Generalist · Toronto, ON

Koru

Building bold ventures inside Ontario Teachers' portfolio.

← Investors in Ontario
Cheque
Not disclosed
Role
Can lead a round
Pace
Actively deploying
Kind
Generalist
Based in
Toronto, ON
Founded
2019
Works in
EN
Last deal seen
June 2026
Stages
Pre-seed, Seed
Sectors
Generalist

Their thesis, in full

Koru is a venture studio (a captive corporate venture builder), not a traditional fund: it co-founds and builds companies in-house from 0 to 1 rather than writing cheques into externally founded startups. Backed by Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and launched in 2019 with BCG Digital Ventures, it partners with OTPP portfolio companies to identify, validate, build and oversee new ventures that leverage unfair advantages (assets, data and distribution from the portfolio). For founders, this means the path in is usually joining as a Koru-recruited founding CEO of a venture Koru is building, not pitching Koru for seed capital. Koru provides hands-on team, capital, shared services and board-level support, then introduces graduating ventures to external VCs for their next growth round. It is sector-agnostic, building across insurtech, fintech, climate, healthtech and consumer, with ventures launched in Canada, the UK and Brazil.

What they bring past the cheque

  • Captive studio backed by one of Canada's largest pension investors (Ontario Teachers'), giving deep capital patience and portfolio access
  • Builds and co-founds companies in-house rather than just investing, with a full bench of product, engineering, design, research and GTM builders
  • Right-to-win model that only launches ventures with an unfair advantage from OTPP portfolio assets
  • Proven repeatable playbook with 12-plus ventures launched since 2019
  • International build reach (Canada, UK, Brazil) plus an investor network connecting graduating ventures to external VCs

Questions they usually ask

Have an answer ready for each one before the first call.

  1. Is this opportunity anchored to a clear unfair advantage from an Ontario Teachers' portfolio company (proprietary data, distribution, or customer base) that an independent startup could not replicate?
  2. Can the idea be validated to MVP and early traction within the studio's rapid 0-to-1 build cycle, and who is the founding CEO we would back to run it?
  3. Is there a credible path to an external seed or Series A round and standalone scale, so the venture can graduate beyond the studio?

Follow-on

Koru embeds a multidisciplinary team of builders alongside each venture, taking ideas from deep research and validation through MVP, full market launch and scale. Beyond capital, it provides shared services, governance, board-level involvement, mentorship and access to a global investor network to help ventures raise their next round. For an OTPP portfolio partner or a Koru-recruited founder, the support is operational and ownership-minded, not arm's-length cheque-writing.

Who to talk to

Portfolio

Names they back, most notable first.

  • FYLDSeries B+ · 2024
  • Fig FinancialSeed · 2023
  • ReturnBearSeed · 2021
  • ResilionSeed
  • VaydaSeed
  • Home ConciergeSeed
  • DataBraidPre-seed · 2026
  • ONYX TransitionSeed
  • MonetaSeed
  • PebbleSeed
  • HomeBridgeSeed
  • LaivlySeed

Often in the same rounds

Investors seen alongside them in past rounds.

  • Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP)
  • BCG X (formerly BCG Digital Ventures)
  • Fairstone
  • HomeEquity Bank

Similar investors

Overlapping sectors and stages. Useful to build a list of 10 to 20 names for one round.

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Set your stage, sector and amount once. Fractal App tells you if Koru can lead it, tracks every follow-up, and counts the days of silence. Free, no card.

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Checked September 2026 from public sources. source ↗ · Website ↗ · LinkedIn ↗