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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Articles by Alex
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Brain Drain: A Non-Issue or Misunderstood Advantage
Brain Drain: A Non-Issue or Misunderstood Advantage
Brain Drain: A Closer Look Worrying is a common human trait that I am trying to help my kids deal with. I have…
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Quick Take: The Reverse Brain DrainJul 16, 2021
Quick Take: The Reverse Brain Drain
What is the news? CBRE, a large commercial real estate broker, released a report on tech talent by city in North…
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3 Comments -
How your startup can handle the current market conditions and emerge stronger than beforeMar 16, 2020
How your startup can handle the current market conditions and emerge stronger than before
This week I sent a memo to the leaders of our investment portfolio companies at N49P, with advice on how to handle this…
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Activity
24K followers
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Alex Norman shared thisGreat team of entrepreneurs. Check out th opportunity.
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Alex Norman posted thisA bit late on sharing my thoughts on Voiceflow's V4 launch: Enterprise AI agents only work if the infrastructure does. The release introduces a new Context Engine that reduces token costs while improving accuracy, alongside better routing and lower latency. Taken together, these are the kinds of improvements that move AI agents from demos to real enterprise deployment. Voiceflow is building infrastructure for the AI agent economy. As adoption grows, the platforms that make agents faster, cheaper, and more reliable will become increasingly important. We believe Voiceflow is building in exactly that layer. Proud to have backed the team early.
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Alex Norman shared thisBuilding the infrastructure for a new generation of community organizers Community organizing is about to become a real career category. After years of isolation, people want to be back in rooms together. And the people making that happen are community organizers. Right now, most of them are hobbyists. They run events on nights and weekends. They stitch together Eventbrite, Stripe, spreadsheets, and Instagram. They make a few hundred dollars a month and burn out. Not because demand isn’t there. Because the infrastructure isn’t. The internet unbundled media into creators. Now it’s unbundling community into organizers. But we haven’t built the economic rails to support them. Today’s tools are built for transactions, not careers. So organizers hit a ceiling: → limited monetization → high operational overhead → no path to scale And eventually, they stop. Millions of events. Hundreds of thousands of organizers. A massive shift toward in-person connection. But no platform helping organizers: → build real income → own their audience → scale across formats That is why we invested we backed Jocelyne Murphy and Christopher Oka by funding Wygo. They are the right team to change all of this. Joss didn’t decide to become a community organizer, she’s been one since she was 14. At Waterloo, she and Chris Oka helped scale communities to 3,500+ attendees, 100 hosts, and 200+ events across 30 locations. They’ve lived the fragmentation. They’ve felt the ceiling. And now they’re building Wygo to fix it. Wygo's goal is to turn community organizing into a sustainable career by building: → economic rails → professional networks → discovery We think this category is inevitable. And these are the right founders to build it. We’re thrilled to back Wygo at pre-seed and be joined by Garage Capital, StandUp Ventures Garage Capital, Stand-Up Ventures, and many great angels. If you’re an organizer trying to turn passion into a career check out https://wygo.world/
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Alex Norman reposted thisAlex Norman reposted thisToday, Christopher Oka and I are proud to share that Wygo has raised an oversubscribed $1.56M Pre-Seed Round supported by N49P, StandUp Ventures, Garage Capital, Zero 21 Partners, Backbone Angels, Good Future, and Tobias Lütke. (and we're hiring -- check the comments to apply!! 🎉) Wygo exists to support community builders -- with demand for in-person experiences skyrocketing, we're betting the next wave of entrepreneurs will be the people who build belonging wherever they go. Today, millions of organizers host run clubs, dinner parties, peer groups, and storytelling shows. They hold their communities together by sheer force of will: two people, a spreadsheet, and an Instagram account, with revenue capped out around $30-50K/year. We're building the economic rails, professional networks, and discovery layer that lets them do what they love long-term. This raise means we can grow our team (!! 