First Ascent Ventures

First Ascent Ventures, established in 2015, is a Toronto-based venture capital firm with additional offices in Montreal and San Francisco. The company specializes in investing in Series A and B rounds, focusing on emerging Canadian technology companies developing disruptive, enterprise B2B software applications. These applications leverage cutting-edge technologies such as AI, machine learning, big data, cloud, and mobility. First Ascent typically invests CAD5 million to CAD10 million per company, often taking a Board seat, and aims to support outstanding entrepreneurs seeking both financial backing and operational expertise for growth and successful exits.

Richard Black

Co-Founder and Managing Partner

28 past transactions

Darwin CX

Venture Round in 2025
Darwin CX is a software-as-a-service platform focused on enhancing customer acquisition and retention for subscription-based businesses. It offers a suite of applications that replace outdated technology, enabling companies to effectively manage customer experiences. By leveraging customer intelligence management and artificial intelligence, Darwin CX provides tools for marketing, commerce, and data management. This comprehensive approach supports businesses in orchestrating customer interactions and optimizing their overall customer experience strategy.

Thentia Cloud

Series B in 2024
Thentia Corporation specializes in providing innovative technology solutions to assist regulatory bodies in efficiently meeting their obligations. The company offers a comprehensive platform that serves as a secure and user-friendly tool for regulators, along with a cost-effective cloud-based product designed for private businesses. This dual approach enables both regulatory agencies and companies to enhance their compliance and governance practices. By leveraging industry expertise and advanced software, Thentia aims to promote regulatory excellence and streamline processes for clients across Canada and the United States.

Osano

Series B in 2023
Osano is a provider of a cloud-based data privacy compliance suite designed to assist businesses in adhering to various privacy regulations, including GDPR and CCPA. The company's platform analyzes thousands of online privacy policies, offering insights that enable organizations to understand and navigate the complexities of data privacy laws across different jurisdictions. Through its software, Osano empowers clients to make informed decisions regarding their data interactions and sharing practices with websites and service providers, ultimately enhancing their compliance efforts and promoting responsible data management.

Shinydocs

Venture Round in 2023
Shinydocs specializes in automating the management of unstructured data and content within organizations. By streamlining the process of discovering, identifying, and managing the vast amounts of information stored across various systems, the company enhances organizations' understanding of their data. This capability allows businesses to make informed decisions, minimize risks associated with unmanaged sensitive information, and improve overall operational efficiency. The solutions provided by Shinydocs operate seamlessly in the background, ensuring that there is no disruption to end users or the need for extensive change management. Through its innovative approach, Shinydocs empowers enterprises to gain greater control over their data and implement collaborative tools that enhance productivity.

Darwin CX

Venture Round in 2022
Darwin CX is a software-as-a-service platform focused on enhancing customer acquisition and retention for subscription-based businesses. It offers a suite of applications that replace outdated technology, enabling companies to effectively manage customer experiences. By leveraging customer intelligence management and artificial intelligence, Darwin CX provides tools for marketing, commerce, and data management. This comprehensive approach supports businesses in orchestrating customer interactions and optimizing their overall customer experience strategy.

Andgo

Series A in 2022
Andgo Systems is a company that offers a shift fill automation tool to streamline scheduling practices in high-volume environments. Their software is designed to assist organizations in efficiently filling unplanned vacant shifts, addressing both immediate needs and planned absences. By providing automated and configurable workflows, Andgo simplifies complex scheduling processes and enhances communication regarding staffing needs. The company collaborates with organizations to tailor workflows that align with existing scheduling systems and processes, ensuring that the right personnel are assigned to the appropriate shifts. This approach ultimately aims to improve productivity and operational efficiency within organizations.

Potloc

Series B in 2022
Potloc Inc. operates an online consumer insights platform that provides businesses with valuable data regarding consumer preferences and purchasing habits. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Montreal, Canada, with additional offices in Toronto, Paris, and Geneva, Potloc utilizes innovative surveying methods, including web panels, phone surveys, and geo-targeted surveys through social media, to gather authentic feedback from a diverse audience. This platform enables clients to connect effectively with their target markets and enhance their local business strategies. Trusted by numerous leading brands, consulting firms, and investment funds, Potloc has established itself as a standard in market research by delivering high-quality insights with precision. The company's approach ensures that businesses receive relevant and accurate data tailored to their unique needs, facilitating better decision-making and consumer engagement.

