Avatar Leadership Fund leads Splice N Connect’s $1.75m pre-seed round to catalyze grid reliability and support the unprecedented surge in power demand

Toronto, ON and Calgary, AB, April 7th, 2026: Avatar Leadership Fund (“Avatar Fund”) is proud to announce its second investment and role as lead investor in a $1.75m pre-seed funding round for Splice N Connect, an innovative Calgary-based startup solving a foundational problem: lack of visibility of connection points of under and above ground cables, the most vulnerable part of North America’s aging grid infrastructure, responsible for over 55% of failures. This problem must be solved in order to reliably meet the unprecedented surge in power demand due to widespread electrification and net new power demand (e.g. from AI & datacenters).

Splice N Connect raised its target of $1.75m, after announcing a first-close of $1.2m in October 2025. Avatar is joined by Phoenix Fire: Archangel Network of Funds, Valhalla Private Capital, StartupTNT and a number of Family Offices & Angel investors.

Splice N Connect was spun out of the 2023 Avatar Studio, and they have been working relentlessly to de-risk their technology while building a robust sales pipeline.  Splice N Connect is well on their way to commercializing their proprietary technology, a non-invasive, smart sensing device and proprietary software platform to directly monitor cable connections. Splice N Connect’s solution is engineered to optimize power systems by unlocking continuous insights, predicting failures, enhancing operations, and ensuring system reliability all the while reducing costs. Splice N Connect’s technology will not only service Utilities, but will deliver value to renewable power producers, downhole mines and large industrial power users.

Splice N Connect’s pre-seed round comes on the back of recent ecosystem success, having won the 2024 Decentralized Energy Canada’s pitch competition and is an Alumni of the 2025 CDL-Rockies’ program, VentureLabs’, Elevate Women+, and Global Energy Mentors.

 “We are thrilled to strengthen and grow our partnership with Avatar,” said Taban Sabih, CEO and Founder of Splice N Connect. “Having formed Splice N Connect within Avatar’s Studio, we have benefited from Avatar’s hands-on leadership, expertise and strategic support as we bring our innovative technology to market. We are proud to have raised capital in today’s market, defined by historically low pre-seed activity in clean-tech. We look forward to building on Avatar’s catalytic support!”. 

“Splice N Connect is an inspiring example of the innovation that can be unlocked by working within industry to create solutions for real problems” said Bryan Trudel, Partner of Avatar’s Fund and CFO and Co-Founder of Avatar Innovations.  “We are inspired by the team’s passion and dedication, and thrilled to lead this transaction and fill a critical gap in the grid-tech ecosystem by providing Splice N Connect with necessary formation risk capital to pursue their business strategy and growth.”

Splice N Connect will use the funds from this round to complete the development, testing and piloting of its proprietary solution. We are confident in Splice N Connect ‘s ability to execute on its milestones and drive meaningful grid optimization and reliability improvements.

For more information about Splice N Connect’s innovation solutions, please visit www.splicenconnect.com.

About the Avatar Leadership Fund

Anchored by a $750k lead investment from Cenovus Energy Inc. and catalyzed by several prominent family offices and high net-worth individuals from Calgary and Toronto, the Fund represents a nation-building investment solving for the lack of risk capital available for early-stage energy technologies and supercharging the country's leadership in the decarbonization of energy and industry. The Fund ($2.5MM) will provide early-stage risk capital to the most promising energy transition technologies and companies that have graduated from the Avatar Studio to Avatar Ventures, and a select few external start-ups.

With capital in hand, Avatar's portfolio of breakthrough emissions reduction technologies built inside heavy industry will now be able to scale and generate superior returns through its proven and transformational innovation model. By working with the customer from inception, partnering with academia in new ways and professionalizing the start-up development process, Avatar now stands as the new model for global industrial decarbonization in the largest economic opportunity of this generation.

Avatar’s Fund is led by Bryan Trudel, a capital markets veteran and Co-Founder of Avatar Innovations, and David Pratt, an M&A practitioner with experiencing growing and selling a clean-tech company.

About Avatar Innovations

Avatar is Canada’s first corporate venture studio focused on decarbonization. Avatar fills a critical gap in the energy innovation ecosystem by working with large industrial firms to champion solutions from within by engaging their staff. It creates a sandbox for energy companies and academia to collaborate and unlock new business opportunities.

