Canadian Venture Deal of the Year

Venture capital plays a crucial role in helping a wide array of companies worldwide to grow and develop. In our look at the venture investing community, we discovered that the Canadian Venture Capital Association selects a "deal of the year' each year.

The Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA) has just announced that Brightspark Ventures is the recipient of the CVCA’s 5th Annual ‘Deal of the Year Award’.

Established in 1998, the purpose of CVCA’s ‘Deal of the Year Award’ competition is to promote, highlight and celebrate the achievements of venture backed Canadian companies. The selection process focuses on firms with the most significant return during the last twelve months ending June 30, 2003.

Brightspark Ventures won this years’ award for its investment in Think Dynamics. The investment in 2001 generated a return of 163% when IBM acquired Think Dynamics in May 2003. This represented an investment multiple of 8.2.

Think Dynamics accelerates a critical element of IBM's strategy to help customers respond more quickly to changing business needs - such as peaks in demand and potential system failures - by dynamically allocating the right computing resources at the right time to the processes, minimizing human error in the process.

Founded in 1999, Brightspark Ventures works with entrepreneurs to develop and build market-leading software companies. Brightspark’s innovative approach combines access to capital with an in-house team of experienced professionals in order to help early stage companies through their development and growth phase. Brightspark’s involvement with start-ups ranges from working with domain experts looking to commercialize an idea or technology, to working with experienced entrepreneurs looking to scale their existing business.

Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA) The CVCA was founded in 1974 and is the trade association that represents Canada’s venture capital and private equity industry. It is a member-based organization consisting of venture capital firms and organizations who manage pools of risk capital designated to be invested in small and medium-sized growth businesses in Canada. The CVCA fosters professional development, networking, communication, research and education within and outside the venture capital industry and represents the industry in tax and regulatory matters.

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