Scale Up Ventures

General Partners Kent Thexton and Kevin Kimsa run the firm. Thexton was announced as General Partner in May 2016 — the same month the fund increased its target to $75 million — and the two have led the firm since its founding, originating and managing its core early-stage enterprise investments.

Scale Up is an early-stage venture firm structured around a single fund, but its limited partner base sets it apart: the Government of Ontario anchors the fund with a $25 million commitment, sitting alongside a consortium of Canadian corporations. The LP mix gives portfolio companies direct corporate distribution and commercial validation paths that a conventional financial-only fund lacks.

Scale Up invests directly into startups, primarily leading or co-leading seed rounds and participating in subsequent Series A and B rounds. The firm led Dooly's $2 million seed in 2018 and has maintained positions into later rounds, but there is no public evidence that it commits to other venture funds as a limited partner.

The firm focuses on seed and Series A rounds in Canadian enterprise technology companies. It often leads the earliest institutional round — as it did with Dooly.ai — and then follows its portfolio companies into later-stage financings led by larger US and global funds, such as Insight Partners' and Tiger Global's rounds for Rewind and Nylas.

The Government of Ontario committed up to $25 million to Scale Up's first fund in April 2015, a year before the fund formally launched under General Partners. The investment was part of a broader provincial policy to leverage private-sector capital and networks to help Canadian startups scale domestically rather than relocate.