Thomson Reuters to acquire ThoughtTrace

And truthfully, we can’t say we’re surprised. We saw the incredible potential in the entrepreneurial spirit behind ThoughtTrace when we invested in May 2020. It was only a matter of time before someone else saw the value in the family-business-turned-AI-startup and wanted in. Theirs is a story of hard work, adaptability, and ultimately, vision.

Ironically, Nick Vandivere’s parents, Brian and Renee, may not have realized what they were starting when they founded their business in 1990; it provided companies a way to physically manage voluminous paper-based records. And as computing technology advanced, they adapted, making a big leap into document digitization. Managing physical paper copies was becoming a thing of the past and the functionality and simplicity of searching and storing electronic documents was clearly the way of the future.

Nick didn’t immediately join the family business. He initially chose a different path as an Officer and Platoon Leader in the US Army’s 3^rd Infantry Division. Twenty years after his parents founded the family business, he saw an opportunity to usher in the next technology revolution in document management–artificial intelligence–and joined the family firm. Nick’s idea was to develop AI software to unlock the secrets in contracts and documents. It would read and provide insights in the legal minutiae, saving significant amounts of time and reducing risk.

Brian and Renee embraced their son’s AI software vision (they are entrepreneurs, after all) and adapted once more. Nick took over the daily operations as CEO of the renamed business–ThoughtTrace. In 2019, McRock led the growth financing in ThoughtTrace to help the company expand its AI product offering for new vertical markets in sectors such as renewable energy.

The market paid attention. Nick’s AI-powered document understanding and contract analytics platform caught the eye of Thomson Reuters (NYSE, TSX: TRI), one of the world’s most trusted providers of answers to professionals in law, tax, compliance, government, and media. They immediately recognized the value of ThoughtTrace’s AI. Thomson Reuters has been injecting AI and machine learning into their value creation and delivery stack for years. The acquisition of ThoughtTrace will further advance their trusted insights that are at the core of how professionals get their jobs done.

Nick is beyond excited about the potential for ThoughtTrace within the Thomson Reuters family. His own family couldn’t be more proud of what he created. As for us at McRock, our journey with this amazing team was less than two years. It’s an occupational hazard, really. Backing intelligent, passionate and visionary entrepreneurs means those partners are often only here for a good time, not a long time. It’s bittersweet, but Canadian rock band Trooper was right.

McRock ups its investment in European micro-mobility company

It appears there is no stopping Dott–the leading IoT-enabled European e-scooter and e-bike rental company that we’re proud to have in our portfolio. Today the company announces a $70m extension to its Series B funding round. This brings the total Series B funding raised to more than $150m in a mix of equity and asset-backed debt, including the $85m announced in the Spring of 2021. We participated in the initial Series B investment and have now increased our investment with the extra funding to help sustain their rapid growth.

CEO Henri Moissinac is on a crusade against personal cars. He wants to make it super simple for anyone who wants to ditch their own car to have other transportation modes. Clearly he’s on to something, as Dott already covers 36 cities across nine European countries. Dott manages 40,000 scooters and 10,000 bikes, and the demand for micro-mobility use is growing–the startup processed 130 percent more trips in 2021 compared to 2020.

The new investment enables Dott to accelerate the rollout of its new e-bikes, invest in product development to improve the user experience and expand into even more cities and countries. The company is targeting further expansion in France, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and possibly Israel. Moissinac sees a world with environmentally friendly transportation available to everyone, and we’re happy to be along for this ride.

McRock cofounder is 2021 Big Ideas Bold Leaders Award Winner

Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary honoured Whitney Rockley (MBA’97) with the Big Ideas Bold Leaders Award at the 2021 annual alumni awards.

The name of the award says a lot. Big ideas? Yes. Bold leader? Definitely. It’s no surprise they selected McRock’s cofounder for this honour. Look at the selection criteria and it makes even more sense. Nominees must have taken on something big; created something outstanding or made an enormous impact by inspiring change, motivating others or enabling positive change in the community. We know first hand she’s done all of this and more.

Whitney was known by her Haskayne peers as being very studious. She was enthralled with the MBA content she was learning, and it sure paid off. The McRock team and all of our partners can attest to how effectively she has put her education to use. Lucky us!

Whitney believes in the power of surrounding yourself with good people personally and professionally. “It’s about family. About having the support around you and having a sounding board. Surround yourself with people you admire and look up to.”

Fun facts about Whitney: one of her personal hobbies is martial arts and her favourite work-from-home accessory are fuzzy slippers.
Congratulations, Whitney! They could not have selected a more deserving recipient.

Three McRock portfolio companies made the cut for this inaugural startup pitch competition

Getting to travel after almost two years of working from home was a treat in itself. Getting to attend the G20 Innovation League in Italy was the icing on the cake. It was the inaugural year of the startup competition to solve some of the biggest challenges facing humankind. Navigating the mobile rapid COVID screening in an ambulance in the centre piazza of Sorrento was the price of admission. Totally worth it.

Three McRock portfolio companies participated in the startup pitch competition challenges. Two Canadian companies, Poka and Miovision, were nominated by a selection committee of five participating Canadian VCs. Amsterdam-based Dott was also nominated by another country’s VC selection committee.
The event had more than 250 VCs, corporate organizations and startups attend in person and many more attended virtually. It was the first time the G20 Innovation League was hosted as part of the broader G20.

