Photographer: Peter Power
Photographer: Peter Power
Six months after he was hit in a cycling accident that left him paralyzed from the waist, technology investor John Ruffolo is launching a $ 500 million private equity fund to help Canadian companies.
Ruffolo’s firm, Maverix Private Equity, will target growing companies that want to remain private as they expand globally, he said in an interview with Jon Erlichman of BNN Bloomberg Television.
The launch of the fund was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and later by its September accident. Ruffolo was hit by a transport truck while riding a bicycle in the Markham, Ontario suburbs of Toronto.
“I broke my spine. I split my pool in two. I broke every rib in several places. I lost a kidney, a lung and a lot of blood, ”said Ruffolo, who founded the venture capital arm of Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement System. “I didn’t stubbornly die.”
“When I first arrived at Sunnybrook Hospital, they did not want to operate on me because there was concern that the operation would kill me because of the massive trauma,” he said.
By the end of October, still in a recovery bed at a rehabilitation hospital in Toronto, Ruffolo was feeling well enough to start talking to potential Maverix investors again. The fund intends to look for companies that disrupt sectors such as retail, health care, transport and financial services; investors include Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bank of Montreal, Mattamy Asset Management and pension funds.
“We wanted to build this Team Canada concept, where we could bring together the greatest individuals in this country who would gather around us and help the next generation,” said Ruffolo.
In addition to being one of Canada’s most influential venture capitalists, Ruffolo has supported the country’s technology industry as a co-founder of the Canadian Innovators Council, along with former co-CEO Jim Balsillie, co-director of moving research.