The Emerging and High Growth Companies Group at Osler is passionate about entrepreneurship and supporting the growth of early and growth stage ventures. Ranked Band 1 in Chambers Canada and located in offices across the country, including Toronto, Vancouver, Montréal, Ottawa and Calgary, our knowledgeable and experienced team members share their insights and expertise with emerging companies to drive business value and to ensure long-term success.
Our group works closely and collaboratively with our Venture Capital teams to help clients recognize, develop and move forward on significant and innovative venture capital opportunities. Our lawyers advise both emerging and high growth companies and investors nationwide on the unique issues involved in venture capital deals. Osler was ranked as the number one Canadian law firm in the inaugural global venture capital league tables, being the only Canadian firm ranked among the top five firms globally as advisor to both companies and investors.
The Emerging and High Growth Companies Group represents entrepreneurs and emerging and growth stage companies nationwide covering a broad spectrum of knowledge-based industries, supporting them through the stages of their lifecycle, providing legal advice on a wide range of issues and requirements faced along the way:
Protecting your product
You've worked hard to establish your product, and Osler’s leading Intellectual Property and Trademark teams will help you protect what you've built.
Addressing risk and maintaining compliance
Osler’s Privacy and Data Management team will help you address the privacy and anti-spam issues that can often arise at various stages of a company’s lifecycle.
Building your team
Osler’s leading Employment and Labour lawyers will support you in the hiring and management of your team.
Raising funds
Osler’s renowned Venture Capital lawyers focus on getting your deal over the finish line.
Exit
Osler is a leading firm for M&A transactions and IPOs.
Osler has vibrant and ongoing relationships with the most prominent players in both Canada and the United States, including
- leading venture capital funds
- growth equity funds
- private equity funds
- pension funds
- major corporations
- institutions
- growing private companies
- IPOs
Through our established national network, our clients have access to potential funders, as well as to other sources of capital, service providers, potential board members, executives, customers and suppliers. Our strong legal referral community includes both international and domestic clients looking for business opportunities in Canada.
Osler’s transactional deal flow
Osler acts for more than 1,500 early, growth and late-stage ventures and venture investors across Canada, United States and around the world. In the last five years, our firm has acted on more than 940 angel, venture and private equity financings.
In 2023, Osler advised on 269 deals with more than $2.9 billion raised by EHG companies.
A summary of these deals is provided below.
Startup program for emerging companies
At Osler, it's our belief that establishing a foundation for your venture is the key to your future success. That is why our firm has carefully designed our startup-program to get your venture up and running as quickly as possible, taking into account the standards for venture-backed companies.
Our startup program reflects our long-term commitment when working with emerging companies by providing the highest level of strategic advice and service on a fixed-fee basis. Even after an emerging company has graduated from the program, Osler is proactive in considering our clients’ needs and will continue to deliver legal services on, as much as possible, a competitive fixed-fee basis or a recurring monthly fee basis (instead of the traditional hourly rate model) to provide cost certainty as the company scales and throughout its lifecycle.
Notable graduates of our startup program which have gone on to be successful enterprises include Wealthsimple, Clearco, Xanadu and ApplyBoard.
First of its kind
Osler’s Emerging and High Growth Companies Group is proud to have worked on the following deals that were notably mentioned for being the largest or first of its kind.
- Verafin — in its sale to NASDAQ for US$2.75 billion — the largest private tech M&A transaction.
- ApplyBoard — in its $100 million Series C financing — led the company to a valuation of $2B, obtaining unicorn status.
- Wealthsimple — in its $114 million equity financing — led the company to a valuation of $1.4B, obtaining unicorn status.
- Prodigy — in its $159 million Series B financing — one of the largest raises in the Canadian EdTech space.
- Waabi — in its US$83.5 million Series A financing — one of the largest Series A rouds ever raised by a Canadian startup.
- Symend — in its $73 million Series B financing — one of the largest Series B rounds in Alberta history.
Many of Osler’s Emerging and High Growth clients are leading the way in fighting COVID-19. Our team is proud to work with these innovative companies that are at the forefront of fighting this disease.
Supporting innovation nationwide
As part of our commitment to Canada’s broader community of entrepreneurs, Osler sponsors a number of programs and organizations across the country dedicated to supporting emerging companies. Our firm is committed to the idea that founders with passion, vision and a plan can access the legal and business guidance they need to launch their venture.
Osler helped launch and continues to support the following
- NEXT Canada (Next 36, Next AI and Next Founders), a non-profit charity that helps identify and fast-track the development of Canada’s most talented young innovators
- Creative Destruction Lab (CDL Toronto, CD Montreal, CDL Atlantic, CDL Rockies, CDL Vancouver and CDL Nurture), a seed stage program for massively scalable science and technology-based companies. As well, Osler is a founding sponsor of The Next Big Thing, an entrepreneur-led foundation committed to the next generation of Canadian entrepreneurs.
The Emerging and High Growth Companies Group is also partnering with a number of early stage accelerators, incubators and ecosystem organizations such as
- Forum Ventures, a SaaS-focused accelerator which provides entrepreneurs with an opportunity to connect with an extensive network of enterprise companies, mentors and investors within the early stage B2B SaaS and enterprise technology space
- L-Spark, another leading SaaS-focused accelerator which is dedicated to connecting Canada’s SaaS experts to market-ready SaaS and cloud companies.
Osler also works with programs to promote women-led businesses such as The 51, a “Financial Feminist” platform where investors and entrepreneurs work together to connect women-led capital for women-led businesses. Our team also works with Women Funding Women which is a growing community of more than 120 women’s funds, foundations, gender equity funders, allies and individuals.
Osler is committed to working with our fellow sponsors at these and other ventures, such as TandemLaunch, League of Innovators, Centech, The Accelerator for the Creation of Technological Businesses (ACET), Front Row Ventures, Deloitte’s Fast 50 Program, Femtech Breakfast Club, AGEWELL, Startup TNT and the C100, to ensure that founders can access the support they need to launch their venture.
Deals
Osler represents companies and venture capital funds and investors from the pre-seed stage, right through to the high growth and exit stage. Our portfolio of experience demonstrates the broad range of deals and sectors our team has assisted and our ability to help companies scale their businesses. A full list of representative work is provided further down.
Industries we support