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Dear Friends-

Reflecting on my first year as Executive Director of C100, I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made together. When I stepped into this role, I committed to delivering greater engagement opportunities for our members while also exploring additional ways for the C100 to make a greater impact on Canadian tech overall - and thanks to your support, we’ve made meaningful strides toward that promise.

Looking Back

This past year, we launched the C100 Growth Program, incorporating the best elements of the Lazaridis Scale-Up experience to support CEOs/executives/founders in scaling their companies beyond $100M USD in revenue. Our inaugural cohort includes 12 remarkable companies (adding to the previous 80+ Scale-Up Alumni) – four are alumni of the C100 Fellows program—proof of the learning and development value we’re creating for Canadian entrepreneurs. 

We added the C100 Leaders’ Circle to our programming, bringing together 13 exceptional leaders from 10 award-winning $100M to $1B USD revenue companies, half of which are C100 program alumni. These leaders have all shared that while they may cross paths in public forums, this recurring peer gathering with simple agendas and Chatham House rules is the only space where they can connect deeply, honestly collaborate, and learn from one another. 

We also invested more into our early-stage C100 Fellows Program, adding Mastermind classes in funding and storytelling, developing matched mentoring for each founder, and adding a second deeper dive 48Hrs in January.  In its 15th year, 48Hrs and Fellows remain a cornerstone of C100’s brand, ethos and mission. This year’s largest-ever cohort represents a cumulative $100M+ USD in funding, with almost 40% of the companies founded by serial entrepreneurs. 

Looking Ahead

The talent, ambition, and innovation underway across all of the companies in our 2024 programming cohorts gives me incredible confidence and pride in the future of and for Canadian entrepreneurs and Canadian tech. The success of these programs is built upon investments made by the C100 in programming and member connections across the last decade or so.

This past year, 18 of Deloitte’s Fast 50 companies—including four of the top five—and 30 of the Fast 500 are C100 program alumni. It’s clear: companies supported by C100 are deeply part of the foundation of Canada’s tech ecosystem. 

However, there is more work to be done - our impact on Canadian founders, entrepreneurs, executives, and their companies must be broader and deeper to help create a self-sustaining Canadian tech ecosystem.

In 2025 we need to make meaningful progress toward our goal of propelling more than 100 Canadian technology companies past $100M and elevating at least 10 to surpass $1B in USD annual revenue by 2030. Our 2025 priorities are to ensure that every ambitious Canadian entrepreneur — whether a founder or CEO building a tech company in Canada — fully recognizes the unique and transformative value of engaging C100. 

  • We want to inspire these entrepreneurs and executives to actively seek opportunities to participate in C100 programs, events, and socials or to benefit from the mentorship, coaching, and expertise offered by C100’s exceptional network of members and industry experts.
  • To capture attention, we must continue to flawlessly execute and improve our development programs for early, growth, and scale-stage Canadian company founders, CEOs and executives. 48Hrs/Fellows, Growth, and Leaders Circle must be the best programs for Canadian founders/entrepreneurs/executives.
  • In addition, we need to strengthen member engagement by creating opportunities for stronger interaction between our members, our program cohort founders and executives, and the top US and Canadian investors. Our Annual C100 Summit 2025 is one of those opportunities - it is a must and will be the milestone event for any C100 member, Canadian entrepreneur, executive, advisor, or investor. We have an epic line-up of speakers and attendees.
  • We ask for more than just Summit participation -- we need you at our Socials to connect with our program companies (they love it), mentor our cohort company leaders (if you are interested, please let me know), share your thoughts and ideas on improving our programs and our membership, attend the Town Halls for updates and feedback, and engage in the new member database/Portal.

Let me close by saying thank you. There has been a lot of change this past year. Thank you for engaging, supporting, reaching out, attending, providing feedback, and being involved. We cannot do this without you - together, we’re making a difference. 

I look forward to the year ahead.

Onwards!
Michael

PS—Please make sure you sign into the Member Portal. We will be adding more features this year. If you have not or have any problems, please contact Anna Drabovskaya (adrabovskaya@thec100.org).