Demystifying Wittington Ventures

An insider's overview of the firm’s strategy, portfolio companies, and team

June 6, 2022
Fire Ant
@QasimAMohammad

Hi everyone! It’s nice to be back to writing after a bit of a break. Have been very busy over the last little while with so much happening in my life — personally and professionally (all good things). As I was thinking about what to write for my first piece back, it dawned on me that I’ve never really covered in depth what keeps me busy during the day. Many of you already know that I work at a venture capital firm called Wittington Ventures (or “WV”, as we like to call it). But allow me to shed more light on the smart group of people that I refer to as my colleagues, and the exciting work we do together.

I can’t believe it has been nearly three years since WV got off the ground. During the Spring of 2019 I received a phone call from my former colleague at OMERS Ventures — Jim Orlando — about potentially launching a new fund with the Wittington family office. When he called, I was already contemplating a career pivot of my own. I was working on a startup in the sales software vertical but wanted to move back closer to my roots in retail and commerce. It was the perfect opportunity presented to me at the right time.

As the name suggests, Wittington Ventures is the venture arm of Wittington Investments. And Wittington Investments — in case you’re wondering — is the single-family office of the controlling shareholder of companies such as Loblaw and Shoppers Drug Mart. If you’re Canadian, you’re intimately familiar with these businesses as the brands and retailers under the Wittington umbrella touch millions of lives here at home every single day.

Despite our proprietary connections and access to Wittington’s portfolio of companies, we’re not a corporate venture firm by any means. We’re set up as a completely independent fund and make our own investment decisions, which aren’t necessarily tied to the decision-making processes or business interests of the limited partners (or “LPs”) with whom we intersect. But what’s so exciting about this investment platform that we’ve been building is that we get to really lean on our LPs to inform our diligence work when we’re looking at new investment opportunities. These proprietary relationships also help us to tee up “win-win” scenarios where if we’re getting excited about a particular start up, we love getting them in front of our LPs if there’s a mutually beneficial relationship worth exploring — whether it’s through our LPs procuring innovative software or products from the startup or contemplating a strategic distribution partnership that makes sense for both parties.

Our first fund is $100 million in size and given the natural interests of our team members and the areas in which our LPs operate, our focus has been to invest in the future of retail/commerce, healthcare, and food.

We have a team of seven professionals — six are on the investment side and one is on the operations side. Everyone is listed on our website and we all bring unique interests and backgrounds to the mix. Some of us are more inclined towards focusing on healthcare whereas others are keener about investing in the future of commerce and/or food. Each of us has done a good job of developing areas of expertise over the course of our respective careers and going out and finding companies that speak to that expertise.

I remember telling Jim when we first started thinking about launching Wittington Ventures that the market desperately needs a strategic-backed retail/commerce fund. And it was just a matter of who will move first and when. It’s amazing that we’ve been able to fill that gap — especially while being based here in Canada — while also doing the same for other verticals such as healthcare and food. I wanted to ask Jim a few questions now that we’re nearly three years into this thing and get his take on our progress and momentum thus far.

QM: With nearly three years into the first fund, what is getting you most fired up about the WV platform?

JO: We have now invested in nine companies. The companies are diverse across stages — some pre-revenue, some just starting revenue and others well into revenue. They are diverse across sectors — from autonomous trucks for the supply chain, to new retail concepts, to tele-health/online pharmacy, to climate tech. And they build on several different technology bases; some on artificial intelligence, some on network effects, some on blockchain and others on synthetic biology. So, being an investor in such a diverse group of companies means the platform is working well for us all.

QM: How have you seen our access to unique, industry-specific LPs strengthening our approach to thematic investing?

JO: Our interactions with experts across the different companies in our LP base is very powerful from several perspectives. Through those discussions we continue to derive a deep understanding of real problems and real opportunities that startups can play a real role in solving. So, the “triple win” is there when we tee up an introduction — the startup benefits from the introduction to a potential customer, the operating individual hopefully just got introduced to a startup that can make a difference in their business, and WV gets smarter about the sector.

QM: Can you summarize how we have helped startups succeed as a part of our portfolio with a few examples?

JO: As you know, an investment from WV does not guarantee a business relationship with one of our operating company investors. But given that we tend to look at startups that are “on trend” with the areas that these companies operate in, our hope is that the startups we invest in will eventually strike that all important deal. It’s up to the startups to build great products that meet a market need and find customers for those products. The best we can do is help with an introduction. As an example, we invested in Gatik, an autonomous truck startup that is used to deliver products between warehouses and stores. About 9 months after we invested, they announced a proof-of-concept trial with Loblaw. As another example, we are investors in Contentful, a maker of software for e-commerce content, and Loblaw is a customer for their software.

