After nearly a decade with the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Mark Trevitt has launched his own venture capital (VC) fund to invest in nascent artificial intelligence (AI) and data companies.

Trevitt, who has been investing in AI with BDC Capital since 2014, left the Crown corporation last year to found Vancouver-based Defined Capital as its managing partner. Through Defined, the former BDC partner plans to focus on early-stage technology startups across North America that are “shaping the AI frontier.” 

According to Trevitt, Defined has closed on over a third of its $15-million USD target for its first fund from a group of limited partners (LPs) that includes Inovia Capital, Band Venture Partners, and a slew of successful British Columbia (BC) tech entrepreneurs. He also claimed the firm has commitments that put it on track to secure the remainder in the coming months. 

“It’s a Cambrian explosion of opportunity, so I wanted to nimbly move to be in market as fast as possible.”

Defined hit the ground running back in early February 2023 with an initial close, and the VC firm has invested in five startups already, acting quickly to capitalize on some of the possibilities fuelled by recent advances on the data, architecture, and computing fronts. “It’s a Cambrian explosion of opportunity, so I wanted to nimbly move to be in market as fast as possible,” Trevitt said in an exclusive interview with BetaKit.

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