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As the iconic African proverb goes, “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. While it can be universally agreed upon that mentorship plays a vital role in one’s development, it means something slightly different to everyone. Mentorship lies at the heart of the C100 Fellows program (formerly 48Hrs in the Valley). We asked four alumni, who have gone on to build multi-million dollar companies and are active mentors themselves, to share their words of wisdom on how to make the most out of your own mentorship experiences.

Ali Asaria

Founder & CEO, Tulip Retail
48Hrs Alumnus (2010)

Founded in 2013, Kitchener-based Tulip is a global leader in providing SaaS-based mobile retail solutions. Through simple-to-use applications, Tulip helps empower retailers to be better connected with their customers and sales associates. Tulip was recently listed on the Globe and Mail’s list of Canada’s top growing companies. Ali started his career at Research in Motion (RIM) and previously founded and led Well.ca, Canada’s largest online health, beauty, and baby store.

You have gotten involved as a mentor through several programs, including C100’s 48Hrs, NEXT Canada, and Techstars, just to name a few. What do you feel differentiates a good mentor/mentee relationship from a great one?

The best CEO mentors put the emotional and mental well-being of the leadership and team before everything else. Second, they operate from a strict and transparent ethical framework. Most importantly, they have extensive experience riding the very high highs, and the very low lows that come with leadership. It’s not just about having the experience of seeing growth, but also about experience navigating the complex and political power struggles that happen across a company and board as it sees peaks and valleys. In the end, startups are messy and you want a mentor that has dealt with that before: someone that can stand on the sidelines to help remind you of the bigger picture when you’re in the thick of the fog.

What advice have you received from a mentor that has stuck with you over the years?

“Strive to build a company that you’re excited to work at for the rest of your life.” When you think that long term, it forces you to be much more thoughtful around the key decisions you make along the way.

Eva Wong

Co-Founder & COO, Borrowell
48Hrs Alumna (2015)

Borrowell is a Toronto-based fintech company that offers free credit scores, report monitoring, bill tracking, and AI-driven financial product recommendations. With well over one million members, Borrowell is one of the largest consumer fintech companies in Canada. Borrowell has won numerous awards, including being named one of the top 100 fintech companies in the world by KPMG, ranking 4th on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50™ list of fastest-growing companies in Canada, and making App Annie’s list of Breakout Finance Apps for 2019.

Why is it important for early-stage entrepreneurs to have mentorship?

Sometimes, a half-hour conversation can save you 6 months of painful learning. Being able to learn from the experience of other founders has been invaluable for me. Speed is so important for early-stage companies, so the faster you can learn, and the more mistakes you can avoid, the more likely you’ll be successful.

What’s a piece of advice you can share with early-stage founders?

The word “mentor” can seem really fraught and weighty — in my experience, you don’t have to have just one person in a formal mentor role you go-to for everything or feel like you’re missing out because you don’t have a Mentor (with a capital M). I feel very fortunate to be able to reach out and get advice from a wide range of people who I may only chat with once a year, or even just via email. And many of these people are younger or have less experience than me, but have different experiences I can learn from, so don’t overlook your peers as a source of wisdom and advice.

Sam Pillar

Co-Founder & CEO, Jobber
48Hrs Alumnus (2015)

In 2011, Sam and Co-Founder Forrest Zeisler launched Edmonton-based Jobber. Jobber provides software that handles scheduling and accounting for home-service small businesses like plumbers and landscapers. Since its inception, Jobber has serviced more than 10 million people, across 47 countries and 50 service segments, and the business expects to hire 200 more employees in 2021. The company has been named one of Canada’s top growing companies 2020 by the Globe and Mail and Sam has his sights set on building Edmonton’s first $1-billion tech company.

Jobber’s most recent US$60-million raise, just days ago, made Edmonton history as the largest technology growth-equity financing in the city’s history. How do you see the role of Edmonton, and Alberta, as a part of the future Canadian tech ecosystem?