I would echo each of Jim’s points above. Building on his commentary, I’d encourage you to check out the links below to learn more about our portfolio companies. I’ve listed them based on the order in which we invested — as previously mentioned, they all touch on our core focus areas of commerce, healthcare, and food in their own way. And although we have nine portfolio companies, two are unannounced so only seven are noted here:

Foxtrot  (Future of Commerce)

Gatik  (Future of Commerce)

Contentful  (Future of Commerce)

Nurx; now merged with Thirty Madison  (Future of Healthcare)

Truvian  (Future of Healthcare)

Motif Foodworks  (Future of Food)

Arcaea Beauty  (Future of Healthcare)

We have an incredible portfolio that our team is very proud of. And it’s worth noting that we invest anywhere – it just so happens that one of our companies is Canada-based while the rest are U.S.-based.

This is only just the beginning. We have so many investments that we have yet to make, especially as we look towards a second fund in the near future. Our team continues to search for investments that play to the future of commerce, healthcare, and food. These are big spaces that represent all kinds of complex value chains and areas of disruption — we evaluate startups across the board. We’re also thinking about new opportunities within blockchain/Web3/crypto, which could transform the future of commerce, healthcare, and food in their own way.

I asked some of my colleagues which areas they’re currently excited about. Darian Zigante works with me on the commerce side of things. He’s keen to see more sustainable, long-term solutions and innovations come to light in the following sectors, and is asking himself the following questions:

  • Supply chain management, traceability, and compliance: What are the sources of goods (provenance)? Are goods being ethically and sustainably produced? When will shipments arrive? How can reverse logistics and a circular economy be leveraged to extend the life of products?
  • E-Commerce: How can retailers structure their online presence to provide customers with more authentic reviews, curation, and product insights? How will blockchain be leveraged to provide truly unique customer experiences, and bring a value-add that no other technology can deliver?
  • Fintech: What legal and technological infrastructure will be necessary to enable retailers and financial institutions to incorporate crypto storage, payments, loyalty, etc. into their systems? What will the next wave of UI/UX look like beyond today’s existing crypto wallet platforms?

My colleagues Megh Gupta and Katie Hayes lead our healthcare investing efforts (with the exception of beauty related opportunities, which I mostly cover). Here are some areas that they’re excited about:

  • Value-based care: Startups building solutions that help enable value-based care and risk sharing in healthcare to gain traction.
  • “Infrastructure as a service” solutions: Companies that enable digital health companies to be spun up quickly (e.g., API for anything).
  • Chronic care: This area is becoming even more top of mind with an ageing population. This will not just represent “Livongo for X”, but also include things around remote patient monitoring.
  • Technological solutions around clinical trials: Startups focused on decentralization, supply chain/operations and real-world evidence.
  • Attention on Medicaid: A lot of companies are spending time on Medicare, but the Medicaid population is also massive and highly sticky.

We recently brought Nick Taylor onto the team to help us invest in the future of food. He wrote a blog post that sheds light on his interest areas. You can check it out here. As the post suggests, he’s looking ahead to see how cultivated agriculture and precision fermentation matures into our markets, how restaurant tech and delivery robots enhance kitchen efficiency and change the way we experience hospitality, and how we’re going to sustainably feed our growing population while eliminating hunger.

A few other areas highlighted by the team, which double-click on some of the themes noted above, are as follows:

  • All things blockchain: Applications in gaming, retail, and finance first (e.g., “NFT for X”, DeFi) followed by applications in real estate (e.g., replacing classic paper trails in real estate).
  • Food sustainability: Supply chain issues (exacerbated by current Ukraine crisis) remain top of mind, so technologies that enable long term sustainability and lessen reliance on other countries are relevant. This also relates to the modernization of the general supply chain stack/OS – current solutions are antiquated, and the supply chain crisis is the catalyst needed to force slow adopters to move.

As for me, I’m really excited about everything that’s noted above. I’d echo the blockchain related items — really fascinated by how this technology will be applied by industries. I’d also add that we’re really interested in startups building the future of responsible beauty (more on our thinking here), and companies that are reimagining commerce to have it become more social and engaging online (more on how we view the topic of social commerce here).

It goes without saying that all these areas represent incredibly exciting opportunities. And what gets me even more fired up is that our fund intersects with large companies that can significantly accelerate the pace of innovation on these fronts — in partnership with the right startups of course. To build on what Jim said a little earlier, WV has close ties with some of Canada’s largest healthcare programs, supply chain networks, and food producers through our LPs. This gives us a strong and unique perspective on where change is needed, and how innovation will be adopted over the next 5 to 10 years.

We’re an extremely accessible team. All our emails are listed on our website. Feel free to get in touch with any of us if you’re working on the next big idea or are just keen to jam on the themes and ideas mentioned in this post!

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