CIBC Innovation Banking unveils $1.5bn late-stage venture fund

Hoping to ease the funding gap as VCs have slowed their investment pace, CIBC Innovation Banking has launched a $1.5 billion venture fund to back later-stage start-ups.

“Start-up financing may be slowing down, but we are committed to continue to deploy capital so that later-stage companies can continue to embrace opportunities to achieve their ambitions, despite these choppy equity markets,” Mark McQueen, president of CIBC Innovation Banking, said in a statement.

The new fund will target software, life sciences, healthcare and cleantech industries, with deals ranging from $50 million to $100 million in size.

Toronto-based CIBC has injected more than $6 billion into the innovation economy in the last four years, providing debt financing solutions to North American innovation companies ranging from early-stage to those with an enterprise value of over $10 billion, it said in a statement. Among the companies it has backed is Expensify, which went public on the Nasdaq in November 2021.

“Our team has financed firms through a lot of tough periods for our sector: the dot-com bubble burst, the 2008 financial crisis, as well as the recent covid-19 pandemic,” McQueen said. “This is a time when experience and market heft are crucial.”

CIBC Innovation Banking has opened nine US offices to date in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Menlo Park, New York, Reston and Seattle. It also opened an office in London last September to support the ambitions of UK-based entrepreneurs and their VC backers.

CIBC Innovation Banking delivers strategic advice, cash management and funding to  companies across North America, the UK, and select European countries at each stage of their business cycle, from startup to IPO and beyond.