Places like Edmonton have flown under the tech radar for a long time, and there are fewer and fewer reasons for that to be the case. It’s certainly true that certain companies need to be located in the Bay Area, or New York, but for others — like Jobber — there are actually a lot of benefits to building off-the-beaten-path. It’s possible today to build a big venture-backed, market-leading company in secondary markets like Edmonton. I suspect we’ll see more companies discover the benefits of these markets and find success in them in the years to come.

Why is it important for early-stage entrepreneurs to have mentorship?

< blockquote>I think mentorship is important at all stages of entrepreneurship, but especially early on. Starting a company is crazy. It’s not a particularly “rational” thing to do, but entrepreneurs cast aside just enough doubt to give it a try. Having mentors you trust to help you work through the doubt that remains, wrestle with challenges you can’t discuss with others, provide guidance and help assure you that “yes, what you’re doing is really hard but if you really grind you can probably make it work” is an immensely helpful x-factor.

Noura Sakkijha

Co-Founder & CEO, Mejuri
48Hrs Alumna (2017)

Noura Sakkijha (Co-Founder and CEO of Mejuri) is the third generation in a family of jewelers, exposing her to traditional production techniques and the complexity of fine jewelry design at an early age. She took a detour from her family roots to study Industrial Engineering which led her to work in consulting at one of the top financial institutions in Toronto before starting Mejuri. Tired of the narrative that fine jewelry is an occasional purchase typically marketed to men, Noura leveraged her learnings from the industry to create the next-generation category-defining jewelry brand. With $32M in fundraising to date, Sakkijha and her team are redefining the way people purchase fine jewelry — for themselves.

Seeing as Mejuri was your first entrepreneurial venture, how did mentorship play a part in your startup journey?

As a first-time entrepreneur, you are a student and are constantly learning, and I truly believe the best way to learn is by spending time with people who have been there and done it. I found seeking knowledge from peers or people who have achieved the very thing you are trying to build extremely valuable. It provides you space to ask questions and the comfort of knowing that often the challenges you are experiencing are not unique to your business. Having said that, it is important to remember that you are the one who knows your business the most, so you have to determine what kind of mentorship makes the most sense for you and will be the most beneficial, but seeing different perspectives and having a sounding board is extremely important and helpful.

What’s a piece of advice you can share with early-stage founders?

Surrounding yourself with a community of like-minded people is really important. Being able to cultivate and maintain those relationships provides you with a support system to lean on, especially when you may be facing challenges as your company grows.

It is also important to ensure that as the business grows, you are hiring for your blind spots. As a founder, take the time to consider what gives you energy and where you can contribute the most, versus what is super technical and requires learning that may not be the most productive for the business. This is when you should be hiring subject matter experts so that you have the time and energy to focus on where you are most impactful, which will ultimately be the most beneficial for the business. I would also encourage founders to not shy away from the things that give them energy and that they enjoy, no matter how granular- and hold onto it.

Visit our website to learn more about C100 Fellows, a 10-month mentorship program dedicated to early-stage entrepreneurs.

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Article written by Lauren Howe, C100. Please provide any feedback to lhowe@thec100.org.‍

Co-authored by: Laura Buhler & Joshua Goodfield of the C100, with contributions from Thomas Park (VP, Operations & Strategy, BDC Capital), Charles Lespérance (AVP, Ecosystem Development, BDC Capital), John Stackhouse (SVP, Office of the CEO, RBC), Marianne Bulger (Founder & CEO, Prospect), Craig Wright (Chief Economist, RBC), David Rozin (VP & Head, Technology and Innovation Banking, Scotiabank), Martin Philipp (Senior Manager, Operations Support VC, BDC Capital), Win Bear (Head of BD Canada, Silicon Valley Bank), and Paul McKinlay (Managing Director, CIBC Innovation Banking).

Since C100’s founding 10 years ago, our community has had the honour of both cheering on and participating in the remarkable transformation of Canada’s technology industry. If the last few years are any indication, Canada is poised to one day assume its place as the top destination globally for talent and for entrepreneurship.

Together with some of C100’s key partners, we have summarized the rapid evolution of Canada’s dynamic innovation economy here. It is not exhaustive, but does cover the reasons why our community has so passionately pursued the mission to support, inspire, and connect Canadian entrepreneurs to capital, talent, and ideas in our home base of Silicon Valley.