😁) -- we're now hiring across design, software, and storytelling to accelerate our growth. This milestone would not have been possible without the people who bet on us early: thank you to the entire Socratica team, the Accelerator Centre, Velocity, the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, Jake Rudolph, Alyssa Garaffa, Danny Desatnik, Alex Blumenstein, Maggie Arai, Anson Yu, Matthew Jordan, Ena Manjgo, and our friends and family. If you're building community, we'd love to work with you. 👀 Onward!!! 😎
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Alex Norman shared this8,500 realtors. Dozens of major Ontario brokerages. 70% weekly active usage. Those are the numbers from Mave, a proptech portfolio company building an AI assistant for real estate professionals. In a market where most B2B SaaS tools struggle to break 30% weekly active usage, 70% is remarkable. The Canadian real estate market is at an inflection point. AI is forcing brokerages and realtors to fundamentally reevaluate their approach, and Mave is there to make sure the agents who embrace AI tools aren't replacing human touch, they are amplifying it. Learn more about Mave at https://www.maveai.co/ #PropTech #RealEstate #AI
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Alex Norman shared thisHealthcare data infrastructure just got a massive upgrade. Flexpa, a N49P portfolio company, has launched a Provider Directory API powered by FHIR standards, giving developers instant access to over 8 million US healthcare provider records. Interoperability has been healthcare's Achilles' heel for decades. The combination of patient-authorized data aggregation + nationwide QHIN infrastructure could finally crack the code on seamless health data exchange and open it for use by AI. What's the healthcare data use case you're most excited about? Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eu3ngPwd #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #FHIR #HealthcareInnovationLaunching NPI Enrichment and Provider Directory | FlexpaLaunching NPI Enrichment and Provider Directory | Flexpa
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Alex Norman reposted thisAlex Norman reposted thisWe're trying something new. Baseline has 7 open roles in our Toronto office. Instead of countless virtual screenings, we're opening our doors for candidates to meet us in person. We're inviting anyone who is interested in working with us to come meet the team, see our space, and get a real feel for who we are. Because culture, arguably the most important factor in determining a strong fit, isn't something you can convey on a Zoom call. This idea was inspired by our participation in Startup Open House last year. That's where we discovered the incredibly talented Malavika M.. Now we're looking for 7 more talented people. Details about our open roles on the TechTO job board: https://lnkd.in/e37pZy59 If something piques your interest, come say hi. Tuesday, March 31st from 4 to 7pm 507 King Street East, Toronto, ON
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Alex Norman reposted thisAlex Norman reposted thisWe just shipped what OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have not. They still do not give you portable + parallel + stateful tool calling as a first-class capability. We just shipped it. Meaning your agent can fire multiple tool calls at once, keep state across rounds and branches, and keep looping until COMPLETED, without you duct-taping a workflow engine together in your backend. That is only one of the 6 updates we shipped this week, along with adaptive context management, new memory tiers (Light vs Pro), custom memory rules per assistant in natural language, manual memory search via API, and a full navigation plus docs overhaul. Rob Imbeault Ryushen Tan Raif Barbaros Alex Norman Mike Weider Mike Swift Elyse W. Omar Dhalla Jordan Steiner, CFA Pablo Srugo Andrew W. Qasim L. Seif Otefa Youseph El Khouly Jasmine Qin Satya Nihal Kodukula Kevin WanWe Just Shipped What OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic Have Not. Here Are 6 Updates.We Just Shipped What OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic Have Not. Here Are 6 Updates.
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Alex Norman reposted thisAlex Norman reposted thisWhat are you doing this weekend? You truly need to come to The District! This is the place to be! Alex Norman and I will be there to celebrate on Saturday afternoon!
