The Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) announced the winners of its annual Deal of the Year Awards during its 2016 Annual Conference in Toronto last week, and one Montreal firm was honoured.

Montreal-based Novacap Technologies III, which recently closed the largest fund in its history at $470 million, won in the private equity category for its sale of Stingray Digital Group Inc. Calgary-based Avrio Capital won in the venture capital category for its sale of Fresh Hemp Foods Ltd.

Congrats to Novacap Technologies for winning the Private Equity Deal of the Year award at this year's #CVCA2016 https://t.co/xhee6DMW6r

— McMillan LLP (@mcmillanllp) May 30, 2016

2016 VC Deal of the Year Award Winner: Novacap Technologies III, L.P. won in the private equity category https://t.co/3ExBUhBiYJ #CVCAAwards

— CVCA (@CVCACanada) May 25, 2016

Both deals were selected for “outstanding cash realization value, and multiple of invested capital returned.”

The CVCA’s Deal of the Year Awards celebrate the achievements of CVCA members who have had outstanding investment successes. The selection process focused on CVCA members with the most significant investment return realized during calendar 2015.

According to PEhub’s Kirk Falconer, Novacap Technologies III, L.P., (“Novacap”) is one of the most prominent buyout firms in Canada.

“The partnership invested $9.9 million into Stingray Digital and successfully IPO’d the business on June 3, 2015, divesting 80 per cent of its interest as part of the transaction,” wrote Falconer.

Stingray is a leading provider of cutting-edge applications delivering high quality music and video content on multiple platforms including Digital TV, IPTV Internet, Mobile and Game Consoles.

Novacap tends to target acquisitions of companies with annual revenue of between $30 and $300 million. Still, managing partner Jacques Foisy implicated that the heads of these companies weren’t much different than a startup founder, once upon time.

“For over three decades, Novacap has focused on building companies at home and abroad, and helping them become market leaders,” he said. “Many of these have been small, nimble and highly entrepreneurial Canadian businesses that have successfully grown south.”

The firm has been quite active over the past few years, closing Novacap TMT IV, a technology-focused fund, in 2014. Together with the new fund, it has raised $845 million in the past two years, bringing total assets under management to $1.6 billion.