Quebec-based E2ip, which develops tech for smart displays and surfaces, raised a $120M Series B co-led by Export Development Canada and McRock Capital
Charlize Alcaraz / BetaKit : LinkedIn: Mike Dawson LinkedIn: Mike Dawson : Yet another big announcement from a McRock portfolio company. A huge funding round for a great Canadian success story building some amazing tech. …
Context & Ripple Effects
E2ip's $120M Series B lands on a familiar template in Canadian growth rounds: Export Development Canada taking the lead seat, just as it did when it led Toronto-based Brim's $85M Series C for payments infrastructure a year earlier. For McRock Capital, whose Mike Dawson flagged this as yet another big portfolio announcement, the round extends the firm's industrial-technology thesis into smart displays and surfaces.
The round also fits a Quebec-specific cadence in the coverage — Montreal's GSoft raising CA$125M from CDPQ weeks later, and telecom software firm Gaiia following with a CA$54.8M Series B — suggesting the province's later-stage pipeline has deepened enough to support nine-figure cheques rather than seed-scale exits.
First-order effects
- E2ip gets $120M co-led by Export Development Canada and McRock Capital to fund development of its smart display and surface technology, moving it from product buildout toward commercialization.
- Export Development Canada adds an industrial-hardware bet alongside its software and fintech positions such as Brim, broadening its growth-stage mandate beyond trade finance adjacency.
Second-order effects
- Other Quebec hardware startups now have a fresh benchmark: a $120M Series B priced by a crown lender plus a specialist industrial VC raises the bar for what local founders can ask for at that stage.
- Competing industrial-IoT investors face pressure to match McRock's cheque size in smart-surface deals, since losing the anchor slot to a crown-backed syndicate narrows their access to Canadian deal flow.
Third-order effects
- If crown capital like Export Development Canada keeps anchoring Canadian growth rounds across sectors from payments to industrial hardware, the structure of the domestic venture market tilts toward state-co-invested syndicates setting terms rather than purely private US funds.
- A sustained pattern of large Quebec later-stage rounds would consolidate the province as Canada's second growth-capital hub after Toronto, shifting where founders incorporate and where sector-specialist VCs open presence.
The trend: Canadian growth-stage financing is consolidating around crown-capital-anchored syndicates pairing Export Development Canada with specialist VCs, giving Quebec startups access to nine-figure rounds without US lead investors.