Luge Capital, a new venture capital fund focused on early-stage FinTech companies and artificial intelligence solutions applied to financial services, announced June 11 that it has completed a $75 million round of financing to begin operations.
Initially, $50 million of the raised capital was announced in October 2017 by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Desjardins Group, two of the fund's major investors. Sun Life Financial, the Fonds de Solidarité FTQ and La Capitale are also significant participants. Luge says it may expand the fund even further up to $100 million in the coming months.
Improving customer experience
The fund plans to support “the development of innovative solutions that improve customer experiences, enhance efficiency for financial institutions and implement data-driven methods and artificial intelligence for decision-making,” says Luge Capital. It intends to focus on Seed and Series A financing, with initial investments between $250,000 and $2 million.
"We have partnered with world-renowned institutions that bring considerable industry knowledge and resources to enable us to help entrepreneurs build their businesses," said David Nault, Co-Founder and General Partner in Luge's Montreal office. "In addition, our AI and data-driven companies will have the opportunity to partner with our investors to access key insights in order to build best-of-breed solutions."
Challenging how the world interacts with financial services
"We are looking for young mission-driven companies that challenge how the world interacts with financial services," said Karim Gillani, Co-Founder and General Partner in Luge's Toronto office. "We invest in bold teams that demonstrate passion, manage risk and optimize for performance."