Victoria-based Swede, LetHub, and Frontly secure investment

From left to right: Anthony Stubbs, Faizan Ali Khan and Patrick Kelly

Sprout.vc, a seed-stage venture and mentor capital firm, led investments in a trio of Victoria outfits: Swede, LetHub, and Frontly. The Edmonton-based, Western Canada-focused firm made the investments within a month of launching its second fund. Swede and Frontly raised CAD $350,000 while LetHub is only announcing a CAD $250,000 investment from Sprout at this time. 

How Swede it is: Swede is disrupting the home-renovation market by simplifying the way home improvement project materials are planned and purchased. The company streamlines the otherwise-complex relationships between interior designers, customers, manufacturers, and suppliers. How do they do it? They replicate the experience of online furniture shopping.

“We’re very excited to leverage the incredible experience and network provided by the Sprout.vc leadership team,” said Anthony Stubbs, CEO and founder. “This capital will enable Swede to accelerate our expansion across Canada.” 

Sprout contributed $200,000 to Swede’s round while a host of other investors provided undisclosed amounts to bring the total funding to $350,000.

Let it rain (investment dollars): LetHub is a proptech startup that provides an intelligent leasing automation platform for property managers. It uses AI to augment and streamline their day-to-day work. CEO and founder Faizan Ali Khan is a three-time entrepreneur originally from Pakistan, who has quickly built a diverse team that has gained rapid market adoption.

“Team LetHub is very excited to be part of Sprout Fund II and its network of experienced investors,” said Ali Khan. “The investment will allow us to establish ourselves in the multifamily residential market and build new products that improve the experience of finding, managing, and keeping great tenants.”

LetHub and Ali Khan also featured in the top 10 of last year’s New Ventures BC competition. 

Funding at the forefront(ly): Frontly is a no-code front-end automation platform that makes it easier for startup development teams to release products without front-end development being the bottleneck. With the growing shortage of developers and the rapidly escalating costs to hire them, Frontly allows its customers to launch custom web apps 10 times faster. With the no-code or low-code market expected to scale to $80 billion within the next five years, Frontly is poised to benefit from this massive growth wave. 

The CEO and founder Patrick Kelly, is, like Ali Khan, a third-time entrepreneur. There must be something in that old adage that “the third time’s the charm.” 

“Sprout.vc has provided value beyond the investment from day one with their solid advice, based on their significant experience and knowledge,” said Kelly. “With this capital, Frontly will be able to aggressively scale our sales and marketing, and make several key hires to keep up with demand.” 

Sprout contributed $100,000 to Frontly’s round while a trio of other firms contributed:

• Tiny Capital invested $25,000.

• Western Universities Technology Innovation Fund (WUTIF) invested $75,000.

• eFund invested $50,000.

The remaining $100,000 in funding came via undisclosed amounts from independent investors and angel investors.

Where innovation sprouts: “These initial investments demonstrate our commitment to Western Canada and the quality of the startups we see being built here,” said Mark Benning, partner at Sprout.vc. “Our portfolio companies in Fund I have experienced valuation lifts of 3- to-10-times in less than three years, demonstrating the effectiveness of our model which provides financial capital alongside mentor capital. We intend to replicate similar success with our new investments from Fund II.”