Our Focus


Refraction manages an investment footprint that covers the energy industry and the sub-sectors that feed into it. We are a Canadian family office which invests in early high stage return opportunities in North America and select Emerging Markets (CIS, Africa). We look at each individual company from the engineering through to the financial analysis and work on a ""basin by basin” approach until we understand the facets which make up a country’s dynamic economy. We look at every public company as well as every private who will talk to us. We are a global insight provider and our insight & relationships allow us to gain a competitive advantage and access deal flow.

We invest in private companies with proven technology and / or product looking to build commercial grade production facilities or to expand their client base and / or diversify into other geographic markets. Through our unique industry knowledge and relationships with other family offices across North America, we can introduce our portfolio companies to leading players in their respective industries.

We invest in all parts of the capital structure, including debt, equity, options, derivatives and actively hedge our systemic risks. All investments must be able to be marked (grey or lit exchanges), unless requested by our Limited Partners or the Engagement Agreement.

Our investment criteria are as follows:

Series B or C investment rounds

Investing in common equity, preferred equity, or convertible debentures

Investment size US$1-5 million

We act both as a sole investor and co-investor with other family offices and private equity funds

We are focused on understanding opportunities in the fields of:



Research & Development

  • Artificial Intelligence (Active and semi-active learning suite development)
  • Applied Sciences (Aerospace & Defense systems)
  • Electrical Hardware (Business solutions & GPU development)
  • Oil and gas technology aimed at improving industry efficiency
  • Smart Grid technology (software and hardware power management)

Asset Exploration, Development & Exploitation

  • Upstream Onshore (conventional / unconventional) & Offshore (except Ultradeep)
  • Midstream (Pipelines, Trading, Distribution, Transmission)
  • Downstream (Chemicals / Plastics / Refineries / Distribution)
  • Renewable energy (Solar power, Wind Power)
  • Services (Pumping, Fracking, Drilling, Logistics, Camp/Catering, Kit)
  • Engineering (Fabrication, Tools, Consulting, Procurement, Civil & Systems Engineering)

Support Industries

  • Commercial logistics (Rail, Air, Freight)
  • Government consulting / Civil Consulting Engineering
  • Aerospace and defense (Intelligence & Soft Services, Autonomous Systems/UAV's, Sattelite Engineering, Orbital Services, Systems Engineering)
  • Agriculture and food processing technology (biochemistery, food manufacturing, micro-chemistery)