For more information about Avatar’s unique model, please visit www.avatarinnovations.energy.

Toronto, ON and Calgary, AB, April 7th, 2026: Avatar Leadership Fund (“Avatar Fund”) is proud to announce its second investment and role as lead investor in a $1.75m pre-seed funding round for Splice N Connect, an innovative Calgary-based startup solving a foundational problem: lack of visibility of connection points of under and above ground cables, the most vulnerable part of North America’s aging grid infrastructure, responsible for over 55% of failures. This problem must be solved in order to reliably meet the unprecedented surge in power demand due to widespread electrification and net new power demand (e.g. from AI & datacenters).

Splice N Connect raised its target of $1.75m, after announcing a first-close of $1.2m in October 2025. Avatar is joined by Phoenix Fire: Archangel Network of Funds, Valhalla Private Capital, StartupTNT and a number of Family Offices & Angel investors.

Splice N Connect was spun out of the 2023 Avatar Studio, and they have been working relentlessly to de-risk their technology while building a robust sales pipeline.  Splice N Connect is well on their way to commercializing their proprietary technology, a non-invasive, smart sensing device and proprietary software platform to directly monitor cable connections. Splice N Connect’s solution is engineered to optimize power systems by unlocking continuous insights, predicting failures, enhancing operations, and ensuring system reliability all the while reducing costs. Splice N Connect’s technology will not only service Utilities, but will deliver value torenewable power producers, downhole mines and large industrial power users. 

Splice N Connect’s pre-seed round comes on the back of recent ecosystem success, having wonthe 2024 Decentralized Energy Canada’s pitch competition and is an Alumni of the 2025 CDL-Rockies’ program, VentureLabs’, Elevate Women+, and Global Energy Mentors. 

“We are thrilled to strengthen and grow our partnership with Avatar,” said Taban Sabih, CEO and Founder of Splice N Connect. “Having formed Splice N Connect within Avatar’s Studio, we have benefited from Avatar’s hands-on leadership, expertise and strategic support as we bring our innovative technology to market. We are proud to have raised capital in today’s market, defined by historically low pre-seed activity in clean-tech. We look forward to building on Avatar’s catalytic support!”.   

“Splice N Connect is an inspiring example of the innovation that can be unlocked by working within industry to create solutions for real problems” said Bryan Trudel, Partner of Avatar’sFund and CFO and Co-Founder of Avatar Innovations. “We are inspired by the team’s passion and dedication, and thrilled to lead this transaction and fill a critical gap in the grid-techecosystem by providing Splice N Connect with necessary formation risk capital to pursue their business strategy and growth.”

Splice N Connect will use the funds from this round to complete the development, testing and piloting of its proprietary solution. We are confident in Splice N Connect ‘s ability to execute on its milestones and drive meaningful grid optimization and reliability improvements.

For more information about Splice N Connect’s innovation solutions, please visit www.splicenconnect.com.

About the Avatar Leadership Fund

Anchored by a $750k lead investment from Cenovus Energy Inc. and catalyzed by several prominent family offices and high net-worth individuals from Calgary and Toronto, the Fundrepresents a nation-building investment solving for the lack of risk capital available for early-stage energy technologies and supercharging the country's leadership in the decarbonization of energy and industry. The Fund ($2.5MM) will provide early-stage risk capital to the most promising energy transition technologies and companies that have graduated from the Avatar Studio to Avatar Ventures, and a select few external start-ups.

With capital in hand, Avatar's portfolio of breakthrough emissions reduction technologies built inside heavy industry will now be able to scale and generate superior returns through its proven and transformational innovation model. By working with the customer from inception, partnering with academia in new ways and professionalizing the start-up development process, Avatar now stands as the new model for global industrial decarbonization in the largest economic opportunity of this generation.

Avatar’s Fund is led by Bryan Trudel, a capital markets veteran and Co-Founder of Avatar Innovations, and David Pratt, an M&A practitioner with experiencing growing and selling a clean-tech company.

About Avatar Innovations

Avatar is Canada’s first corporate venture studio focused on decarbonization. Avatar fills a critical gap in the energy innovation ecosystem by working with large industrial firms to champion solutions from within by engaging their staff. It creates a sandbox for energy companies and academia to collaborate and unlock new business opportunities. 

For more information about Avatar’s unique model, please visit www.avatarinnovations.energy.