diversified investment vehicle, OC50 offers investors access to vetted startups across a diverse spectrum of sectors, stages, and geographies. The fund provides exposure to VC opportunities in growth industries including healthcare technology, transportation, agriculture, communication, enterprise, robotics, and AI.
The first three series of the OC50 fund have allowed investors to benefit either from OurCrowd company IPOs including Beyond Meat and Lemonade, or from attracting takeovers by companies like Vimeo, H&R Block, Uber, and NetApp. Among the companies included in the original OC50 Series I Fund launched in 2017, six have completed exits, generating an average of 2.3 times gross return on invested capital as of the end of Q3 2020.
OurCrowd operates in Canada through OurCrowd Canada Inc., an exempt market dealer registered in Ontario, British Colombia, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Nova Scotia.