The momentum is motivating. We’re proud to be part of the story. And we hope global Canadians everywhere are proud to help share Canada’s story with us.

But as we reflect on the progress of the past decade, we also find ourselves in a time of great uncertainty, rife with risks and challenges business leaders and policymakers are only just beginning to understand. With the gains made the last decade and the engagement of our whole ecosystem — industry, entrepreneurs, academia, government, and the force of Canadian talent including our “unofficial ambassadors,” those Canadians living abroad — the next decade should be one of unprecedented leadership for Canadian technology on the world stage.

I. Canada experienced ten years of unprecedented growth in its technology ecosystem, closed out by a record-shattering 2019

1. Canadians should be highly optimistic about their ability to attract venture capital — a driving force of the tech industry — given the hyper-growth in investment activity

Canada experienced ten years of unprecedented growth in its technology ecosystem, closed out by a record-shattering 2019. The past five years have seen sustained year-over-year growth in venture capital (VC) investment into Canadian technology companies on all metrics: total dollars invested, the number of deals, and average deal size (which has more than doubled). In 2019, the volume of VC invested in Canada had its greatest uptick ever with 40% growth over the previous year.

The sector’s growth is also reflected in the number of active Canadian General Partners (GPs) which has doubled over the past five years, driven both by emerging and established funds. The number of new “emerging” GPs (fund 1–3) has increased from 23 to 42, and “established” GPs (fund 4+) from 1 to 9.

What’s more: the presence of large funds has also grown significantly. At the end of 2014, there were just 3 funds exceeding $100M, compared to the now 14 funds. Over the past five years, the average size of these funds has grown 52%, from $136M in 2014 to $207M in 2019. Often cited as a cardinal challenge for high-growth companies, access to growth capital for later financing rounds is more accessible today, thanks in part to the presence of larger Canadian funds.

Investments from top-tier U.S. funds are no longer an anomaly in Canada many of the best VC firms like Accel, Bessemer, a16z, GGV in the U.S. (to name a few) and the top corporate VCs have now made Canadian investments and have an appetite for more. And we’re seeing more US-based LPs investing into Canadian VC and growth equity firms. — Win Bear (Head of BD Canada, Silicon Valley Bank)

The Canadian VC sector has emerged as a major global contender. Five- and ten-year investment returns (the measure of performance in the VC asset class) in Canada has seen a dramatic improvement, compared to their American counterparts. Canadian VC ten-year returns crossed the 5% hurdle in 2018, and are closing the gap with U.S. VC. Today, Canada lags only the U.S. and Israel for the relative size of its VC industry, representing 0.16% of Canada’s GDP (compared to 0.55% in the U.S.).

2. Canada has emerged as a creator of and destination for global talent

Canada is making itself home for a new wave of ambitious entrepreneurs and technology companies attracted by a diverse, highly-educated talent pool and favourable immigration policies. The success of Ottawa-based e-commerce titan Shopify is heralded as Canada’s current-day quintessential talent magnet and in recent weeks has become Canada’s most valuable company in any sector, at a $121B market capitalization. Coming up from behind Shopify, many of Canada’s most promising technology companies have been founded by Canadians returning home after experiences in Silicon Valley, such as Andrew D’Souza of Clearbanc, Ray Reddy of RITUAL, and Michael Katchen of Wealthsimple, to name a few.

Citing the depth of technical talent and world-class universities, iconic global players are making moves north, and their investments are driving substantial job gains. In Q4 of 2019, Amazon announced its plan to create 10,000 jobs in Vancouver. Google and Apple made similar announcements for 5,000 jobs in cities including Montreal, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and Vancouver, while Uber announced an investment of over $200M in Toronto over five years for its new self-driving engineering hub.

