Innovobot Resonance Ventures
Innovobot Resonance Ventures (IRV) is a Montreal-based, woman-led deep-tech-for-good seed fund that backs early-stage Canadian startups in robotics, AI, human-machine interfaces and advanced materials. Water is one slice of that thesis, not the whole of it. As of 2026 it has backed 2 water companies across 2 deals, rated Committed by (don't) Waste Water.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
As of April 2025, Innovobot Resonance Ventures has a new driver: Neha Khera, a Toronto venture investor who co-founded 500 Canada, took over as managing partner to run a refreshed deep-tech fund. The reset followed a hard first chapter. IRV held a first close of CAD 14 million in late 2022 against a CAD 40 million target it never reached, and Khera is now deploying what is left across 25 to 30 startups over three years. (A first close is the point where a fund can start writing cheques before it finishes raising.)
Innovobot Resonance Ventures is the venture arm of Innovobot, a Montreal investment-and-innovation platform that is half fund, half engineering shop. Its labs hold more than 745 patents, and its CTO, Danny Grant, was the lead inventor of the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller. That heritage sets the thesis: IRV writes small pre-seed cheques into deep tech for good, hard science and engineering in robotics, AI, human-machine interfaces and advanced materials, where the edge is physical and patentable rather than a clever app.
Innovobot Resonance Ventures does not call itself a water investor, and its two water names read exactly like a deep-tech house that wandered into the sector. Both are physical-world hardware bets: Oneka Technologies builds offshore buoys that turn wave motion into fresh water, and Ecofilter Tek makes regenerable ion-exchange resins that pull contaminants out of water. They are desalination and materials science first, water plays second, which is precisely what you get from a fund that hunts for hard engineering and lets the application follow.
Innovobot Resonance Ventures is the kind of investor water technology often starts with, the deep-tech seed fund that backs a clever machine long before anyone files it under water. As of 2026 it has backed 2 water companies across 2 deals, rated Committed by (don't) Waste Water, and with a CAD 3 million mandate from Investissement Quebec's Eureka Fund added in late 2025 and capital still to deploy, more physical-world water bets look the likelier path than a pivot to a water-only strategy.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 2 water companies
Frequently asked
- What does Innovobot Resonance Ventures invest in?
- Innovobot Resonance Ventures backs early-stage, deep-tech-for-good startups in Canada, writing small pre-seed and seed cheques into robotics, AI, human-machine interfaces, the internet of things and advanced materials. It runs a concentrated portfolio, and water surfaces only through hard-engineering bets like wave-powered desalination, not as a separate thesis.
- Does Innovobot Resonance Ventures invest in water?
- Yes, selectively. Innovobot Resonance Ventures has backed 2 water companies across 2 deals: Oneka Technologies, which builds offshore wave-powered desalination buoys, and Ecofilter Tek, which makes regenerable ion-exchange resins for water treatment. Both are deep-tech hardware bets rather than pure water plays. (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Committed.
- Who runs Innovobot Resonance Ventures?
- Innovobot Resonance Ventures has been led since April 2025 by Managing Partner Neha Khera, a Toronto investor who co-founded 500 Canada. The fund sits inside Innovobot, founded by CEO Mario Venditti and CTO Danny Grant, the lead inventor of the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller, with Sylvain Carle as Tech-for-Good Lead.
- Where is Innovobot Resonance Ventures based?
- Innovobot Resonance Ventures is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as the venture arm of the Innovobot platform. It invests across Canada at the pre-seed and seed stage, and managing partner Neha Khera leads the fund from Toronto.
- Is Innovobot Resonance Ventures the same as Innovobot Labs?
- No. Innovobot Resonance Ventures (IRV) is the venture-capital fund that invests in outside startups. Innovobot Labs is the in-house research and haptics engineering shop behind the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller. Both sit under the Montreal-based Innovobot platform, but the fund and the lab are distinct arms.