<div>The Ontario and federal governments have kick-started a $217  million venture capital fund to invest in technology companies with an aim of attracting  investment to Ontario.</div>
<p>Premier <strong>Kathleen Wynne</strong> made the announcement Tuesday at the Communitech hub in Waterloo, a high-tech community that has spawned such well-known companies as smartphone maker BlackBerry and Open Text, a big corporate software producer that co-sponsored the event and set up its own separate $100 million tech  fund.</p>
<p>The new $217 million capital pool will be called the Northleaf Venture Catalyst Fund and will be a partnership with Ottawa, as well as private equity, corporate and institutional investors.</p>
<p>The fund will be managed by Toronto-based Northleaf Capital Partners and has already received $217 million in financing, including $50 million each from the Ontario and federal governments. It could grow as big as $300 million when other investors get involved.</p>
<p>Ontario is the first province to launch a fund under Ottawa's Venture Capital Action Plan, which is designed to create jobs in the knowledge-based economy. Minister of State for FedDev Ontario, <strong>Gary Goodyear, </strong>represented Ottawa at Tuesday's  announcement.</p>
<p>Northleaf is modelled after the Ontario Venture Capital Fund, a six-year old investment pool that has put money into successful Ontario companies, including fast-growing firms such as <a href="http://www.achievers.com/">Achievers</a>, <a href="http://www.bluecatnetworks.com/">BlueCat Networks</a> and <a href="http://www.shopify.ca/">Shopify</a>.</p>
<p>"We want to continue to attract investments to Ontario and support our most innovative companies," Wynne told a news conference. "Funds like these are a great tool to help companies access the capital they need to grow, create more good jobs and expand into global markets.”</p>
<p>Venture capital is money provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, startup companies. The venture <a title="Collective investment scheme" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_investment_scheme">fund</a> makes money by buying a stake in the companies it invests in, generally in software, biotech and IT sectors.</p>
<p>For new companies, venture capital is a key way to finance growth because they are usually too small or have too limited an operating history to raise money on the stock market, issue corporate bonds or get a bank loan.</p>
<p>"Venture capital is the lifeblood of Ontario’s high-tech economy and we’re pleased that Canada is introducing our market-based fund of funds model on a national scale," said <strong>Reza Moridi</strong>, Ontario's Minister of Research and Innovation.</p>
<p><strong>Jeff Pentland</strong>, managing director of Northleaf Capital Partners, said he wants to build a portfolio of high-potential venture capital funds with the scale and resources to execute their plans, support successful high-growth companies and deliver world-class returns.</p>
<p>OpenText, a Waterloo company that started with venture funding two decades ago and now has 8,000 employees around the world, kicked in $30 million to the Northleaf fund.  Separately, it has set up a $100 million fund for new business software  applications, called the OpenText Enterprise Applications Fund.</p>
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<p>“The reason this is important to us is there’s a financial economics side, there’s a social will and good side and all those things are important, but we want to massively grow the ecosystem for applications here in Canada,” said CEO <strong>Tom Jenkins.</strong></p>
<p>The OpenText fund will include general partners <strong>Richard Black</strong> and <strong>Luc Filiatreault </strong>as well as other Canadian companies and investors.</p>
<p>It’s expected to close in mid-2014 and is designed to fund the “next generation of enterprise apps," said Jenkins, whose company will spend $2 billion on research and development over the next five years.</p>
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Ontario, feds launch venture capital fund

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