Ryan Beedie, president of Beedie Capital, at the company's office in Vancouver.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Globe and Mail
Vancouver billionaire Ryan Beedie has bought a half-stake in one of Canada’s most consistently successful technology financiers, Vistara Capital Partners Ltd., managed by his friend and former personal fund manager Randy Garg.
Mr. Beedie will also anchor a new Vistara fund set to launch this fall. His Beedie Capital unit has committed to bankroll one-quarter of the fund’s capital, or up to US$125-million of its US$500-million target size. Vistara’s last fund, its fifth, raised US$321-million in 2025.
That fund commitment would represent the second largest investment by Mr. Beedie outside his core real estate business: He invested more than $190-million for a 29-per-cent stake (now worth $2.2-billion) in publicly traded Artemis Gold Inc. Mr. Beedie’s non-real estate investments are valued at about $4-billion. He’s also the largest industrial real estate developer in Greater Vancouver and a big player in the residential condominium market.
Vancouver-based Vistara follows several other Canadian private capital managers who have recently opened their general partnerships to outside investors, including Georgian, Power Corp. of Canada affiliate Sagard, TorQuest Partners and One9. Mr. Garg said in an interview Vistara’s selling partners will invest their undisclosed proceeds in the new fund. By buying into the partnership, Beedie Capital will split Vistara’s 20-per-cent share of gains from investments in the new fund, plus its annual management fee.
Vistara, which thrives on underserved software financing niche, raises $265-million fund
Beedie Capital has taken stakes recently in two other private capital managers, including Toronto private equity firm Boardwalk Capital, and is open to more such deals, Mr. Beedie said. He and Beedie Capital head David Bell have also discussed launching a fund to manage third-party capital. “We aren’t ready quite yet,” Mr. Beedie said. “To have a half-interest in Vistara satisfies a bit of that itch. He’s done well, and we’ve done well with Randy. We have a lot of confidence in him.”
Mr. Garg and Mr. Beedie refer to the deal as “A Sort of Homecoming,” a nod to their favorite band U2. (A Sort of Homecoming is the opening track of the band’s The Unforgettable Fire album). The pair became friends in 1991 at University of British Columbia, while pursuing their master’s in business administration. Mr. Garg went into venture capital and Mr. Beedie worked for the real estate business started by his late father, Keith Beedie.
Randy Garg, a partner at Vistara, in Vancouver, in August, 2025.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
By 2010, Mr. Garg wanted to go after a gap in the technology financing market between bank debt and venture capital by extending credit to private software companies and obtaining additional equity sweeteners such as warrants to buy stock at future dates, or convertible debt. At the same time Mr. Beedie was considering diversifying his portfolio.
They partnered to found Beedie Capital, with Mr. Garg managing his friend’s non-real estate holdings and specializing in the hybrid debt-equity tech deals he wanted to make.
Mr. Garg left in 2015, founding Vistara to pursue the same investment strategy, which he described as “covering the downside, getting paid to wait, but playing for the upside.”
Vancouver billionaire Ryan Beedie is good at almost everything
Beedie Capital anchored each of Vistara’s five funds, committing $140-million of the nearly $1-billion raised to date. It also co-invested alongside Vistara as Beedie Capital became a multi-strategy alternative investment platform that backed private capital funds, technology companies, mining companies and buyouts.
Vistara’s funds have been consistent performers, delivering overall average net annual returns of 14 per cent. Its first three funds fully returned their investors’ capital, making it stand out in a prolonged down-market for tech financiers. Vistara has never lost money on a deal; three of its funds ranked in the top 10 globally among sub-US$500-million private credit funds last year, according to PitchBook, a capital markets intelligence site.
The new fund, called Vistara Growth Structured Opportunities Fund is a slight departure for the money manager. It will still aim to deploy roughly US$20-million to US$30-million apiece in business-to-business-focused software companies generating US$10-million-plus in annual revenue, providing its signature hybrid debt-equity financing.
Unlike Vistara’s past closed-end, time-limited funds, the new one be a permanent and open-ended. That means investors can buy in or redeem their stakes on an ongoing basis, while Vistara gets more flexibility in how long it holds investments.
“Raising a new fund every two years is pretty taxing,” Mr. Garg said. He said Vistara’s loyal investors “love our funds, but don’t like keeping track of capital calls, distributions, all the back and forth. Many of them just want a set-it-and-forget-it-type of investing.”
To avoid a run of redemptions that have plagued other private credit funds, investors who cash out will have their stakes frozen and get paid as Vistara exits the underlying positions. “It’s not an immediate sell button and is a much cleaner way” to exit, Mr. Garg said.
He’s also hoping the larger fund size attracts institutional investors; most Vistara capital raised to date has come from family offices, foundations and ultrawealthy individuals, mostly in B.C. Mr. Garg also hopes to focus more on Canadian deals; it now does about 80 per cent of transactions in the U.S.
Despite recent tumult in the tech sector, Mr. Beedie said “this is a pretty opportune time to be deploying capital.”
“Valuations have reset. I think people are much more focused on profitability and smart capital allocation, and the industry has become better for the credit or downside protected investment.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the name of the Vistara Growth Structured Opportunities Fund.