Golden Ventures is a leading seed-stage venture capital fund, based in Toronto and investing across North America. We're here to support founders who are building the future. It is our job to take big risks on the world's most talented, driven and resilient founding teams who want to change the world.

Golden Ventures

Alumni Ventures Group provides high-quality, diversified venture portfolios to individual investors who previously haven't had access to VC. It helps accredited alums from top entrepreneurial schools invest together in the ventures of fellow alums. The firm backs companies with an alumni connection and an institutional lead investor with expertise in the space. AVG also offers focused funds that allow any accredited investor access to a venture portfolio, diversified by type, sector, stage, and geography. Beth Obermiller, Michael Madden, and Mike Collins co-founded the firm in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2013.

Alumni Ventures

First Round is a seed-stage venture firm focused on building a vibrant community of technology entrepreneurs and companies, including Uber, Square, and Warby Parker. Through custom-built software, incredible in-person experiences, and a host of other unique services, First Round helps tiny companies get big while constantly reimagining the role of venture capital. It offers a growing number of services and products to help founders build companies from scratch. First Round has adopted the Diversity Term Sheet Rider.

First Round Capital

Draft Ventures is a technology-based investment fund that specializes in early-stage investments primarily in San Francisco, New York, Austin, and Los Angeles. It also provides operational advice and support to its portfolio companies. Draft Ventures was founded by David Rodriguez and Artia Moghbel in 2015. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Draft Ventures

Not Boring offers strategy and investing from small to big companies.

Not Boring

Basecamp is an early-stage venture capital fund that invests across categories and geographies at the pre-seed and seed stages.

Basecamp Fund

Left Lane Capital is a venture capital and seed-growth equity firm that invests in high-growth internet and consumer technology businesses that are fundamental to the human condition and spirit – where customers maintain a long-term relationship with the product, platform, or service.

Left Lane Capital

Pareto Holdings is an early-stage investment vehicle founded by Jon Oringer and Edward Lando. We execute on dozens of investments per month and are often the first to back exceptional entrepreneurs. We are industry and geography agnostic, and specialize in pre-seeding companies. We’ve made 500+ investments to date. Unlike others, we only invest our own money with a small and mighty team around the world.

Pareto Holdings

Not Boring Capital is an $8 million venture fund that invests in companies with stories to tell and helps tell them.

Not Boring Capital

Composer

Composer allows users to build, test, and manage automated investment strategies without writing a line of code. the company was founded in 202 and is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Composer is a Canadian automated investing platform that allows users to invest in various strategies based on changing market conditions using rules-based investing and a no-code interface. The platform offers users the ability to build, backtest, and invest in strategies based on their own trading algorithm. Furthermore, Composer’s in-house team provides templates with customization options and screening processes to help users with designing and formulating investment strategies.

Retail investors demanding sophisticated passive investment strategies are looking for an edge.

Retail Trading Infrastructure

Navigating transformation: Inside GBST Composer’s technological shift

Composer is a Canadian automated investing platform that allows users to invest in various strategies based on changing market conditions using rules-based investing and a no-code interface. The platform offers users the ability to build, backtest, and invest in strategies based on their own trading algorithm. Furthermore, Composer’s in-house team provides templates with customization options and screening processes to help users with designing and formulating investment strategies.The platform uses a freemium business model and charges users USD 24 monthly or USD 288 annually for its pro version. During 1H 2022, Composer grew over 400% in trading volume and 600% in assets under management (AUM). As of September 2022, the platform had executed more than 150,000 orders and over USD 100 million in trading volume.Funding and financialsIn September 2022, Composer raised USD 6 million in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13053">seed funding </a>led by Left Lane Capital. The company planned to use the funds to improve its platform and how users invest.

Ellevest is a hybrid investment management platform that specifically targets women, with an algorithm that takes into account gender-specific factors such as career breaks, longer life expectancy, and income differences.Ellevest currently offers services under three categories: Ellevest Essential (at a monthly fee of USD 1), Ellevest Plus (USD 5 per month), and Ellevest Executive (USD 9 per month). All three offerings include portfolio customization, banking services (spending and savings accounts), access to human advisors, and on-demand learning for subjects such as investing, career, and money. Ellevest Plus is more costly because it handles retirement accounts for clients. Meanwhile, Ellevest Executive handles both retirement accounts and investment management for multiple goals. The company also offers private wealth management services for clients who wish to invest USD 1 million or more through the platform. A dedicated advisor will work together with clients to create investment plans to meet their goals.Ellevest reported assets under management (AUM) of USD 1.4 billion as of December 2021, growing 44% during the year.In April 2022, Ellevest raised USD 53 million in Series B <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9622?industryIds=28">funding </a>co-led by BMO and Contour Venture Partners. The company planned to use the funds to expand its product offering and provide personalized coaching.

