2021 was a pivotal year for Cycle Capital Management from all fronts. Cycle Capital is starting the new year with a fresh look that reflects our professionalism in the financial sector, our commitment to actions against climate change, and ultimately, our ambitious endeavour to scale impactful innovation.
Ringing the IPO Bell with ESS Inc. (NYSE: GWH)
One of the proudest moments in venture capital is helping a startup through its early growing pains to an initial public offering. The team completed the going public transaction of ESS Inc. via SPAC on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GWH with investors such as Fidelity, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, SoftBank Energy and BASF.
We’ve also finalized the exit of Laboratoire M2 in 2021. Lab M2 sells biodegradable, high-performance and safe antimicrobial products for the animal health, agricultural crop protection and surface cleaning.
New Investments
In 2021, Cycle Capital’s portfolio companies raised eight rounds of financing totaling $260M. Notable rounds include a round of $150M US in Gan Systems led by Fidelity, Vitesco, BDC, and numerous other partners who took part.
Gan Systems and Partners tackle the Net Zero Challenge
We’ve added Mysa, a new company from the Maritimes to the portfolio with a $20.3M round led by Cycle Capital and joined by Round13, EDC and BDC. The Canadian smart-thermostat venture received growth financing to support its goal of decarbonizing domestic heating and cooling globally.
Mysa Announces $20.3 Million in Series B Fundraising
The People Behind Cycle Capital
At Cycle Capital, our team is our strength. In 2021, we promoted three of our valued team members, and we welcomed eight new employees to our diverse and gender-neutral team of 27.
Promotions
- Dan Pinault promoted to Partner
- Gary Berdowski promoted to Associate
- Catherine Bérubé, now also leading Cycle Central
New members
- Alia Drouin, Director, Impact Investment and Public Affairs
- Maya Hassa, Analyst
- Christine Forget, Executive Strategic Advisor
- Vincent Lamontagne-Lafrenaye, Open Innovation Program Manager
- Gabriel Samson, Analyst
- Hans Rogg Desormeaux, Analyst Open Innovation and acceleration
- Odette Diouf, Accounting assistant
- Marie Bonneval, Accounting assistant (interim)
- And most recently, Manuelle Côté, Project Manager, Communications & Marketing
Making an Impact
At Cycle Capital, we don’t believe in half measures, which is why we have invested in implementing tools to monitor ESG and impact metrics. To this effect, we’ve integrated the impact evaluation in the quarterly reporting of our most recent fund. We have also recruited a new resource, Alia Drouin, which, in collaboration with the investment team, supports our companies in monitoring their non-financial performance.
Diversity is important at Cycle Capital as a driver for creativity and innovation. Our portfolio companies count 29% women at the senior management level and 22% at the employee level, including senior management and 31% of visible minorities.
Cycle Momentum
This year, Cycle Momentum tripled its team and doubled the number of companies accelerated, moving from 10 to 20, totaling to more than 75 ventures accelerated since 2015. Graduated companies have raised, altogether, $78M in dilutive and dilutive financing in 2021.
Cycle Momentum also launched its first Open Innovation platform in collaboration with InnovHQ in the greenhouse sector. The accelerator also launched two other impact programs in partnerships with ZoneAgtech and L’esplanade, because together, we can make They also forged ten corporate partnerships to grow the cleantech ecosystem actively and launched the Circle of Partner Funds, which now regroups 15 members that are investing in cleantech.
Bleu Impact Fund
2021 also marks the inception of the BleuImpact Fund — a $20M fund dedicated to innovative water technologies lead by our Senior Partner Simon Olivier.
Cycle Central
We launched Cycle Central, a non-profit entity to create an Innovation Zone dedicated to clean technologies. Based in Montreal, Cycle Central is an innovation hub and community of entrepreneurs, researchers, investors and industrial partners dedicated to deploying innovative solutions to the major environmental challenges facing humanity.
