Graphite Ventures

Investment decisions are led by Managing Partners Craig Leonard and Aaron Bast, with Partner Lance Laking in a senior investment role. Leonard had led the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund since 2017 before engineering its spinout into Graphite in 2020. The investment committee structure has not been publicly detailed, but the partnership operates as the core decision-making body.

Graphite sources heavily from the MaRS Discovery District ecosystem, the Toronto innovation hub where it was incubated, and from the dense network of Canadian accelerators and university spinout programs. Its legacy portfolio of over 150 seed-stage companies also produces follow-on opportunities and founder referrals. The firm co-invests alongside a syndicate of Canadian and international VCs, broadening its origination reach.

Graphite Ventures is a venture capital firm structured as a private asset manager, not a family office. It was formed in 2020 when the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund's seed program was spun out as an independent, for-profit entity. Prior to the spinout, IAF operated under a government mandate; Graphite now manages private capital pools with a standard VC fee and carry structure.

Graphite concentrates on pre-seed and seed-stage investments, with reserved capital for follow-on rounds into breakout portfolio companies. Initial checks generally fall between $250,000 and $2 million. The firm occasionally participates in early Series A rounds alongside syndicate partners, often exercising pro-rata rights from earlier seed positions.

Graphite's known focus areas — Enterprise Software, AI/ML, FinTech, and Digital Health — imply a deliberate avoidance of hardware-intensive sectors, therapeutics, and resource extraction. The firm has not publicly articulated a formal exclusion list, but its IAF legacy and subsequent deals suggest a strategy centered on capital-efficient, software-first business models.

Graphite Ventures was created by spinning out the seed investment program of the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, an Ontario-government-backed initiative housed within the MaRS Discovery District innovation hub in Toronto. Graphite now operates as a fully independent private venture firm, though it maintains close transactional and reputational ties to the MaRS ecosystem and continues to benefit from its network effects.

Graphite actively co-invests alongside other Canadian and US venture capital firms, syndicating seed deals rather than leading them in every instance. Its scale and seeding focus make it a recurring co-investor in rounds led by larger funds, a pattern established during its IAF predecessor era. Graphite has not disclosed a formal co-investment program with a fixed LP base.