Garibaldi Capital Advisors

Today, BuildDirect announced a CDN $30 million ‘Series B’ growth equity financing to continue their reinvention of the heavyweight home improvement product market. They will use the capital to support the continued evolution of their proprietary technology platform, expand their extensive product offerings, and rapidly grow their employee base.

The BuildDirect financing is the 3rd largest financing in Western Canada closed in the past 6 months. The other two were the USD $36 million private placement into Broadband TV, and the epic USD $165 million raised by local sensation Hootsuite. Garibaldi Capital Advisors advised on 2 of these 3 transactions, working closely with Shahrzad Rafati and Hamed Shahbazi at BBTV, and Jeff Booth and John Sotham at BuildDirect.

When asked about how Garibaldi helps, we explain that there is no substitute for experienced advice in the crucible of a complex and time consuming fund raise. In the case of BBTV, we stood shoulder to shoulder with Shahrzad and her team, spending a full 6 months in intensive preparation. Through the final closing of the RTL investment in June of 2013, we had spent a full year engaged in preparation, marketing, preliminary due diligence, term sheet negotiation, long form negotiation, confirmatory due diligence, and close.

We feel strongly that our clients need to focus the growth of their businesses, while we quarterback the effort to locate and secure them the best financial partner. John Sotham, VP Finance at BuildDirect comments, “The Garibaldi team was like an extension of our internal management. We worked with them daily, often in our Vancouver office, to prepare the financial model and marketing materials necessary to complete the raise. They attended and debriefed all key management meetings with multiple prospective partners. When it came to negotiating the final term sheet, we relied on them to provide timely financial and strategic analysis of key deal points. It was a pleasure working with Garibaldi, and we would not hesitate to work with them again.”

Garibaldi Capital Advisors was founded on the premise that Canadian technology companies need an ultra-connected, independent and exclusively technology focused advisory firm, which engages far earlier: we get to know companies in the seed phase, and add continuous value over the duration of their growth – we have been working with John and Jeff Booth at BuildDirect for over 3 years now; in our view, it is no longer sufficient to engage only when a business reaches the point when Growth Equity or an M&A exit makes sense. These two large private placements strongly confirm our conviction, and we look forward to more of the same in 2014.