Toronto-Based VC Firm Launches $800 Million USD AI Growth Fund

Radical Ventures (Radical), a Toronto-based AI-focused venture capital firm, has recently launched a new $800-million USD growth fund, set to focus exclusively on growth-stage AI startups.

This step marks a departure from Radical’s previous focus on early-stage AI startups. The move towards targeting later-stage businesses will allow the firm to write larger cheques into larger companies. Radical partner, Aaron Brindle, described the new fund as “fueling the next chapter of growth for scaling AI companies.”

The new growth is Radical’s fifth fund. The firm previously launched a small initial seed fund, a $325 million first institutional fund, a $100 million opportunity fund and most recently, a $550 million fund for early-stage AI startups.

Radical was founded in 2017 by Jordan Jacobs and Tomi Poutanen. Since then, the firm has amassed a portfolio that includes many of Canada’s largest AI startups, including Toronto-based large language model developer Cohere, autonomous driving company Waabi, and quantum computing firm Xanadu. The firm describes its mandate  as “investing in people using artificial intelligence to shape the future of how we live, work and play.”

When asked about fears that the boom in the AI industry may be fading, co-founder Jacobs was unconcerned. According to him, “the vicissitudes of the market day to day don’t matter to us.” Radical is betting that AI technology will transform major industries in the long run.

This new fund is reportedly the largest of its kind in the AI space.