Quebec City-based Poka won the entire IoT and Wearables category following an impressive pitch by Co-founder and CEO Alex Leclerc. Poka is a leading connected-worker platform driving manufacturing excellence. What an achievement!

Miovision’s CEO, Kurtis McBride, presented a compelling case about how managing traffic using AI and IoT makes cities more enjoyable and less congested with reduced emissions. Miovision is experiencing tremendous growth as its products have now processed more than 23 million hours of video and 9 billion vehicles. Miovision serves more than 17,000 municipalities worldwide. The company is proudly headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario and has 300+ employees.

Henri Moissinac, Dott’s CEO, also delivered a convincing virtual pitch that earned the innovator second place in the Smart Cities challenge. The company is helping to create cleaner and greener cities by offering eco-friendly micro-mobility with e-scooters and e-bikes. We are thrilled for them to get this recognition.

The G20 Innovation League also provides a huge opportunity for us at McRock. It reminds us of the importance of our investment thesis and the role that all of our portfolio companies are playing to solve some significant global challenges with digital technologies and AI. What a tremendous validation of our vision.

The next few years are going to be an exciting ride as we all find our way through the pandemic. I just warn you that while swab tests and a sore nose will remain a constant in the short term, it’s a small price to pay to get back in circulation again.

McRock’s latest investment—Andrew Ng’s Landing AI—will launch a new era of easy-to-use AI for even the smallest datasets

We often equate AI with tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook–behemoths of the digital consumer landscape. So when new technologies emerge that have the potential to send ripples through to all corners of the industrial world, we get pretty excited. Such is the case with McRock’s latest investment.

“Excited” might actually be an understatement. We led the $57 million Series A financing of Landing AI. We look at investment opportunities from tech companies all the time. But they don’t often have the potential to bring real change to so many businesses. Landing AI and its product LandingLens™ are poised to drastically change how traditional industries view and use AI technology.

Why the confidence? Because the brainchild behind the start-up is Andrew Ng.

The OG, the Grand Poobah, the King of AI

If you know anything about AI, you’ve likely heard of Andrew Ng. Here are just a few highlights from his very long list of accomplishments:

• Founding lead of the Google Brain team
• Former chief scientist at Baidu
• Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera–the world’s largest MOOC platform
• Founder of DeepLearning.AI
• Adjunct Professor at Stanford University

The man is a pioneer both in machine learning and online education. He has literally changed countless lives through his work in AI, authoring or co-authoring more than 100 research papers in machine learning, robotics, and related fields. He now focuses his time looking for the best ways to accelerate responsible AI practices in the larger global economy.

A new era is dawning. One where traditional sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare and agriculture, can reap the benefits of their data to optimize operations and generate significant business value. Their caution in embracing AI in the past is understandable. Adopting that kind of technology meant wholesale staffing changes. And many often assumed they just didn’t have datasets large enough to provide any meaningful insight to their operations. That’s no longer the case on either front.

Don’t rush out to hire AI specialists

The technology behind Landing AI’s tool doesn’t require wholesale team changes; instead, it empowers a business’s existing workforce to grow its capabilities. The fast and easy-to-use platform enables domain experts, rather than AI experts, to build cutting edge AI and create business value. How? Here’s one example: rather than needing to write pages of code to train a neural network, a domain expert can do it with a few mouse clicks. This no code/low code data-centric platform enables new users to build advanced AI models in less than a day. Vision inspection projects that used to take more than a year can be executed in just weeks using the new LandingLens technology.

Big data not required

Landing AI is leading the wave of data-centric AI technology; driving the shift from “big data” to “good data.” It’s an important distinction. This next era of AI will come from meeting companies where they are: striving to improve with often limited datasets. Good data, no matter how small the set, can offer critical insights into their operations. LandingLens is the platform that delivers the process, human connections, team integration, data-centric approach and guidance on how to use and grow smaller sets of data that lead to meaningful business transformation.

The McRock team sees its fair share of pitches. We are one of the world’s leading VC funds in industrial AI so they come in all forms. Choosing to invest in Andrew and Landing AI was as close to a no-brainer as we get in this field. We also brought Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) into the funding round with us as a co-investor. Together the two firms represent a significant proportion of the growth capital invested in this financing round. Other investors in Landing AI include Insight Partners, Taiwania, Intel, Samsung, DRIVE Catalyst, Walsin and AI Fund. As part of the financing, McRock Co-founder and Managing Partner Scott MacDonald has joined the Landing AI Board of Directors.

Giddy? Delighted? Thrilled? Ecstatic?

Did we find a better word than “excited” yet? How would you describe a scenario in which you find the ideal investment opportunity that perfectly aligns with your vision? McRock partners with relentless entrepreneurs who bring transformative digital technologies to industrial markets. We are the first VC firm to focus exclusively on Industrial IoT. Other AI-powered portfolio companies include ThoughtTrace and samdesk, and we previously financed mnubo which was later acquired by AspenTech. Andrew and Landing AI will be a welcome addition to this club.