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Alex Norman liked thisI'd forgotten about this one. One of our more nerve-wracking projects when I was at Steamclock was to migrate a product that was distributed as a ton of slightly-different app builds on the iOS and Android stores, some of which got huge traffic from the App Store, into a new unified app – without ruining ASO. (It worked, but it wasn't clear from the outset that it would!)Alex Norman liked thisWe started one of our longest client relationships by helping them take apart the distribution model that built their business. GuideAlong makes GPS-guided audio tours for road trips, and they had been publishing individual audio tours as separate apps. This worked great when searching for something like “Great Smoky Mountains” in the App Store, but separate apps meant brand fragmentation and technical overhead that got worse with every new tour. We helped GuideAlong rebuild their experience as a single unified app across iOS and Android. The result: 2 million downloads, a 4.9-star rating on the App Store, and an acquisition. The full case study: https://lnkd.in/g7-zc--6
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Alex Norman liked thisAlex Norman liked thisIt’s time to talk about deeply misleading revenue reporting by enterprise AI companies. The reason many AI startups are crushing revenue records is because they are using a metric dishonestly: Contracted ARR The setup: Company signs 3-year enterprise deals. Year 1 is discounted (say $1M), Year 2 steps up ($2M), Year 3 is full price ($3M). They report $3M as “ARR” — even though they’re only collecting $1M right now. The worst part: The customer has an opt-out option at 12 months! It’s not actually a 3 year contract. The customer can simply decide to cancel or negotiate lower pricing. In the chart below, by Q5 the company is trumpeting ~$100M “ARR” to press, while actual cash-generating, in-effect ARR is ~$35M. That’s ~3x inflation. At some point customers are going to start triggering their opt-out clauses or aggressively negotiating down Year 3 pricing. And a wave of highly valued enterprise AI companies may collapse under the weight of reset expectations.
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Alex Norman liked thisAlex Norman liked this“The Flexpa experience was my big ah-ha. Decentralization isn’t inherently good or bad - it’s more of the current, unchangable state of things.” - Andrea Coravos 👌 https://lnkd.in/gKbimYdW
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Alex Norman liked thisAlex Norman liked thisAn early employee joins a promising startup. Works hard, takes below-market salary, vests their equity over four years. The company grows from seed to Series D and hits a $2B valuation. On paper, their shares are worth life-changing money. They can't sell. No IPO in sight. Not because anything went wrong. Not because the company is failing. The regulatory architecture governing private securities resales was built for a different era. One where companies either went public within a few years or stayed small. That world no longer exists. In 2019 I proposed a rulemaking to the SEC for stage-appropriate liquidity, a self-executing resale safe harbor I called a "Qualifying Private Sale." The core problem hasn't changed. If anything, it's gotten worse. The SEC's Spring 2025 Unified Agenda puts Rule 144 reform on the docket for April 2026. The timing is right. The roadmap exists. New piece on what the fix actually looks like:Stage-Appropriate Liquidity: Fixing Section 4(a)(7)Stage-Appropriate Liquidity: Fixing Section 4(a)(7)Erik Syvertsen
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Alex Norman liked this$750 billion in gold is sitting in American homes right now. In drawers, jewelry boxes, often inherited pieces no one wears but no one sells. Unvault is building the consumer platform to track value and sell- whether it’s for financial needs, to invest in something else or to buy another piece of jewelry. Check out the article - Nidhi Singhvi spoke to Bloomberg to share the company’s story. 👇🏻Alex Norman liked thisI sat down with Felix Salmon at Bloomberg to talk about Personal Gold and its significance for US Households. Gold has been quietly accumulating in American homes for generations. Passed down. Held onto. Never questioned. At Unvault, we put a number on it: $750 billion. Here's what it comes down to: Jewelry lives in families in a way other assets don't. You inherit a piece you'd never wear. But you hold onto it anyway because your daughter might want it someday. Because selling feels like letting go of something that belonged to someone you loved. That emotional logic is real. I deeply respect it. But it shouldn't mean staying in the dark about what you own. Knowing the value doesn't mean selling. It means having a choice, maybe for the first time. That's what we built Unvault to do. Full column in the comments.
