We are very excited to announce Rhino $120M Fund III. In 2015, we set out to fill the quality and quantity void of early-stage capital in Western Canada by supporting world-class companies, including Thinkific, Article, FISPAN, and Klue, being built here in our own backyard (a contrarian view at the time). The Canadian tech ecosystem has seen strong growth since then, yet the lack of quality, early-stage capital persists. The opportunity to partner with ambitious founders building exceptional companies has only grown, which is why we look forward to expanding our support to the top founders across Canada with Rhino Fund III.
Our commitment to founders remains the same; be the funders we wished we had as founders. We remain focused on delivering unmatched support to our customers, the entrepreneurs. By holding ourselves to a continuously upward-moving bar, we earn the right to be the partners that support founders in achieving their highest potential. Founders are the captains of their ships and are responsible for the success of their companies. We operate on the principles that founders deserve partners who will put in the time, bring up the hard topics, celebrate their milestones, be a shoulder to cry on, and ultimately push them to win.
Similar to the founders we back, fundraising is not how we prefer to spend our time so we run an accelerated fundraising process (most funds raise for 12-18 months). It took 8 months to close Rhino’s $14M Fund I and 4 months to close our $33M Fund II. With Fund III closing in 3 months ($20M oversubscribed), we can refocus our attention back on what matters - Entrepreneurs.
We continue to support the most ambitious founders of early-stage tech startups across Canada and will remain sector agnostic. From pre-seed through to Series A, initial investments will range from $500k to $5M, while we will retain significant reserves for follow-on investments. Additionally, in certain verticals where we believe we can add significant value, we will pursue opportunities globally.
As operators ourselves, we have a deep appreciation for the fact that Rhino’s success is completely attributable to the incredible founders we’ve backed and we’re stoked to continue to expand the Rhino Crash with Fund III!