LinkSquares

Series C in 2022
LinkSquares, Inc. is a computer software company specializing in AI-powered contract management and analytics for in-house legal and finance teams. Founded in 2015 and based in Somerville, Massachusetts, LinkSquares provides a platform that enables users to discover, report, and analyze contracts efficiently. Its offerings include full-text search, metadata extraction, automatic classification, custom reporting, and secure contract storage. By automating data extraction and organization, the platform helps clients reduce the time and costs associated with manual contract management, thereby streamlining legal operations and enhancing internal reviews and legal audits.

Sama

Series B in 2021
Sama is a data annotation company that specializes in providing image, video, and sensor data validation for machine learning applications. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company operates additional locations in New York, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Kenya, Uganda, and Singapore. Sama's platform supports various industries, including transportation, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and agriculture, by delivering high-quality training data that enhances the development of accurate machine learning models. The company's offerings include automated annotation techniques such as bounding boxes, semantic segmentation, and video object training, which streamline the data preparation process. By partnering with leading organizations, Sama aims to advance AI capabilities while creating opportunities for low-income individuals through the digital economy.

LinkSquares

Series B in 2021
LinkSquares, Inc. is a computer software company specializing in AI-powered contract management and analytics for in-house legal and finance teams. Founded in 2015 and based in Somerville, Massachusetts, LinkSquares provides a platform that enables users to discover, report, and analyze contracts efficiently. Its offerings include full-text search, metadata extraction, automatic classification, custom reporting, and secure contract storage. By automating data extraction and organization, the platform helps clients reduce the time and costs associated with manual contract management, thereby streamlining legal operations and enhancing internal reviews and legal audits.

Dialogue Health Technologies

Series B in 2020
Dialogue Health Technologies operates a comprehensive virtual care platform that provides employee wellness and health solutions for Canadian employers. Founded in 2016 and based in Montreal, the company offers a variety of services aimed at enhancing employee engagement and health. Its platform allows employees to interact with healthcare professionals, including nurses and doctors, for support in physical and mental health. Additionally, the platform facilitates care navigation, medication delivery, and referrals to specialists. By empowering employees to take charge of their health, Dialogue Health Technologies helps businesses create a healthier workforce, leading to increased productivity and overall employee satisfaction.

ThinkData Works

Series A in 2020
ThinkData Works specializes in unlocking the value of data to drive business growth. The company addresses challenges posed by varied data sources, inconsistent formats, and evolving compliance requirements. Their unified cloud platform offers seamless connections to any data source, robust metadata management, and secure tools for delivering data both within and outside an organization. This platform is designed to handle complexities in data variety, reducing overhead and fostering innovation. ThinkData Works enables developers, civil society organizations, and businesses to leverage standardized public data from government sources, focusing on areas such as transportation, education, and healthcare.

LinkSquares

Series A in 2020
LinkSquares, Inc. is a computer software company specializing in AI-powered contract management and analytics for in-house legal and finance teams. Founded in 2015 and based in Somerville, Massachusetts, LinkSquares provides a platform that enables users to discover, report, and analyze contracts efficiently. Its offerings include full-text search, metadata extraction, automatic classification, custom reporting, and secure contract storage. By automating data extraction and organization, the platform helps clients reduce the time and costs associated with manual contract management, thereby streamlining legal operations and enhancing internal reviews and legal audits.

Sensibill

Series B in 2019
Sensibill Inc., founded in 2012 and based in Toronto, Canada, operates a cloud-based application that simplifies receipt management for users. The company's platform allows consumers to track their spending and manage their finances effectively by capturing both paper and electronic receipts. This digital receipt management solution empowers financial institutions to provide personalized insights, helping customers develop healthier financial habits. By analyzing SKU-level data and purchase behavior, Sensibill unlocks valuable insights that support revenue growth for these institutions. The technology has reached over 60 million users across North America and the U.K., facilitating easier reconciliation of bank statements, returns, exchanges, expenses, taxes, and accounting.

