Panache Ventures

Panache Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in 2018 and based in Montréal, Canada, with additional offices in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, and San Francisco. The firm specializes in pre-seed and seed-stage investments, focusing on sectors that leverage Canada's strengths, including artificial intelligence, fintech, digital health, enterprise software, and blockchain. Panache Ventures aims to support innovative startups primarily within Canada, although it has a presence in the United States as well. The firm typically seeks to make initial investments of up to USD 1 million, targeting a diverse array of technology sectors such as cybersecurity, virtual reality, and data analytics.

Michael Cegelski

Founder & Chairman

Taylor Gendron

Associate

Timothy Kwok

Associate

Scott Loong

Partner

Patrick Lor

Partner

Prashant Matta

Partner

Chris Neumann

Partner

Past deals in British Columbia

Fraction

Series A in 2021
Fraction is a technology-based lending platform focused on making residential real estate more affordable, flexible and liquid.

Audette

Seed Round in 2021
$1T will be spent annually on energy efficiency upgrades in commercial properties in the next 10 years. Energy managers are struggling to identify cost-effective projects and failing to meet regulatory commitments. Audette unlocks clean investment for large building portfolios by connecting to and analyzing digital utility and building data and providing the insights needed to uncover millions in potential reductions in operating costs and carbon output.

Snack

Pre Seed Round in 2021
Snack is a video-first dating application that enables users to connect with potential matches through engaging video content. The platform allows individuals to create and post videos on a feed, facilitating real-time interactions and a more dynamic approach to online dating. By combining traditional matching algorithms with the ability to flirt-stream, Snack provides a unique environment for users to express themselves and connect creatively with others. This innovative approach to dating aims to enhance user engagement and foster meaningful connections in a modern digital landscape.

Fraction

Venture Round in 2021
Fraction is a technology-based lending platform focused on making residential real estate more affordable, flexible and liquid.

Wize

Venture Round in 2021
Wize is an online education platform that offers University students across Canada instant access to the highest quality exam prep courses on the market. This cutting-edge platform offers students the tools and resources they need to prepare for their exams in less time, with less stress, at a lower cost than traditional resources. By supercharging the learning experience, Wize helps students to take their understanding of their course material to new heights. Taught by expert instructors and tailored to a specific class at a specific university, Wize provides students with the flexibility to learn at their own pace at any time and from anywhere. Whether a student falls behind, wants to get ahead or just needs more time with difficult concepts, with Wize - it’s just one click away.

FISPAN

Venture Round in 2020
FI.SPAN Services Inc. develops connecting application programming interface (API's) for the banking and financial industry. It offers Client Connectivity Suite, which helps banks to build and maintain live connections to their clients' enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting, and treasury management systems; API Enablement Suite, which allows banks to put an API gateway for legacy payment capability, data enablement, reports and models, and fintech testing; Fintegration Suite, which helps to manage the secure exchange of data and services between banks and fintech companies; FI.CORE, which is a core platform includes a set of extension adapters, which are designed to quickly implement custom connectivity with a banks’ own infrastructure, clients business applications and external FinTech firms. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.

Certn

Series A in 2020
Certn Holdings, Inc. is a technology company based in Victoria, Canada, that specializes in applicant screening and risk management solutions. Founded in 2016, Certn uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to evaluate customer credibility, aiming to enhance financial inclusion. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of services for landlords, property management firms, and financial institutions, including criminal record checks, identity verification, and employment and education verification. Certn employs a three-dimensional approach to scoring applicants, utilizing social, behavioral, and financial profiling to assess risk and predict credibility. This methodology allows clients to efficiently identify and manage applications, ultimately streamlining the hiring and tenant selection processes. Additionally, Certn's proprietary Softcheck tool scans extensive databases for negative information, providing rapid results to its users.

Shift

Seed Round in 2019
Shift is where work gets done. It’s all of your apps, accounts, and workflows in one beautiful desktop workstation, designed for focus and efficiency. Shift is the desktop app for streamlining your accounts, apps, and workflows. Tired of switching between accounts, and logging in and out? Shift is a logical and beautiful solution for managing everything better. Toggle between multiple Gmail, Outlook & Office 365 accounts without the hassle. Connect all of your favorite apps (1,200+ to choose from!) and create the perfect workflow for you and your team. Bring your work to life and make it collaborative with Workspaces. Create the perfect workflow for you and your team with mission-critical tabs, apps, and bookmarks in one, streamlined place. Then, share it with your collaborators to get the job done. It was founded in 2017 in Victoria, British Columbia.

