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Who are the primary investors in factually.co?
Executive Summary
Factually.co (operating as Factually Health) is reported to have been backed primarily by accelerator and incubator programs—not traditional venture funds—with named programs including HITLAB Innovators, L‑SPARK, Centech Accelerator, CELS Valley Ready and Silicon Valley Advantage, and L‑SPARK identified as an institutional investor; a single early ticket of $15.2K in 2020 is recorded but the overall funding picture is incomplete [1] [2]. At the same time, public databases and company announcements create material ambiguity because multiple distinct companies with similar names (Factual, The Factual) have very different investor lists, so any firm-level claim must be matched to the correct legal entity before relying on the investor roster [3] [4].
1. Behind the headline: who the profiles say put money in Factually Health — and what they actually show
Public company profiles converge on the claim that Factually Health’s early capitalization came through accelerators and incubators rather than large venture rounds, naming HITLAB Innovators, L‑SPARK, Centech, CELS Valley Ready and Silicon Valley Advantage among the backers, and reporting a $15.2K early investment in 2020; Silicon Valley Advantage is described as holding a minority stake [1]. Another profile lists L‑SPARK as the single institutional investor and reiterates the company’s founding team and Montreal headquarters, but it does not disclose further rounds, cap tables, or investor percentages [2]. This clustering of accelerator names points to non‑traditional seed pathways—program equity, grants or convertible notes—rather than standard VC-led priced rounds, but the profiles stop short of granular, legally verifiable disclosures such as signed term sheets or equity percentages [1] [2].
2. Why similarly named companies produce conflicting investor lists — separate firms, separate backers
Confusion in open profiles arises because “Factually” and “Factual” are different entities with distinct investor histories, and database summaries sometimes conflate them. One dataset attributes a $105M total raise and institutional investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, a16z, Upfront Ventures and Index Ventures to a company called Factual, with large Series rounds through 2018—clearly not the same profile as Factually Health [3] [5]. Separately, a news aggregation business called The Factual is reported to have had investors like Bantam Group and Defy and was later acquired by Yahoo in 2022, again a different corporate path [4]. These distinctions are crucial: relying on an investor list pulled from an ambiguous query risks attributing funding and governance to the wrong company, so the evidence must be tied to the specific legal entity [5] [4].
3. What is verifiable today — facts, gaps, and the limits of public profiles
The verifiable facts across the available profiles are narrow: Factually Health exists, was founded in 2018 by Lina Forcier, Lucas Nogueira and Genevieve Poliquin, operates an AI health‑credibility product, and lists specific accelerators and L‑SPARK as named supporters; there is also a documented CloudMD/iMD Health partnership for COVID‑19 myth‑busting, which signals commercial activity but not equity details [2] [6]. The gaps are substantial: no comprehensive cap table, no amounts beyond the single $15.2K entry, and no dated, signed financing rounds reported in these profiles. That absence is consistent with companies that grew through accelerator equity, small grants, or undisclosed seed tickets rather than priced VC rounds—but it also means investor influence, ownership percentages, and governance rights cannot be ascertained from these sources alone [1] [2].
4. How to resolve the uncertainty: targeted checks that produce definitive answers
To establish a definitive investor list and stakes, consult primary legal and regulatory records: corporate filings with the relevant provincial or national registries, accelerator program investment agreements, press releases from named backers, and audited cap tables or term sheets if available; databases like PitchBook or Tracxn can help but must be matched to the exact legal entity to avoid conflation with similarly named firms [1] [2] [6]. Where public records are silent, request a confirmation from Factually Health’s corporate communications or counsel and check any acquisition or partnership announcements—such as the CloudMD tie‑up—for clues of strategic investors. Until those primary-source documents are produced, the best-supported claim is that Factually Health’s early investors were primarily accelerators and L‑SPARK, with no evidence of major VC rounds [1] [2] [6].