Openera founder Peter Lalonde said the investment from BDC Venture Capital, California-based Prolific Ventures and various angel investors is part of a $750,000 funding round the company is hoping to close in the near future. Although multiple investors have expressed interest, Mr. Lalonde said the startup is examining the best options for the company. He said he expects the rest of the round to close early in the new year.
“We want to make sure we make the right decision,” he said. “We’re not in a huge rush.”
The funds will be used to double the team from four current staff members to eight. Mr. Lalonde said he is also hoping to build a corporate solution using Openera technology.
The Ottawa-based company provides a cross-cloud content manager that automatically moves e-mail attachments into cloud services such as Google Drive or Dropbox.
Mr. Lalonde has been working on securing the seed funding round in recent months, heading to the Banff Venture Forum in October to meet with interested investors.
A very small percentage of the funds came from the Ottawa region, he said, which is all the more reason that Mr. Lalonde’s initiative called the Founder’s Pledge remains relevant. The pledge came after Mr. Lalonde and Kyle Braatz, a 2012 Forty Under 40 recipient and founder of mobile commerce platform Health Wave, heard many complaints about a lack of funding in Ottawa. The pledge calls on successful local entrepreneurs to re-invest some of their money in Ottawa-based startups.
Openera is one of three early-stage firms that are part of a community-led business accelerator launched by local software firm Mercury Grove.
To read more about the success of Openwave and the other startups in the Mercury Grove accelerator, pick up the Dec. 10 print edition of the OBJ.
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