Its investment in the research technology firm was actually part of a bigger $10.5m secondary offering last month, that came from Vision Critical executive chairman Angus Reid (pictured) selling a chunk of his shares in the business.

As explained in a blog post published by Mark McQueen, president and CEO of Wellington Financial – a long-term investor in Vision Critical – a third of Reid’s shares were snapped up by Difference Capital. Only one other investor was named: Phil Deck, former chairman and CEO of software vendor MKS. The rest, McQueen said, “included firms that you’d expect to be first in line for any IPO roadshow”.

According to McQueen, Vision Critical’s secondary offering “clears the deck for [a] potential IPO”. It was, he said, “a natural precursor to anything the board may want to do later this year. For Dr. Reid, who is and remains a very large shareholder, it made eminent sense to do his family estate planning now, rather than via any eventual IPO”.

Vision Critical’s last big round of fundraising was the $20m investment by Canadian pension funds giant OMERS in August 2012. Three smaller investments, earlier in the company’s life, brought in a combined $8m.