Thoughts on giving back

I was at The Upside Foundation of Canada 's Give a F*ck Day recently where ten VCs pitched their funds.

It was great to see new funds and new faces. Most of us in tech are future-focused but hearing those pitches made me do the opposite. I looked backwards at where we came from.

Inovia Capital pitched first. We all know iNovia now but I remember when it was MSBi. That’s “McGill, Sherbrooke and Bishop's Innovation” if you’re wondering. I remember meeting Chris Arsenault at his office on McGill College and, 16 years later, he’s still building and supporting Canadian tech.

Next up were pitches from Amplify Capital and Graphite Ventures . Amplify used be called Catalyst and Graphite was IAF. Both were created within MaRS Discovery District . IAF was one of the most active seed funders in Canada after its founding in 2008. We needed seed funders at that moment, and we still do.

I can’t talk about IAF without talking about the enormous contributions of Barry Gekiere. He led the fund for ten years until he passed away in 2020. I was lucky to have collaborated with Barry many times over the years.

Following the IAF thread further back leads to Ventures West, the OG VC of Canadian tech. Barry was Managing Partner.

I first met VW on the slopes of Whistler. I was just learning to snowboard and Ventures West didn’t care. At the end of the day one of the partners looked at me and said “you’re a pretty good snowboarder.” Translation: I can’t believe you survived.

Two ex-Ventures West people, Robin Axon (partner) and Duncan Hill (EIR) joined forces to start Mantella Venture Partners . They are still today Canada’s best kept early stage secret. Back in ‘08-09 I spent a lot of time with Robin and Duncan brainstorming “hands on capital” which was a fairly new concept at the time.

I was also talking to Reza Satchu who was thinking along the same lines before creating Next36, now NEXT Canada , in 2010. I remember the first cohort of Next36 and meeting a company called Tradyo, co-founded by Gideon Hayden who went on to sell that company and start Leaders Fund .

My own hands-on capital journey led me to co-found Year One Labs back in 2010 with Ben Yoskovitz , Ian Rae and Alistair Croll . There are lots of threads to follow from Y1L but here are a few of them.

Ben went to GoInstant which was acquired, then Varage Sale, then became the Founding Partner of Highline Beta with Marcus Daniels . They are pioneering the hands-on corporate venture studio. Ian built CloudOps which recently exited to Aptum (he’s now the CEO). Alistair has helped build some of the most successful tech conferences in the world including Startupfest (with Philippe Telio ) and FWD50 . Read Alistair's latest book, Just Evil Enough.

There was a Year One Labs connection at the Upside event.

Neil Grunberg from Storytime Capital pitched. Neil, Adrian Schauer and Brady Murphy co-founded AlayaCare . It's great to see Neil with a new seed fund investing in the next generation of founders. That's the way it works.

I met Adrian and Brady when they were building Vortext Connect/Mobile which they sold, and was glad to have them as advisors/LPs in Year One Labs.

BDC was at the event and it’s hard to overestimate the impact of BDC as both an LP, direct investor and lender. Both Framework Venture Partners and StandUp Ventures pitched and both are strongly backed by BDC.

My own interaction with BDC started when I met Dominique Bélanger in 2012. He built the Strategic Initiatives team that ended up having a huge impact on early stage investing in Canada. Dom is a true OG who has been quietly supporting and funding Canadian tech for decades.

Charles Morand was also on that team and he’s now at CDPQ. I also met Nicole LeBlanc, CPA on that same team. She joined from New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and was legendary in her support of seed startups. She eventually joined Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google) and is now a partner at Woven by Toyota , a Tokyo-based VC.

While we're all building our own thing and optimizing for our own success I'm increasingly grateful that along the way, so many people found the time and energy to give back.

The more I look the more I see their contributions. Thousands of people, decades of effort. I didn't try to mention everyone but you can. Share your stories below.