The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and BCG Digital Ventures, the global corporate venture, investment and incubation arm of Boston Consulting Group, have launched a venture incubator to test and build scalable new digital businesses.
The Toronto-based incubator, known as Koru, will help Ontario Teachers’ private equity, natural resources and infrastructure portfolio companies build novel ideas, innovate digital businesses and scale rapidly, taking advantage of opportunities across various industries.
Koru is already generating ideas in sectors including healthcare, utilities and transportation.
“Koru is a clear demonstration of Ontario Teachers’ partnership model of investing,” said Ziad Hindo, CIO of Ontario Teachers. “It provides us with an entirely new way to work alongside our portfolio companies and help protect them against disruption by finding opportunities to add significant mutual value along the way.”
Koru’s first venture, Elovee, is an advanced conversation software that digitizes the voice and likeness of family members, in an effort to bring the comfort of a familiar face and voice to dementia sufferers at other times when those closest to them cannot be physically present.
Elovee was designed with Ontario Teachers’ portfolio company Amica Senior Lifestyles. It is currently being piloted in two of Amica’s Canadian locations.
To spearhead operationalizing Koru, Bryan Marcovici, venture architect director at BCG Digital Ventures, will join Koru as the incubator’s general manager and managing partner.
“Our collaboration with Ontario Teachers’ is inspiring because we are able to draw upon our unique methodology for corporate innovation and experience in launching more than 90 ventures to help them create this new capability for venture building,” said Anthony Koithra, managing director and partner at BCG Digital Ventures. “The potential it has for igniting innovation in — and accelerating the growth of — its portfolio companies is very exciting.”
Koru is planning to hire a 35-person multi-disciplinary team of entrepreneurs, product managers, engineers, marketers, designers and startup operators.
The venture incubator already has three new ventures in the pipeline this year, with plans to launch four more in 2020.