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Alex Norman liked thisAlex Norman liked thisBig day for us at Mantle - our free #MantleSAFEs launch is live on Product Hunt today. We’ve been on a mission to build the most founder-friendly cap table platform with Mantle Equity. Being able to offer founders a free and easy way to issue SAFEs and collect e-signatures is our latest step in that journey. Help support our launch: https://lnkd.in/eNe_y8pG
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Alex Norman liked thisAlex Norman liked thisEvery leap forward in legal AI has been previewed by AI tools for software engineers, which are similar but a year ahead. I think the next unimaginable leap will be the elimination of Word as the primary way lawyers interact with documents. Many engineers are no longer coding in code editors. Agents have become so good that they’re dropping their editor, delegating to agents, and reviewing their work and providing feedback like a manager. Top engineers at companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are working this way. Lawyers will not see this coming, just as engineers didn’t see it coming.
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Prashant Matta
Panache Ventures • 6K followers
🇨🇦 For the Canadian tech ecosystem to rise above its potential, the pre-seed venture financings will need to more than double to create a meaningful pipeline of growth-stage companies in the future. ➡️ Read the full report below Panache Ventures is excited to release its 2025 Startup Formation Report — a data-driven look at new startup activity across Canada. We are proud to back visionary Canadian founders from day one. 🇨🇦 🚀 🦄
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3 Comments -
Geneviève Tanguay
Panache Ventures • 13K followers
⏩ State of early stage funding in Canada - a helpful lens 💡 At Panache Ventures, we've spent time building a robust dataset looking at YoY and QoQ startup formation in Canada, a demand-side indicator of what to expect in the coming 12-24 months. Latest trends across provinces, the role AI is increasingly playing in startup creation and the make-up of our Canadian founder pool. CC : Prashant Matta, Inshaal Qadir, Domenic Del Vecchio and Alessia Priolo. ➡️ Read the full report below
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Patrick Lor 🚀
Panache Ventures • 22K followers
What's the Role of AI in New Startup Formation? - Nearly 90% of AI startups formed are in the application layer. - There is momentum in AI infrastructure, with ~11% startups focused on pushing forward the fast-evolving AI tech stack. - Little activity at the foundational layer. This presents a potential opportunity as the cost to build and scale reduces over time. More below ⬇️
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Janet Bannister
Staircase Ventures • 16K followers
Love this profile of six great Canadian start-ups from University of Toronto (including Staircase Ventures-backed MedEssist | Transforming Pharmacy through Tech and AI!). There are incredible, globally-relevant companies that were born in Toronto but are scaling internationally.
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2 Comments -
Stabledash
2K followers
Stableminded, a financial podcast covering founders on the frontier. Long form, founder-focused. All about modern money. New episode drops next week. Ep. 45 - Charles Yoo-Naut, Co-Founder & CTO at Rain Ep. 46 - Louis Amira, CEO at Circuit & Chisel building ATXP Ep. 47 - Nikhil Srinivasan, CEO & Co-Founder at Infinite Presented by Altitude Hosted by Drew Rogers EP: 0045-47 SF, USA
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Darshil K.
CREDX • 7K followers
Canada just had one of its most quietly explosive funding weeks — and nobody’s talking about it. So we did. From AI to climate, fintech infra to robotics, Canadian founders didn’t just raise capital… they raised conviction. Investors backed real problems, real markets, and real revenue — not “AI but with vibes.” Here’s what stood out this week (Nov 30–Dec 6): 🇨🇦 Canada funded actual builders — Deeptech with customers — Climate tech with measurable impact — Fintech infra powering real payments — Robotics + automation companies replacing manual processes — Healthcare platforms solving real bottlenecks No hype. No wishful thinking. Just execution over ego. The full breakdown includes: 📌 Every funded startup 📌 Who backed them 📌 How much they raised 📌 One-line explanation of what they’re building 📌 Market insights investors won’t say out loud 📌 The trendlines shaping Canada’s 2025–26 VC landscape If you're a founder, investor, or operator… this week's Canada edition is a must-read. 👉 Full Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ebYDBuSh CREDX Letters — raw. real. founder & investor first.
