Toronto-based BKR Capital, a Black-led venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology companies, has announced its $50-million Black Innovation Fund II is now seeking potential investments.

The firm secured a $20 million first close for the fund with backing from the Royal Bank of Canada, Boann Social Impact Fund, Cap Finance Social Finance Fund, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada (EDC).

BKR Capital was founded in 2021 to provide seed and early-stage funding to technology companies with at least one Black founder.

When it launched Fund I, the firm aimed at an amount of $10 million. By 2022, it was managing an $18.5 million fund.

Lise Birikundavyi, co-founder and managing partner at BKR Capital, said in an interview with TechNX this new funding looks to address a persistent funding gap facing Black business founders in Canada.

“We’re looking at funding an important gap that exists in the Canadian ecosystem for underrepresented founders,” she said. “We found that we have amazing talent that is building solutions that can really benefit everyone.

"It’s definitely a fund that is purpose driven, but also very anchored into financial performance.”

Funding gap for Black-led firms in plain sight

Birikundavyi pointed to a statistic that underpins the work of BKR Capital: in 2025, there was significantly less venture funding to Black-led startups in Canada. 

In the firm’s 2026 Black Startup Funding Report, the study found last year, “venture funding to Black-led startups in Canada contracted sharply, with total capital raised declining to $10 million across 11 deals. Despite continued early-stage formation and active fundraising, Black founders’ market share fell to 0.15 per cent of total Canadian VC funding.

"The estimated funding gap remained substantial at $292 million, underscoring the structural imbalance between founder activity and capital allocation.”

The report added, “between 2021 and 2025, venture funding into Black-led startups in Canada remained highly volatile, peaking in 2023 before contracting sharply amid broader market pullback. While total deal value declined in 2024 and 2025, lower deal count and continued early-stage concentration reflect persistent structural financing constraints rather than reduced entrepreneurial activity.”

The report noted nearly 90 per cent of deals involving Black founders occur at the pre-seed and seed stages, highlighting a pipeline of early innovation that remains undercapitalized. The report further added in 2025, the estimated funding gap for Black-led startups totaled $292 million, down from$312 million in 2024.

“That has been a gap that has been studied and identified not only in Canada, but in the U.S. as well,” she added. “We see similar gaps when we think about female founder and minority founders generally.”

Global growth possibilities

Birikundavyi said BKR Capital discovered by working with early Black startup founders is the global potential many of their technologies and solutions have, even when they are initially focused on solving a local problem.

“Seventy per cent of the Black population in Canada is first- or second-generation immigrants,” she explained. “They will first often focus on solving local problems, but very soon organically this will expand to other regions. Most solutions you’ll see fit into the local market, but then will also have applications in other (global) settings.”

"Many of the founders we back are building companies that are thinking global from Day One," said Ebenezer Arthur, partner at BKR Capital in a press release announcing the fund. "Our platform helps them access networks and markets that accelerate expansion not only across North America but also into some of the fastest-growing technology ecosystems across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean."

Birikundavyi said the fund is “agnostic” when it comes to the firms it wishes to support, only that these early-stage firms will be pre-seed, seed and Series A.

“We want to partner where we can add value and growth,” Birikundavyi said. “We want to back founders that are as ambitious as we are, those looking at building category-defining companies.”

"From the beginning, our thesis was that there was a powerful investment opportunity hiding in plain sight," said Isaac Olowolafe, general partner at BKR Capital in the press release. "By identifying exceptional founders who have historically been overlooked by traditional venture networks, we are seeing the kind of strong financial performance that comes from investing in innovation before the broader market recognizes its value."