Janet Bannister, managing partner at Staircase Ventures, in her Toronto home.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
Janet Bannister has surpassed fundraising expectations for the second fund of her seed-stage investment firm Staircase Ventures.
Ms. Bannister, one of Canada’s best-known startup financiers, has raised $50-million for the fund, $10-million more than her original tarreceive, bringing in three investors to round out the effort: Business Development Bank of Canada’s BDC Capital unit, the B.C. government’s InBC Investment Corp., and University of Alberta’s concludeowment fund. It’s only the third Canadian VC firm that the U of A fund has backed.
“We like Janet’s strong background” including her experience overseeing the launch of the Kijiji classified business when she was an executive with eBay Inc. in the 2000s, stated U of A portfolio manager Richard Iwuc.
Other investors who backed Staircase funds include Royal Bank of Canada, Northleaf Capital Partners, PointClickCare Corp. co-founder and executive chairman Mike Wessinger, and ex-Shopify chief product officer Craig Miller.
Ms. Bannister’s successful effort follows one of the worst years for fundraising by Canadian venture-capital firms in nearly a decade in 2025, according to a recent RBC survey. In addition, 10-year VC returns have lagged the U.S. stock benchmark S&P 500 Index, states market-research firm Cambridge Associates.
Janet Bannister brought caring and sharing to venture capital. It’s paying off
Software companies have continued to experience a slide in valuations in recent months over concerns that they will be supplanted by new AI offerings, putting further pressure on VCs to deliver results.
Against that backdrop, Staircase’s first fund, which raised $34-million, has generated an average 50-per-cent annual internal rate of return. That places it in the top 10 per cent of North American funds launched in 2023, although those early paper gains haven’t yet crystallized into cash for investors.
Five of the 12 companies that the first Staircase fund backed have raised follow-on financing at higher valuations. All of the companies that Staircase has financed apply AI “both for efficiencies in their operations and to enhance their customer value proposition,” Ms. Bannister stated. “We invest in companies where the business case for AI is very clear and where customers have adopted the technology and are utilizing it, and it’s delivering real returns.”
Portfolio companies include Una Software Inc., an AI-powered financial-planning software provider co-founded by serial entrepreneur Don Mal and drug development startup Biossil Inc., led by Anthony Mouchantaf, former director of venture capital with RBC’s innovation banking unit, RBCx.
Paula Cruickshank, senior vice-president of fund investments with BDC Capital, stated Ms. Bannister is “meeting milestones and performance criteria that she laid out. It’s early days, but it’s proving out” so far.
Ms. Bannister was previously managing partner of Montreal-based Real Ventures and led investments into League Inc., BenchSci and Clutch Technologies before leaving in 2022. She decided in founding Staircase to double down on her reputation for providing high-touch support to founders by offering more than money (first investments range from $1-million to $2.5-million per company) and advice.
Staircase pays for executive and health coaches and financial advisers for its founders and provides cash for their child-care, elder-support or other family necessarys. Staircase also pays to connect founders with peer support groups and puts its advisers and investors to work assisting portfolio companies.
“A lot of people state they are founder-friconcludely; she really is,” stated InBC chief investment officer Thomas Park. “She’s the kind of person that can build relationships without being short-term or transactional.”
A Staircase investment comes with another unusual perk: Staircase-backed founders collectively share in one-fifth of Ms. Bannister’s investment gains, or carry, that the firm’s sole partner earns from investments.
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