Ellevest

ComposedPro is a digital investment advisor that handles clients’ investment accounts at their employers (such as employer-sponsored accounts) as well as private investment accounts, focusing on low cost Employer-Coordinated Portfolios. The company oversees USD 25 million in total assets over 181 customer accounts as of the company’s Q2 2020 filing. ComposedPro manages half of the company’s accounts on a discretionary basis, meaning an investment advisor has the discretion to make buy and sell decisions for a client’s account. ComposedPro also has 46 non-discretionary accounts totalling USD 7.9 million in assets. The average investment account size is USD 138,222 placed across exchangeable assets such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), equities, bonds, and options.

ComposedPro

Guideline provides automated investment management services for employer-sponsored retirement accounts. The services also include plan set-up and administration, enrollment and education, recordkeeping, compliance with Retirement Income Security Act, and reporting.As of July 2023, Guideline had assets under management (AUM) of over USD 9 billion and over 350 employees. The company stated that it is the only provider that does not charge plan participants (i.e. employees) with any fees. Guideline charges the employers with a straightforward pricing of one flat fee per participant, in contrast to the asset-based fee model predominant in the industry (i.e. fee is charged on account balances). The standard service has a base fee of USD 49 per month and an additional USD 8 per participant. The standard service includes unlimited phone/email support to both plan participants and employers. For prime service, access to a dedicated account manager is available at a higher base fee of USD 129 and an additional fee of USD 8 per participant. In addition, the company stated that it has a low mutual fund expense ratio, at 0.08%. It purchases mutual funds from Vanguard and other fund providers.Funding and financialsIn June 2021, Guideline raised USD 200 million in funding led by General Atlantic. The company intends to utilize the funding to broaden its 401(k) offerings and introduce new retirement plan solutions.

Guideline

Based in Plano, Texas, AssetBuilder is a robo-advisory company that develops investment portfolios based on the Fama/French school of thought, using low-cost active index funds. It has Dimensional Fund Advisors (the eighth largest fund company in the world as of September 2019) as its funding partner. Human advisors are available to provide investing guidance. As of April 2019, the firm’s assets under management (AUM) amounted to USD 765.9 million. The firm’s business model relies on a fee-only structure, meaning a customer solely pays AssetBuilder to create and manage investments (the company does not receive product-specific commission). The minimum investment for AssetBuilder is USD 50,000 with an asset management fee ranging from 0.24% to 0.45%; the higher the investment, the lower the fee. Though the firm does not have a setup fee, it requires a custodial cost for setting up a portfolio of USD 11.95 per trade for each recommended mutual fund. Most of the platform’s portfolios require about 11 to 14 mutual funds, costing about USD 131.45 to USD 167.30 to open an account.

AssetBuilder

Based in Canada, Smart Money Invest provides portfolio management services to individual clients, advisors, and employers (such as group saving plans for retirement). Human advisors are available to serve individual investors.The company provides financial tools to develop a long-term financial strategy by calculating net worth, setting a budget, managing investment accounts, and planning for retirement.

Smart Money Invest

Robo advisory startups that offer automated investment services directly to individuals solely via digital platforms.

Robo advisory startups that offer automated investment services to individuals via both digital platforms and human financial advisors.

Provide solutions for financial advisors/asset managers to automate wealth management and administration functions.

Robo advisory startups that offer automated investment services to businesses via both digital platforms and human financial advisors.

Provides solutions for financial institutions to set up their own robo-advisory function and offer services to clients.

Startups that offer online platforms for investors to trade various securities such as stocks, ETFs, and options directly via the platform

Leverages AI/ML to automate allocation and management of investment funds to cater to retail investors

Operates a B2B SaaS model to support financial institution in offering various investment related services

Composer

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless