When Brad Parry walked onstage at the mesh conference on April 30, he had some fresh news to share.
The day before, Calgary City Council had voted 12-1 to top-up the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund (OCIF) with a new $60 million commitment.
“I think we need to be intentional,” said Parry, president and CEO of Calgary Economic Development (CED) and CEO of the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund (OCIF). “And that’s the difference between what we’re trying to put together here.”
OCIF is a publicly funded investment tool designed to grow Calgary’s innovation economy. It issues milestone-based grants — not equity — to support job creation, business growth, and sector development. The new funding will extend that work and target key areas where the ecosystem still needs to grow.
The funding comes on the heels of OCIF’s original $100 million, launched in 2018 to kickstart Calgary’s innovation economy at a time the city badly needed a new playbook. That money is now nearly fully committed, and the next $60 million signals a vote of confidence in the model and in the momentum that’s been building behind it.
“We had more than 180 letters of support from the community,” said Parry. “So when you think about that, it just talks about the impact the funds had.”
A shift in focus: From office space to ecosystem
By the time Parry took over as CEO in 2021, the fund’s original playbook was ready for an update. OCIF had been designed to create jobs and fill empty office space after the energy downturn — a necessary fix at the time, but not a long-term strategy.
“We needed to change our thesis,” said Parry. “The team got 286 applications in the first three months. (OCIF) never had a chance to take a step back and actually define what the fund should be and what it was.”
After Parry took over, the team introduced a sharper strategy focused on three principles: finding, fueling, and fostering.
In practice, that meant sourcing investments that align with Calgary’s innovation goals, using public dollars to unlock additional private capital, and continuing to support recipients after the cheque is written.
“OCIF is meant to do something, combust something bigger and better, and then get the hell out of the way,” he said.
What Calgary needed was that “something bigger”: a way to actually build and support the ecosystem itself.
To date, $95 million of the original $100 million has been committed, supporting the scale-up of nearly 1,000 companies, and training or job creation for around 3,000 people. OCIF has delivered an 11x return on its investment.
But, as Parry made clear, this fund isn’t structured like a venture capital play.
“Our metrics are different,” he said. “We’re not looking for a dollar-for-dollar return back in the fund.”
Instead of chasing profit, OCIF tracks the ripple effects, like new jobs, new companies, more capital flowing in, and a broader mix of industries taking root in Calgary. It’s also milestone-based.
“We don’t take equity. We don’t take any points,” said Parry. “You have to deliver certain mandates or you have to hit your metrics, and we write those cheques.”
What the next fund will do
OCIF’s second fund won’t simply rinse and repeat. It will double down on the sector-focused “nodes” strategy being developed by CED — a model Parry likens to a neural network.
“The vision for the innovation strategy was literally a neural network,” said Parry. “How do you have these nodes that are very specific, very much centred around the sector, but then make sure we’re connecting them around the other sectors to share their learnings and share those opportunities, but give them a chance to succeed.”
The idea is to connect innovation within and across key sectors: life sciences, aerospace, energy transition, agtech, transport and logistics.
“We wanted to create an environment where innovation can happen,” Parry said. “The City shouldn’t be the innovator. A city should create the environment where innovation can flourish and innovators can flourish.”
That means intentionally supporting each node with infrastructure, programming, and investment attraction. That includes better capital pathways for scaleups.
“We’ve done a great job in trying to set the framework for startup, but scale — what are those markers that we need to think about today that will help companies scale in the future?”
Changing the narrative
As the session wrapped, Parry turned his attention to what might be OCIF’s biggest hurdle going forward — and it’s not capital, policy, or talent.
“The biggest challenge we have is to believe in ourselves,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of people in the city who have no idea of what’s happening.”
Parry argued that disconnect holds Calgary back more than it should. Despite the momentum, there’s still a perception gap — both inside the city and outside of it. Bridging that gap means telling Calgary’s story better (and more consistently).
“We need to tell those stories,” he said. “The brand promise of the city is a city of unexpected possibilities.”
For Parry, OCIF’s next phase isn’t only about capital strategy or sector-based innovation nodes. It’s about reinforcing the belief that Calgary is not just catching up, but leading.
“We look 30 to 40 years out by sector,” he said. “We bring back that information, we get rid of the smoke, and look for the signals.”
And those signals, in his view, are pointing in one direction.
“I see Calgary as the innovation capital of Canada in less than 10 years,” he said.
