Photographer: Peter Power
Photographer: Peter Power
Six months after being hit in a bicycle accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, technology investor John Ruffolo is launching a $ 500 million private equity fund to help Canadian companies.
Ruffolo’s company, Maverix Private Equity, will target growth companies looking 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 even more so by the September accident. Ruffolo was hit by a transport truck while riding a bicycle in the Markham suburb of Toronto, Ontario.
“I broke my spine. I split my pelvis in half. I broke each 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 Ontario Employee Retirement System. “I stubbornly didn’t die.”
“When I arrived at Sunnybrook Hospital, they did not want to operate on me because there was a concern that the surgery would kill me due to major trauma,” he said.
In late October, still in a recovery bed at a Toronto rehabilitation hospital, Ruffolo was feeling well enough to start talking to potential Maverix investors again. The fund plans to target companies that are disrupting sectors such as retail, healthcare, transportation and financial services; investors include Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bank of Montreal, Mattamy Asset Management and pension funds.
“We wanted to build this concept of Team Canada, where we will bring together the greatest individuals in this country who will gather around us and help the next newcomers,” said Ruffolo.
In addition to being one of Canada’s most influential venture capitalists, Ruffolo defended the country’s technology industry as co-founder of the Canadian Innovators Council, along with former Research in Motion CEO Jim Balsillie.