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Melaniia Volkodav
Panache Ventures • 8K followers
💡 The Panache Ventures team just released our Canada Reboots report, diving into how startup formation is evolving across the country. H1 2025 saw BC’s startup formation dip nearly 50% y-o-y – a reminder that continued early-stage support is critical to keep Canada’s innovation engine running.
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Florian Villaumé ICD.D
Co. Innovation Centre • 5K followers
When experienced founders and investors highlight NL’s tech momentum, it’s not noise — it’s a signal. In this CBC article, founders Adam Keating and Brent Pretty and VC investor Chris Moyer highlight the strength of the ecosystem — the ambition of local companies, the growth trajectory, and the confidence they see in what’s being built here. The NL tech sector is now a $1.87B+ contributor to the province’s economy. Companies are scaling, raising capital, and competing globally from Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s also the #1 startup ecosystem in Atlantic Canada. Momentum is real. The opportunity now is to build on it — and accelerate. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gJ33PHDE #NLTech #Innovation #technology #EconomicGrowth techNL
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Domenic Del Vecchio
Panache Ventures • 6K followers
There are many reports analyzing the state of early stage funding in Canada - a helpful lens in understanding the supply side of Canada's innovation landscape. At Panache Ventures, we've also spent time building a robust dataset looking at YoY and QoQ startup formation in Canada, a demand-side indicator of what to expect in the coming 12-24 months. 🚀 This year's report, our second edition, looks at the latest trends across provinces, the role AI is increasingly playing in startup creation, and the make-up of our Canadian founder pool that is increasingly global. 🇨🇦 Proud to collaborate with my colleagues Prashant Matta and Inshaal Qadir on this data-driven thought leadership piece. Shoutout to Alessia Priolo on our team for packaging these insights into a cool consumable report ➡️ Read the full report below DM me if you'd like to learn more and discuss! Founders - let's keep building #startups #startupformation #canada #tech
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Start Alberta
10K followers
In case you missed it: we released a comprehensive Deep Dive mapping Alberta's 2025 startup and investment ecosystem. The interactive report includes: → Analysis of 2,995 active companies and US$870M+ in capital raised across 148 transactions → Funding stage patterns and what they reveal about ecosystem maturity → Shifts in capital composition, including a 163% surge in domestic investment → Sector breakdowns with energy leading and AI active across 17 industries → Provincial comparisons showing Alberta's position as Canada's 4th largest innovation hub Explore the full report now: https://lnkd.in/gSazWGgr #AlbertaTech #ABtech #Alberta #Tech #Innovation #Startup #Investor #VentureCapital #StartupEcosystem #YYCtech #YEGtech
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Daniel Posner
Trusted Financial • 11K followers
💡 BDC Commits Another $200 Million CAD to Catalyze Industrial Tech Innovation in Canada We’re witnessing a pivotal moment in Canadian venture capital: The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) has recommitted $200 million CAD through its Second Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, targeting transformative early-stage startups serving legacy sectors—from AgTech and advanced manufacturing to mining, oil & gas, and food tech—leveraging robotics, AI, and industrial software solutions. This marks a continuation of the momentum sparked by its $250 million Fund I, now with an expanded focus on critical minerals, a cornerstone of Canada’s economic sovereignty and clean energy transition. Why This Matters: 1. Bridging Canada’s Innovation Gap: BDC recognizes the productivity shortfall across sectors such as manufacturing, mining, and agriculture and is stepping in where private capital remains cautious. 