Avatar Ventures
Validated by a robust process, sponsored by industry, and capitalized by Avatar’s investment partners, Avatar provides the full-cycle ecosystem that successful energy innovation demands.
While the Avatar Studio prepares teams to win in the extremely competitive marketplace, Avatar Ventures works with these companies to advance technology development and prepare them for both dilutive and non-dilutive funding opportunities.
Each year, the top companies graduate from the Avatar Studio to Avatar Ventures, with the goal of raising seed-stage capital from the Avatar Leadership Fund I (overview below) and other strategic and financial investors to bring their breakthrough emission reduction technologies to market!
Avatar Ventures is currently working with the following companies:
Anchored by a $750,000 lead investment from Cenovus Energy Inc. and catalyzed by several prominent family offices and high net-worth individuals from Calgary and Toronto, the Fund represents a nation-building investment solving for the lack of risk capital available for early-stage energy technologies and supercharging the country's leadership in the decarbonization of energy and industry. The Fund ($2.5MM) will provide early-stage risk capital to the most promising energy transition technologies and companies that have graduated from the Avatar Studio to Avatar Ventures.
With capital in hand, Avatar's portfolio of breakthrough emissions reduction technologies built inside heavy industry will now be able to scale and generate superior returns through its proven and transformational innovation model. By working with the customer from inception, partnering with academia in new ways and professionalizing the start-up development process, Avatar now stands as the new model for global industrial decarbonization in the largest economic opportunity of this generation.
The Avatar Leadership Fund I
The Team
Avatar’s Fund is led by Bryan Trudel, a capital markets veteran and Co-Founder of Avatar Innovations, and David Pratt, an M&A practitioner with experiencing growing and selling a clean-tech company.
Bryan Trudel, Partner
Bryan’s 20 years on Bay Street has seen him lead through many market and investment cycles in energy, becoming an Executive Director at CIBC Capital Markets. Bryan’s insight into the changing landscape of energy investment makes him one of Canada’s rare investment professionals able to connect the importance of the energy industry with the market driven need to decarbonize. Bryan facilitates Avatar Innovations connection with the investment landscape critical to unlocking the massive capital required for the energy transition
Bryan holds a Bachelor of Commerce with High Honours from the Sprott School of Business
Prior to joining Avatar, David worked for BMO Radicle, where he helped lead Radicle’s buy-side M&A mandate and subsequent sale to BMO Capital Markets. Prior thereto, David worked for PwC (Audit & Assurance) and Deloitte (M&A Transaction Services, including two years with Deloitte UK)
David received his Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia and his Master of Professional Accounting from the University of Saskatchewan. David is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV)
