When Christian Weedbrook founded Xanadu Quantum Technologies Ltd. XNDU-T a decade ago, he was determined to raise as much of his financing in Canada as possible. Some investors told him he was wasting his time. “I thought, ‘Maybe it’s true, but why don’t we see how close we can get to that ideal situation,’” he said in an interview last week. Canada’s startup financiers are happy the Australian expatriate stuck to his plan. Xanadu stock has had a strong run since it went public in late March by combining with a Nasdaq-listed special-purpose acquisition company. It closed up 24 per cent on Friday, giving the quantum computer developer a market capitalization of US$10.8-billion. Xanadu is now Canada’s fifth most valuable public tech company. While Xanadu’s early investors are subject to a lock-up and can’t sell until late September, some of their paper returns at the moment beggar belief. Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System led Xanadu’s first two financings through its venture capital arm, investing less than US$30-million. That stake is now worth US$1.45-billion. To put that in perspective, the pension giant’s top public stock holding on Dec. 31 was an US$862-milllion position in Nvidia Corp. OMERS’s Xanadu stake is worth more than its combined holdings in Canada’s Big Five banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Mastercard Inc. on Dec. 31. The magnitude of its Xanadu gain “is wacky,” OMERS chief executive officer Blake Hutcheson said in an interview. However, he added, “I’m keeping perspective. It’s on paper and it’s locked up, so I don’t want to get overly zealous. But it’s proof” of OMERS’s thesis in the early 2010s that it could generate 15-per-cent returns over 10 to 20 years from venture capital. Other early Xanadu backers are sitting on massive unrealized gains. Montreal-based Real Ventures’ 2017 fund, which raised