BDC Capital is the venture and growth-equity arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada, founded in 1953 as Canada's national development bank before building out a dedicated venture capital function. Positioned as Canada's largest and most active early-stage venture capital investor, BDC Capital co-invests alongside angels and private VCs to support homegrown Canadian technology companies across AI, cleantech, and enterprise software, deliberately providing large co-investment checks specifically designed to encourage more private capital into Canadian deals rather than crowding it out. That patient, government-backed capital model has supported Canadian technology companies for three decades, including Lightspeed Commerce, Coveo, and Borrowell, and BDC Capital now deploys approximately $3 billion across its venture and growth equity funds.
No focus on traditional exits - as Canada's national development bank's venture arm, BDC Capital measures success through co-investment reach; Lightspeed Commerce's 2020 NYSE IPO is among the notable companies it helped fund