A team of high-profile Internet executives will today unveil a corporate incubator -- and $125-million in capital -- aimed at launching Canadian Internet companies onto the world stage.
It also plans to bring U.S.-style investments to the country's fledgling dot-com community.
Toronto-based Itemus Inc., co-founded by former Hummingbird Communications Ltd. president Jim Tobin, is to be launched today out of Vancouver-based Vengold Inc., which began life as a publicly traded mining company.
Mr. Tobin, chief executive officer of the new venture, said Itemus will be different from the other so-called incubators in the Canadian market, including Ecompark Inc., Brightspark Inc. and Exclamation Inc., because it will bring greater scale, more aggressive investing and a greater pool of talent to Canada's Internet community.
ITEMUS B6 {M>LINES:00053 DEPTH:00007.8 00046.11 ERRORS:0000Net incubator to be launched ITEMUS B1 "The typical cycle is to put a tiny bit of investment into a good idea," said Mr. Tobin, who was also a former executive vice-president at Bell Canada. "We want to accelerate that tremendously. We want to speed up the process of applying capital, and of getting whatever talent is required to make a business successful."
Itemus, which in Latin means "going forward together," currently has $75-million in cash and equity to fulfill that goal, and another $50-million "in the pipe", Mr. Tobin said.
The venture is backed by an impressive list of founding partners, including Rory Holland and Dave Schulz, founders of Vancouver-based Internet incubator IdeaPark Ventures Inc.; and Curtis Holister, founder and CEO of Ottawa-based Internet service provider Intrasoft.
As part of the creation of Itemus, Vengold has already closed acquisitions of both IdeaPark and Intrasoft Technologies Inc., which will become regional bases for Itemus. Mr. Tobin would not say how much the acquisitions were worth.
Mark Maybank, Internet research analyst at Yorkton Securities Inc., also joins the list, along with Tony Iantorno, most recently an executive with Andover, Mass.-based CGMI Inc., an Internet venture powerhouse.
In total, Mr. Tobin said the company will aim for 15 partners, all from the highest ranks of Canada's high-tech community. Vengold chairman Ian Telfer will become chairman of Itemus.
In December, Vengold said it planned to invest in Internet firms. Over the past two months, Mr. Telfer and Mr. Maybank began discussions with Mr. Tobin regarding the creation of Itemus, a company that would not only invest in early-stage startups, but also help traditional bricks-and-mortar firms get on the Internet and help bring established businesses together through strategic acquisitions.