2. Ecosystem Momentum: Fund II builds on prior successes—BDC’s first Industrial Innovation Fund backed firms like 4AG Robotics, BinSentry, MineSense, Precision AI, and others—reinforcing investor confidence in industrial tech. 3. Strategic Focus on Critical Minerals: This reflects a timely pivot toward domains essential to both global supply chains and Canada’s national interests. 4. Responding to a Cooling VC Environment: With Canadian venture activity down in H1 2025 amid macroeconomic and geopolitical turbulence, BDC’s new fund represents a steady, counter-cyclical capital source. To Founders in Canada’s Industrial Tech Ecosystem If your venture is developing applied AI, robotics, or software solutions for capital-intensive industrial sectors—or mining innovations serving the critical minerals value chain—BDC’s Fund II may be the capital catalyst you need. 📩 Trusted Financial Is Here to Help At Trusted Financial, we specialize in advising growth-stage companies navigating the raising of Series A and beyond. Whether you’re preparing for a VC raise, strategic round, or need to communicate your value proposition around themes like industrial transformation or critical minerals, our team offers: • Strategic fundraising advisory tailored to early industrial tech ventures • Capital introduction and lead placement—connecting you with BDC, institutional VCs, family offices, and strategic partners • Pitch and narrative optimization—shaping your story to resonate with the evolving innovation capital landscape Empowering founders is our purpose. If you’re exploring your next round of funding, especially with a differentiated industrial tech or critical minerals focus, let’s talk. Reach out to Trusted Financial today—let’s fuel the future of Canadian industrial innovation together. https://lnkd.in/gv-nUFi https://lnkd.in/gHDX2X6S
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Eric Apps
Aluvion • 2K followers
Thanks for sharing Jesse. The below is a good synopsis of what ails the Canadian VC market on the funder side. Lots to think about. Throwing more government money at poorly performing VC funds and at an "innovation ecosystem" that is not delivering results as measured by scaling companies with revenues of $X and hadcount of Y are not a winning strategy....... Poor performance results and limited exit possibilities (IPOs and M&A down) result in poor performance....meaning institutional investors are better putting their dollars to work elsewhere...one result, among many negative ones, Canadian VCs end up getting excluded from the few sexy deals that happen, crowded out by the larger US funds....."elbows up" in reverse..... Federal, provincial and local government procurement strategies need to be revamped across the board to focus on adopting the technology of Canadian based innovators, with public funders (taxpayers) sharing in the upside and with Canadian purchases forming a baseline for global product ambitions. >>>>> The BDC report found that the one-year and three-year initial rate of return (IRR) for Canadian-headquartered VC funds was negative. The 10-year IRR was at 10 percent, down from 11.7 percent last year. ....“If the industry’s net returns continue to deteriorate and fall into the single digits, institutional investors may shift their allocation to other asset classes, constraining funding for both GPs and entrepreneurs,” the report reads. .......At the closed-door CIX Summit Investor Forum in March, one VC said it was “embarrassing” that no Canadian investors were in on Clio’s [$1.24-billion Series F in July 2024] round. Others have noted that few Canadian VCs are leading rounds at all, and even fewer are capable of writing those large, later-stage cheques.
