Avatar Leadership Fund leads Mbrace Energy’s $1M Pre-Seed Round to increase production while decreasing emissions
Toronto, ON and Calgary, AB — September 1st, 2026: Avatar Leadership Fund (“Avatar”) is proud to announce its fourth investment and role as lead investor in Mbrace Energy’s (“Mbrace”) $1M pre-seed round, a Canadian energy startup that has developed a proprietary AI/ML-enabled SaaS platform and portable, self-contained multiphase systems (the Mbrace Platform) to unload liquids, restore production and eliminate environmental waste; Mbrace empowers operators to increase production, while decreasing emissions. Avatar is joined by NGIF and the Founding team.
Proceeds from the pre-seed round will be used to execute additional demonstrations with units of various sizes and build out its fleet of multiphase systems.
Mbrace was spun out of the 2024 Avatar Studio, co-crafting its solution with Canada’s largest gas producer and working relentlessly to de-risk its platform. Mbrace was co-founded by Joshua Anhalt, a repeat founder, having built, scaled and sold GreenPath Energy to Montrose Environmental, and Steven Tulissi, a 22+ year digital platform, data system and automation expert who built Mbrace’s intelligent control system, remote-monitoring architecture and SaaS platform.
For Western Canadian natural-gas producers, whose production is being choked off by pressure gaps (liquid loading, flowline choke-outs, casing-gas backpressure) while concurrently having to manage increasingly stringent methane-venting regulations, the Mbrace Platform keeps wells producing with zero venting and no shut-ins. Unlike manual blowdowns, plunger lift or do-it-yourself compression, Mbrace also delivers regulatory-ready emissions documentation and a data advantage that compounds with every deployment.
Mbrace has received overwhelming interest from Western Canadian gas producers and will look to raise a subsequent funding round in late 2027 to further grow its fleet to meet demand.
“We are thrilled to strengthen and grow our partnership with Avatar,” said Joshua Anhalt, CEO and Co-founder of Mbrace. “Having formed Mbrace within Avatar’s Studio, we have benefited from Avatar’s hands-on leadership, expertise and strategic support as we bring our innovative platform to market. We are proud to have co-crafted our solution with industry and look forward to executing on our near-term goals and growing our fleet to meet ever increasing demand. We look forward to building on Avatar’s catalytic support!”.
“Mbrace is an inspiring example of the innovation that can be unlocked by working within industry to create solutions for real problems and to deploy technology at record speed” 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 where production enhancement and emissions reduction meet, providing Mbrace with the formation risk capital to execute on their business strategy and growth potential.”
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.
For more information about Avatar’s unique model, please visit www.avatarinnovations.energy.
About Mbrace Energy
Mbrace Energy is a Canadian energy startup that has commercialized multiphase pressure management for Western Canada’s wells – restoring production lost to liquid loading, line-pressure choke-outs and casing-gas backpressures, with zero venting, delivered as a managed service.
For more information about Mbrace’s innovative solutions, please visit www.mbrace.energy