Dialogue Health Technologies

Series B in 2019
Dialogue Health Technologies operates a comprehensive virtual care platform that provides employee wellness and health solutions for Canadian employers. Founded in 2016 and based in Montreal, the company offers a variety of services aimed at enhancing employee engagement and health. Its platform allows employees to interact with healthcare professionals, including nurses and doctors, for support in physical and mental health. Additionally, the platform facilitates care navigation, medication delivery, and referrals to specialists. By empowering employees to take charge of their health, Dialogue Health Technologies helps businesses create a healthier workforce, leading to increased productivity and overall employee satisfaction.

Q4

Series C in 2018
Q4 Inc. is a cloud-based platform that specializes in providing investor relations (IR) and capital market solutions to public companies globally. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with additional offices in New York, Chicago, and Copenhagen, Q4 offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance communication and engagement between organizations and their investors. Their flagship product, Q4 Desktop, serves as an all-in-one IR solution that equips clients with the necessary insights and information for effective decision-making. The company designs and develops corporate websites, provides audio and video webcasting services, and delivers analytics and reporting tools that track trading activities and investor behavior. Q4 aims to improve the effectiveness of investor relations through innovative website solutions and a strong focus on storytelling, making it a trusted partner for over 2,200 prominent brands. Their services are delivered primarily on a subscription basis, utilizing a software-as-a-service model to support the diverse needs of their clients in the capital markets.

Upchain

Series A in 2018
Upchain is a provider of cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) solutions, established in 2015. The company aims to transform the way PLM is approached by making it more accessible to all participants in the supply chain, rather than focusing solely on large multinational corporations. Upchain's software facilitates collaboration across decentralized product value chains, offering features such as item management, version control, change management, bills of materials management, file compliance, and integration with computer-aided design tools. This comprehensive approach enables manufacturers operating within complex value chains to enhance revenue, reduce costs, and improve product quality, thereby streamlining the entire lifecycle from initial design to final assembly.

Rubikloud

Series B in 2018
Rubikloud Technologies Inc., established in 2013 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, specializes in developing and operating cloud-based enterprise data platforms powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The company caters to global retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries, offering solutions such as Retail AI for promotion effectiveness, forecasting, and optimization, and CPG AI for demand forecasting and trade promotion optimization. Rubikloud's flagship products include RubiCore, a big data platform for processing disparate data sources, RubiView for automated market and business intelligence reports, and RubiOne for personalized campaign management. The company operates globally with sales offices in the USA, the UK, and Hong Kong, serving multi-billion dollar clients. As of 2020, Rubikloud operates as a subsidiary of Kinaxis Inc.

Sportlogiq

Series A in 2017
SportLogiq Inc. is a Montreal-based company that specializes in developing an artificial intelligence-driven sports analytics software platform. Founded in 2014, SportLogiq utilizes computer vision technology to analyze player movement and actions during games by leveraging standard broadcast feeds. This innovative platform provides teams with valuable insights to enhance their strategic planning and execution while enabling broadcasters to engage viewers more effectively. Additionally, the analytics generated by SportLogiq support media professionals in storytelling and data-driven reporting, thereby enriching the overall understanding of the game for teams, analysts, and fans alike.

Assent Compliance

Series B in 2017
Assent Compliance, established in 2005 and based in Ottawa, Canada, specializes in providing software solutions for supply chain sustainability management. The company's core offering is a comprehensive platform that helps complex manufacturers navigate product compliance, trade compliance, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) responsibilities. This platform includes modules for managing materials compliance, ethical sourcing, inspections, supplier management, and supply chain data collection, all accessible through a single dashboard. Assent's solutions enable businesses to monitor and manage their compliance portfolio, gather and analyze data, and receive alerts based on user-defined metrics. Additionally, the company offers regulatory compliance consulting, assessment, and outsourcing services to support clients in meeting local and international regulations.

Astronomer

Seed Round in 2017
Astronomer, Inc. is a company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, that specializes in developing a managed platform for data orchestration, primarily utilizing Apache Airflow. Established in 2014, Astronomer offers a comprehensive suite of products and services through its platform, known as Astro. This platform is designed to streamline the process of building, running, and monitoring data pipelines-as-code, catering to the needs of data engineers, scientists, and analysts. By providing tools for deploying, managing, and scaling data workflows, Astronomer enhances the availability of trusted data for organizations, making it easier for data teams to conduct business analytics effectively. As a commercial developer of Airflow, Astronomer plays a significant role in the data orchestration landscape, serving hundreds of thousands of teams globally.