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Marie Chevrier Schwartz
RETHINK Retail • 24K followers
A little peek inside ChaiTech ✨ The ChaiTech Accelerator is an 8-week in-person program in Toronto that supports Jewish founders of early-stage tech startups. In partnership with Prosserman JCC and Schulich School of Business - York University, founders learn from mentors like Uri Levine (Waze), Brad Feld (Techstars), and Neil Grunberg (Storytime Capital) and more.. As Lead EIR, I get to match experienced builders with early-stage founders and it’s such rewarding work. Learn more → chaitech.ca #Startups #Accelerator #Community Daniel Warner, Kelly Yefet, Elana Ostrega, Kim Parnell Chris Carder
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Peter van der Velden
Lumira Ventures • 2K followers
I hate to argue with the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) on this but, not sure how they view this as “a healthy, stable” Canadian VC market." So, three things 1. The data as presented is unfortunately wrong and misleading. How can that be you ask? Well, it includes $837M of secondary or buyout transactions that while providing great liquidity to the investors who participated, are NOT primary investments. These transactions should have been recorded only as exits on the VC ledger and then they should have been recorded as investments in the PE/Buyout ledger. 2. So when you remove $837M from the primary VC investment column (i.e. capital that truly supports the growth and scaling of a business vs simply facilitating a change of ownership) it drops to ~4.05B vs $4.9B a 17% decline - kind of material, and it means we are running at about 60% of 2024 which as we all know was not a particularly great year. 3. Finally, when you compare US VC financing activity vs CDN VC financing activity the only thing that they have in common is that deal volume is down. In fact, while YTD 2025 VC investment activity in the US has virtually returned to 2021 levels (yes, the mix and type of companies funded has indeed materially changed) the investment levels in the Canada are continuing to head down and to the right. In fact, with VC investments YTD in Canada being C$4B and the US being ~US240B, Canada is at 1.25% of US levels and per capital investment on innovation and the next generation economy is $73 per CDN citizen and $701 per US citizen - OUCH So, at least to me, nothing about this year feels healthy or particularly stable and if we as a country want to compete globally it is going to be very hard to do so investing 1/10th the amount per citizen vs our neighbours to the south
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Daniel Mukisa
Ridelink Inc. • 4K followers
We closed $1.1M to solve the most expensive problem in cross-border commerce: logistics inefficiency. The problem: Businesses scaling internationally hit a wall. Shipping takes too long. Costs are too high. Deliveries are unpredictable. This caps growth. What we built: Year 1-2: A marketplace connecting businesses to transporters. Got to 6,000+ businesses, 25,000+ transporters, clients like PepsiCo. Year 3: Adrian AI—turning logistics data into predictive intelligence. Every shipment teaches our models to match better carriers, predict better routes, optimize pricing. Result: 30% faster delivery, 20% cost reduction, 95% on-time rates. The unlock: Banks can't finance most of these businesses—no collateral, no credit history. But we have something banks don't: logistics performance data. So we built Boo$T—trade finance powered by shipment data. 80% of our users are now accessing capital they couldn't get before. Why this works: Fix the logistics problem first. Generate proprietary data as a byproduct. Use that data to solve the financing problem. Two revenue streams, one platform. What's next: Scaling our AI-powered logistics infrastructure and expanding embedded finance to more businesses. Grateful to Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures, Orbit Ventures, Digital Africa, Expert Dojo, Google for Startups and several other notable angels for backing this vision. To the Ridelink team: I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together. Your relentless execution made this possible. This is just the beginning. To our customers and partners: Your trust and feedback shaped this platform. Thank you for growing with us. Let's keep shipping. Full story: https://lnkd.in/dgeDP3gw
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Bertrand Nembot
Billdr • 4K followers
