Challenge

Canada’s OMERS pension fund is well known as a long-term investor in infrastructure in Europe, but its venture capital arm has low visibility. Working with OMERS Ventures investors and comms team, we launched the VC arm in Europe with its first €300m fund. We were then asked to continue building brand visibility for the VC fund and its European investors, as well as portfolio companies in Europe, Canada and the US.

Action

To ensure the OMERS story wasn’t just ‘another fund launch’, we positioned OMERS as a long-term partner to giant corporations with an extensive network of expertise across the globe. We leveraged the team’s deep knowledge as investors and entrepreneurs, and its commitment to improving the lives in retirement of 500,000 Canadian public service workers on behalf of whom OMERS invests.

Result

By leveraging the fund’s difference – especially the long-term nature of its commitment to venture – in a unique and innovative way. We increased brand awareness and ensured that the key messages were communicated across leading European business, tech and venture outlets. The fund announcement was extensively covered across global business media such as Bloomberg, Reuters, TechCrunch and Les Echos.

Subsequently we have built the profiles of the key European investors who have all now been quoted regularly in Bloomberg, The Times, The Telegraph and CityAM, resulting in invitations to speak at major tech events and conferences.