Sensibill

Series A in 2017
Sensibill Inc., founded in 2012 and based in Toronto, Canada, operates a cloud-based application that simplifies receipt management for users. The company's platform allows consumers to track their spending and manage their finances effectively by capturing both paper and electronic receipts. This digital receipt management solution empowers financial institutions to provide personalized insights, helping customers develop healthier financial habits. By analyzing SKU-level data and purchase behavior, Sensibill unlocks valuable insights that support revenue growth for these institutions. The technology has reached over 60 million users across North America and the U.K., facilitating easier reconciliation of bank statements, returns, exchanges, expenses, taxes, and accounting.

DailyPay

Series A in 2016
DailyPay is a New York City-based worktech company that provides an earned wage access solution, aiming to enhance the payment experience for employees across various sectors. By offering a digital wallet system and on-demand pay technology, DailyPay enables workers to access their earned wages before the traditional payday, allowing them to transfer funds directly to any bank account and purchase goods and services as needed. This service acts as a voluntary employee benefit, fostering stronger relationships between employers and their workforce while promoting financial well-being. DailyPay's innovative platform is designed to motivate employees to work harder and remain engaged in their jobs.

Q4

Series B in 2016
Q4 Inc. is a cloud-based platform that specializes in providing investor relations (IR) and capital market solutions to public companies globally. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with additional offices in New York, Chicago, and Copenhagen, Q4 offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance communication and engagement between organizations and their investors. Their flagship product, Q4 Desktop, serves as an all-in-one IR solution that equips clients with the necessary insights and information for effective decision-making. The company designs and develops corporate websites, provides audio and video webcasting services, and delivers analytics and reporting tools that track trading activities and investor behavior. Q4 aims to improve the effectiveness of investor relations through innovative website solutions and a strong focus on storytelling, making it a trusted partner for over 2,200 prominent brands. Their services are delivered primarily on a subscription basis, utilizing a software-as-a-service model to support the diverse needs of their clients in the capital markets.

Assent Compliance

Series A in 2016
Assent Compliance, established in 2005 and based in Ottawa, Canada, specializes in providing software solutions for supply chain sustainability management. The company's core offering is a comprehensive platform that helps complex manufacturers navigate product compliance, trade compliance, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) responsibilities. This platform includes modules for managing materials compliance, ethical sourcing, inspections, supplier management, and supply chain data collection, all accessible through a single dashboard. Assent's solutions enable businesses to monitor and manage their compliance portfolio, gather and analyze data, and receive alerts based on user-defined metrics. Additionally, the company offers regulatory compliance consulting, assessment, and outsourcing services to support clients in meeting local and international regulations.

Rock Content

Series A in 2016
Founded in 2013, Rock Content is a provider of content marketing services that assists over 2,000 brands, marketers, and agencies in enhancing their content experiences. The company offers innovative solutions that leverage artificial intelligence tools to improve brand positioning and support account-based marketing programs. In addition to content creation, Rock Content provides managed services that ensure comprehensive program and campaign coverage, complete with real-time dashboards and reporting capabilities. Its mission is to create growth opportunities for both its clients and its talent community, positioning itself as a key player in the content marketing industry.

ThinkData Works

Series A in 2016
ThinkData Works specializes in unlocking the value of data to drive business growth. The company addresses challenges posed by varied data sources, inconsistent formats, and evolving compliance requirements. Their unified cloud platform offers seamless connections to any data source, robust metadata management, and secure tools for delivering data both within and outside an organization. This platform is designed to handle complexities in data variety, reducing overhead and fostering innovation. ThinkData Works enables developers, civil society organizations, and businesses to leverage standardized public data from government sources, focusing on areas such as transportation, education, and healthcare.

ScribbleLive

Series D in 2015
ScribbleLive is a content cloud provider headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, that specializes in helping companies manage their content lifecycle. Founded in 2008, the company offers a comprehensive platform designed to empower businesses to create premium content at scale. ScribbleLive's services include content strategy, creative services, implementation, integration, and IT support, enabling clients to effectively engage with their audiences. The platform features capabilities for liveblogging, real-time journalism, and on-the-fly storytelling, allowing organizations to leverage data and creativity for impactful content creation. Through its managed services, ScribbleLive provides program and campaign coverage, complete with dashboards and program reporting, ensuring clients can achieve predictable results in their content efforts.
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