I haven’t posted on LinkedIn about Billdr in a long time. Today feels like the right moment. I’m thrilled to share that we’ve raised USD $3.2M to accelerate our mission of building the dominant operating system for small and mid-sized general contractors and home builders (SMB GCs). The round is led by White Star Capital, with participation from One Way Ventures, Desjardins Capital, asterX, and Formentera Capital. This milestone is more than a funding round. It’s the closing of one chapter, and the exciting beginning of another. The truth is, the last few years were hard. We spent 3.5 years trying to build a home renovation marketplace that ultimately didn’t scale. We made the difficult decision to shut it down, reset the company, and change direction. Over the last two years, we rebuilt Billdr from its ashes as a vertical SaaS for SMB GCs, one feature at a time. We earned trust one SMB GC at a time. We survived the valley of death, and we emerged much stronger. Today, our vertical SaaS Billdr PRO serves hundreds of SMB GCs across the US and Canada, representing thousands of construction professionals using our software daily. Over $1B of construction projects flow through our platform. Thousands of workers rely on our software and mobile app every month. That comes with a real responsibility: to build software that genuinely makes a GC’s life easier in the back office and significantly increases their productivity. Our core belief is simple: SMB GCs don’t need more tools. They need one modern, intuitive, AI-native operating system, bringing estimating, project management, team management, payments, communications, and procurement under one roof. There are 1.4M SMB GCs in North America, delivering $1T+ in construction projects annually (residential and commercial). Yet, 75% of them are still using a combination of Excel, spreadsheets, and accounting software. We have a huge opportunity ahead of us to unlock productivity gains across this industry. Grateful to our investors, our customers, and the Billdr team! It's time to build. You can read more on our blog post here: https://lnkd.in/gzQZnXGt
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73 Comments -
Emerging Managers Podcast
272 followers
Canada’s startup ecosystem is evolving fast — and leaders like Matt Wilson, Managing Partner of Allied Venture Partners, are pushing innovation forward with a fresh, data-driven approach to early-stage investing. In this episode, we dive into: 🚀 What makes Canada’s next-gen VC landscape different 💡 How Allied Venture Partners identifies breakout founders 📈 The investment trends shaping Canada’s tech future 🤝 Why collaborative, community-driven capital is changing the game If you’re an investor, founder, or simply curious about the future of venture capital, this conversation is a must-listen. https://lnkd.in/eFFBDAzv #VentureCapital #StartupEcosystem #CanadaTech #EmergingManagers #InvestingInsights #AlliedVenturePartners #Podetize
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Emilie Boutros
ChillSkyn Inc. • 5K followers
Canada’s early-stage capital pipeline is at an inflection point. For almost 15 years at TandemLaunch, I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be for Canadian founders to raise their first rounds of financing, especially in deep tech innovation, where companies often need capital before revenue, traction, or even a finished product. That’s why I’m looking forward to participating in the NACO national roundtable tomorrow (February 19, 11:00 AM ET) to discuss the early-stage funding gap in Canada and how we can strengthen the capital pipeline that supports innovation from the very beginning. After working alongside so many founders taking their first leap, this conversation feels especially important to me. Almost 1000 people have already registered. Clearly this is a conversation the ecosystem is ready to have.
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Tim Draper
43K followers
How to think about the founder who won’t take “No.” for an answer. Regulatory barrier? They find a workaround. Technical limitation? They build around it. Market rejection? They pivot the approach. Funding door slams? They find another way in. Too many investors see this and think, "Difficult. Stubborn. Won't listen." I see it differently, "Problem solver. Unstoppable. Will find a way." The smooth-talking sales founder who charms everyone is often the bigger risk. The enthusiasm and charisma is great for getting funding, but doesn’t always translate to the ability to find their way around barriers. When building a startup, finding ways around barriers is the single most important skill. Don’t give up on the first, “No.” The founder who sees barriers as challenges to overcome... that's who builds something special.
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Kruncher
1K followers
💡 5 Pro Tips for Smarter VC Portfolio Management Managing a VC portfolio is no easy task—but learning from seasoned fund managers can save you time (and capital). At BDC Capital’s FUNDamental Principals seminar, top VCs shared their best advice: 🔁 1. Your next fund starts now Stick to your strategy—or explain pivots clearly. Future investors will look at how well you executed. 🧠 2. Align on decision-making Set clear rules: Who votes? Who vetoes? Avoid internal gridlock. 🎯 3. Think beyond deals Assign someone to manage the portfolio as a whole—not just individual companies. 💸 4. Reserve aggressively Follow-on capital is your portfolio’s lifeline. Review and adjust your reserve plan often. 📊 5. Let data drive decisions Don’t just track metrics—use them to manage performance in real time. Kruncher now helps you take portfolio monitoring to the next level—track your startups continuously and collaborate seamlessly with your team. Try now: https://hubs.la/Q03k0Qpp0 #VCtips #PortfolioManagement #VentureCapital #FundStrategy
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