Toronto, ON and Calgary, AB — October 27th: Avatar Leadership Fund (“Avatar”) is proud to announce its fifth investment in an oversubscribed seed funding round for Variablegrid, a Canadian start-up enabling cost-effective, scalable electric vehicle charging and demand response, unlocking material bottlenecks to electrification. This deal represents Avatar’s second investment in a start-up external to Avatar’s Venture Studio. Avatar invested alongside Alberta EcoTrust, Spring Impact Capital and The Atmospheric Fund. Please see the full press release here.
VariableGrid’s seed round will support the delivery of VariableGrid’s partnership with Kia Canada, while enabling scaling of operations, customer support, and core research and development.
“We are pleased to support the world class team at VariableGrid and are energized by their ability to unlock material bottlenecks to electrification,” said Bryan Trudel, Managing Partner at Avatar Leadership Fund. “We are also thrilled to have joined this expert group of investors in catalyzing Variablegrid’s exciting next stage of growth."
In addition to an incredible team and strong commercial traction, VariableGrid’s successful pilot with BC Hydro (an Avatar Studio partner) provided our Fund an ability to facilitate a “win-win” by catalyzing a start-up who is delivering value to our innovation network.
About Avatar Ventures Leadership Fund
Anchored by a $750K lead investment from Cenovus Energy Inc. and supported by family offices and investors across Canada, the $2.5 million Avatar Ventures Leadership Fund provides early-stage risk capital to the most promising companies emerging from Avatar Studio, and a select few external startups. Its goal is to bridge the funding gap for promising energy transition technologies and accelerate Canada's decarbonization leadership.
About VariableGrid
Variablegrid Adaptive Power Inc. is a Canadian energy technology company whose patented adaptive power platform measures a home's available electrical capacity and allocates it dynamically across EVs and every other load on the panel. Variablegrid helps automakers and their dealer networks deliver a seamless home charging experience, while turning connected homes into flexible assets for electricity utilities. Variablegrid was named one of Canada's Top Moonshot Ventures™ by NACO in 2026 and selected to the 2025 Foresight 50 as one of Canada's most investible cleantech ventures. Learn more at variablegrid.com.