- Intrepid is investing in the next generation of AI founders emerging from international talent centres, particularly Canada and the UK, as well as the United States and Europe.
- Intrepid was founded by leading institutional investors and AI academics to back the ambitious founders who are building the systems their industries will run on tomorrow.
- Intrepid has already invested in nine portfolio companies, including London-based PhysicsX and Toronto-based StackAdapt.
Intrepid Growth Partners ("Intrepid"), a specialist growth investor dedicated to AI, today announced its formal launch alongside the final close of its inaugural US$525 million fund ("Fund I").
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260914390488/en/
Intrepid GP Co-Founders Left to Right: Ajay Agrawal, Mark Machin, Mark Shulgan.
Intrepid was founded in 2023 by Mark Machin, former President CEO of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Mark Shulgan, former Head of Growth Equity at OMERS, and Ajay Agrawal, Professor at the University of Toronto and a leading AI economist.
Their shared vision has been to position Intrepid as a specialist AI-focused growth investor dedicated to backing the next generation of AI leaders.
Intrepid believes that AI winners will emerge globally, not solely from a single ecosystem. The firm focuses on backing proven AI businesses with the potential to move beyond improving a single task to fundamentally redesigning how their industries work.
Intrepid's first fund is backed by more than 80 global Limited Partners, including multiple institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds notably Temasek, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, British Business Bank, Export Development Canada (EDC) and Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) alongside US and global institutions and leading family offices.
Intrepid invests in companies with demonstrated commercial traction across a range of sectors, taking a high-conviction approach to backing businesses applying AI to transform established industries and solve complex real-world problems. Intrepid has a particular focus on the Canada-UK corridor, with its deep pool of research and engineering talent, as well as the United States and Europe. Across these markets, Intrepid brings growth capital, conviction, global networks, operational support, and a long-term perspective to help founders build global champions.
In addition to capital, portfolio companies benefit from Intrepid's proven institutional platform, with investment professionals across two core offices in Toronto and London, and its network of Growth Partners, Senior Advisers, and AI scientists. This network includes Richard Sutton, 2024 Turing Award winner and pioneer of reinforcement learning, Sendhil Mullainathan, MIT professor and MacArthur Genius, Sir Mike Wigston, former Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force, and Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, who portfolio companies can access for advice and expertise.
Mark Machin, Co-founder and Managing Partner, said: "At Intrepid, we are singularly focused on finding and backing the next generation of ambitious AI founders. We are grateful for the confidence our Limited Partners have placed in Intrepid and in the team we have built. Their support reflects our shared belief that we are in the midst of a profound period of technology-driven change, and that capturing the opportunity it creates will require different and deeper thinking, and disciplined capital."
Mark Shulgan, Co-founder and Partner, said:"AI is changing the investment landscape as profoundly as it is changing business and creating new category leaders. As the range of outcomes widens, investors need to be prepared to challenge established assumptions and think much further ahead. At Intrepid, we start by developing a view of how AI could redefine an industry over the next decade and work backwards from there. We've already put that approach into practice with an exceptional group of companies and founders who are on the path to becoming global leaders."
Ajay Agrawal, Co-founder and Partner, said:"AI makes prediction dramatically cheaper. Prediction is a key input to decision-making. When the price of an input falls, its scarce complements become more valuable: judgment, proprietary data, distribution, workflow redesign, and the ability to reorganize entire systems. As investors, that is where we are looking: not simply for companies using AI to make an existing task faster, but for founders working towards a vision that exploits low-cost prediction to dramatically improve how some critical goods are produced or a service is delivered and, in doing so, builds enduring global businesses."
Richard Sutton, Senior Adviser to Intrepid and artificial intelligence research pioneer, said: "The rise and spread of AI teaches us not to assume today's methods define tomorrow's possibilities. The most important advances have come from systems that learn and discover for themselves. We are now approaching another transition: from AI built predominantly on human data to AI that learns continually from experience. That will create new opportunities for entrepreneurs. Intrepid's focus on AI's longer-term trajectory, and on backing people building towards it, makes the firm distinctive."
The Honourable Evan Solomon, Canada's Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, commented: "Canada has the talent, research, and ideas to lead in AI. Our opportunity is to turn that strength into Canadian companies that scale globally, create good jobs, and generate lasting value here at home. Intrepid's success at attracting investment from around the world to help promising Canadian AI companies grow is an important part of building a more productive, competitive, and sovereign economy."
UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said: "Britain is producing some of the most exciting AI founders anywhere in the world, and investors are taking notice. Intrepid's commitment will help more of those companies turn big ideas into global businesses, creating jobs, attracting investment and strengthening the UK's position on the world stage."
Christine Hockley, Managing Director and Co-Head of Funds at the British Business Bank, said:"The UK's depth of AI research, engineering talent and entrepreneurship gives it a real opportunity to build the next generation of globally significant technology companies. Realising that potential requires deeper pools of scale up funding and specialist investors with the capital, expertise and international networks to support companies through their next phase of growth. Intrepid brings that combination, and its commitment to the UK strengthens the ecosystem available to ambitious AI founders building global businesses."
Paula Cruickshank, Senior Vice President, Fund Investments at Business Development Bank of Canada commented: "Canada is home to world-class AI talent and entrepreneurs with the potential to build globally competitive AI companies. Ensuring our most promising companies can access the growth capital and networks they need to scale is critical. Intrepid's focus on backing proven AI businesses aligns with BDC's commitment to strengthening Canada's venture and growth capital ecosystem, and supporting the development of Canada's innovation economy. As part of our broader efforts, including our $6 billion Defence Platform, we are investing in the capabilities and technologies that will drive Canada's future competitiveness, productivity and economic resilience."
Alison Nankivell, President and CEO, Export Development Canada, commented:"Canada has world-class AI talent, innovative companies and strong capabilities across the AI ecosystem. To translate that innovation into global success, companies need access to capital, the right expertise and networks. EDC is pleased to support a fund that shares our ambition to help more Canadian AI businesses grow internationally. By supporting high-potential innovators, Intrepid is helping build globally competitive businesses in the industries that will underpin the next generation of growth."
Jacomo Corbo, CEO and Co-Founder of PhysicsX, said:"We believe AI's next frontier is the physical economy transforming how the products, machines, and infrastructure the world depends on are designed, manufactured, and operated. Building for a shift of that scale requires investors who understand both the magnitude of the opportunity and the ambition and patience required to realize it. That is what we value about Intrepid: they combine a deep understanding of AI with the experience, global perspective, and long-term conviction to help build companies of lasting consequence."
Intrepid was advised by Osler on legal matters and by Deloitte on financial matters.
About Intrepid Growth Partners: Co-founded by Mark Machin, Mark Shulgan and Ajay Agrawal, Intrepid invests in pioneering machine intelligence-powered companies with demonstrated value creation and transformative potential. With offices in Toronto and London covering North America and Europe, and a constellation of aligned and invested senior advisers, we help visionary leaders scale and redefine their industries.
To learn more about Intrepid and our approach to investing, please visit our website at www.intrepidgp.com and subscribe to our Derby Mill podcast series with hosts Ajay Agrawal, Turing Award winner Rich Sutton, Sendhil Mullainathan and Niamh Gavin.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260914390488/en/
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Media Contact (Europe): Alfie Tisdall, alfie.tisdall@edelmansmithfield.com +44 203 047 2073
Media Contact (Canada): Albert Gunnison, albert.gunnison@edelmansmithfield.com +1 (647) 245-7669