CTO.ai

Seed Round in 2019
CTO.ai is a serverless infrastructure designed for the needs of fast moving development teams who want to measure what the business cares about. Our Commands, Pipelines, Services and Insights provide all of the tools you need to easily integrate your GitOps and ChatOps workflows, so that you can workflow smarter, not harder.

Beatdapp

Seed Round in 2019
Beatdapp is a United States-based company founded in 2018 that develops music streaming software designed to assist labels and artists in tracking their music and collecting royalties. The company provides a tracking system that authenticates, verifies, and validates media streamed in real-time, addressing discrepancies between Digital Service Providers and rights holders. This technology increases royalty revenue for rights holders while reducing the legal risks associated with royalty disputes for Digital Service Providers. Beatdapp effectively functions as a comprehensive solution for accurately monitoring music play counts.

FISPAN

Series A in 2019
FI.SPAN Services Inc. develops connecting application programming interface (API's) for the banking and financial industry. It offers Client Connectivity Suite, which helps banks to build and maintain live connections to their clients' enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting, and treasury management systems; API Enablement Suite, which allows banks to put an API gateway for legacy payment capability, data enablement, reports and models, and fintech testing; Fintegration Suite, which helps to manage the secure exchange of data and services between banks and fintech companies; FI.CORE, which is a core platform includes a set of extension adapters, which are designed to quickly implement custom connectivity with a banks’ own infrastructure, clients business applications and external FinTech firms. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.

ehsAI

Grant in 2019
ehsAI is a next wave compliance technology company that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help organizations reduce the cost and risks of permitting and compliance. ehsAI is committed to integrity, diversity and innovation in all its transactions and developing disruptive solutions that transform environmental, health and safety and compliance management for business. ehsAI serves the technology, manufacturing, energy, chemical, construction and retail industries.

Sanctuary AI

Seed Round in 2018
Sanctuary AI is an artificial general intelligence company founded in January 2018, and is based in Vancouver, B.C. Sanctuary's mission is to build synthetic humans – “synths” – that are indistinguishable from us physically, cognitively and emotionally. The company is structured to explore both cutting edge technology and the ethical issues that arise from creating human-like machines.

Wize

Seed Round in 2018
Wize is an online education platform that offers University students across Canada instant access to the highest quality exam prep courses on the market. This cutting-edge platform offers students the tools and resources they need to prepare for their exams in less time, with less stress, at a lower cost than traditional resources. By supercharging the learning experience, Wize helps students to take their understanding of their course material to new heights. Taught by expert instructors and tailored to a specific class at a specific university, Wize provides students with the flexibility to learn at their own pace at any time and from anywhere. Whether a student falls behind, wants to get ahead or just needs more time with difficult concepts, with Wize - it’s just one click away.

Spocket

Seed Round in 2018
With the help of Machine Learning, Spocket is set to revolutionize the dropshipping market and aid online retailers compete with Amazon- by removing the need to hold inventory and erasing upfront costs for retailers. Spocket enables over 20,000 entrepreneurs across five continents to launch and scale their online stores. Be part of the revolutionary vision of Spocket to remove inventory from the online and physical retail by using the dropshipping model and fixing the $1.1 trillion issue called inventory distortion.

Dooly

Seed Round in 2018
Dooly Research Ltd. is a Canadian company that specializes in developing an artificial intelligence-driven sales enablement platform designed to enhance the efficiency of sales teams. Founded in 2015, the Vancouver-based company offers software that automates the customer relationship management process by capturing, sharing, and organizing essential customer information. The platform facilitates the synchronization of digital notes, fields, and tasks directly with Salesforce, allowing sales and customer success teams to minimize time spent on administrative duties. By streamlining the flow of information from meetings and customer interactions, Dooly enables teams to focus more on closing sales and achieving core business objectives.

Certn

Seed Round in 2018
Certn Holdings, Inc. is a technology company based in Victoria, Canada, that specializes in applicant screening and risk management solutions. Founded in 2016, Certn uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to evaluate customer credibility, aiming to enhance financial inclusion. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of services for landlords, property management firms, and financial institutions, including criminal record checks, identity verification, and employment and education verification. Certn employs a three-dimensional approach to scoring applicants, utilizing social, behavioral, and financial profiling to assess risk and predict credibility. This methodology allows clients to efficiently identify and manage applications, ultimately streamlining the hiring and tenant selection processes. Additionally, Certn's proprietary Softcheck tool scans extensive databases for negative information, providing rapid results to its users.