Some years back we were asked.... The fund I work with, GrowthWorks, manages funds across Canada, about $500 million in assets under management. We were asked by the deputy of Industry Canada what percentage of the companies that we funded in our portfolio were the result of R and D based at a university. We went back and did a scan of all the funds we manage. We were a bit surprised, frankly, to find that 40% of the companies that we eventually fund had their origins in universities.
This was important, because when you collectively look at the significant investment that the Government of Canada, coupled with the provinces and other organizations make, I think it was something in the order of $25 billion annually that goes into R and D. However, unless there is linkage to commercialization of much of that R and D, many of the potential benefits, in our view, are lost.
I know the other members of the CBCA would agree with me when I say this, but it's critically important for folks in our business to be always working with the universities and trying to find out and identify young and up-and-coming investment opportunities that have been the result of work done at a university setting.
Out east we have an organization called Springboard, which is supported by ACOA and which represents the 19 universities, including the community colleges, throughout Atlantic Canada. We're working as an organization very closely with them. Some universities, frankly, are more inclined towards this area than others. Out east it would be Memorial in Newfoundland, Dalhousie, and UNB. Two of the best VC deals in Canada in the last 12 months came out of an engineer from UNB, who created about a billion dollars worth of value in terms of two companies he started that were eventually sold.
That's the kind of impact you can have in the local economy. In both those cases significant employment was created and continues to be created by the two companies that he founded. In our view, universities are an extremely important part of the continuum.