Over the past five years, 80,000 new tech jobs have been created in Toronto alone, more than San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. combined. Other Canadian cities are emerging hotbeds of talent, too. Of the major cities in North America, Vancouver demonstrated the greatest year-over-year gains with 43% growth in tech jobs. Ottawa is tied with the SF Bay Area to lead North America in tech talent concentration at 10%, three times the Canadian average. The growth is not just concentrated in big cities: Hamilton and Waterloo are two of the fastest-growing “opportunity markets” in North America with 52% and 40% growth respectively in tech job creation.

Canada has been responsive to the needs of the growing tech sector with progressive immigration policy, doubling down every time the U.S. pulls back on immigration. Canada now welcomes five times the number of skilled immigrants as a percentage of its population than does the U.S. The Global Talent Stream visa program launched in 2017 promises easy entry for international technical hires in as little as 10 business days, and the private sector is quick to react. Half of the immigrants admitted into Canada over 2018 held a STEM degree. Notably, 65% of U.S. tech HR professionals surveyed by Envoy view Canada’s immigration policy as more favourable than that of the U.S., and 35% envision sending more of their workforce to Canada and boosting hiring foreign nationals to work there.

In the opposite direction, Canadians abroad may be motivated to learn that Canadian-headquartered companies are aggressively growing their own international presence, particularly into the next-door market. Nearly two-thirds of international hiring by Canadian tech companies in 2019 was in the U.S. There are emerging priority regions: including Europe (20%) and Asia (11%).

Unlike domestic hiring which tends to focus on technical roles, the majority of hiring in the U.S. and Europe is in ‘go-to-market’ functions such as marketing, sales and business development and operations. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic downturn have taken a toll as hiring trends both at home and abroad for Canadian companies plunged by 60% from January to April, 2020. There is still reason to be optimistic — even after a challenging quarter, over 12,000 open job postings remain active at Canadian startups.

II. There are still hurdles that the Canadian tech ecosystem must clear to benchmark against the U.S.

1. Venture-backed businesses in Canada are still less capitalized than U.S. counterparts.

On average, startups in Canada raise less than half as much VC than do American companies, with the median pre-exit capital raised at $6.8M, compared to $15.8M in the U.S.

Lastly, even though larger and later-stage funds are a growing presence in Canada, some late-stage funding gaps persist, showing there is still room for additional late-stage capi

“Given that only a few large exits in a VC portfolio often drive an entire fund’s return, it is critical for Canada to achieve higher exit values. 2019 was a record year for Canadian VC-backed exits and Lightspeed’s IPO earlier this year is proof that Canadian companies can remain in Canada and still reach billion-dollar valuations.” — Thomas Park (Vice-President of Operations and Strategy at BDC Capital)

2. Executive talent is still wooed by higher salaries and bigger exits south of the border

CEOs and founders in Canada share that access to executive “scaling” talent remains a cardinal challenge. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, research conducted by the BDC offers one possible explanation for that challenge: compensation. Canadian tech executives earn on average $87,000 USD less than their colleagues in the U.S. earn. This gap persists at every funding stage and in every sub-sector, and across all senior leadership ranks. We are unsure of how the pandemic will impact compensation going forward, but drawing attention to recent trends may shed light on the opportunity.

Despite salary gaps, Canadian companies are actually quite competitive when it comes to equity-based compensation. But, median exit values in Canada significantly lag the U.S., thus it is far from enough to bridge the gap.

There are a number of factors likely responsible for the compensation gap:

First, is an issue of supply and demand: Canadian cities are home to more tech workers per firm and more newcomers than major American tech hubs, meaning the labour market in Canada is simply not as tight, thereby pressuring wages upward in the U.S.

Second, U.S. companies boast a greater concentration of talent with advanced tech degrees, even though proportionally Canada produces more STEM graduates. “Pedigree” demands higher salaries.

Lastly, Canada’s talent compensation is still benchmarked regionally, which investors use to set compensation estimates when investing. Locally attractive salaries might not be enough to recruit executive talent out of U.S. hubs, where the most ambitious firms are willing to pay for top talent.

Are Canadians with high earning potential simply choosing other industries? Or are those same workers moving abroad? Whatever the cause, American companies are outcompeting Canadian ones for executive talent, and the lure of opportunity down south has pounded a well-trodden path for Canadians seeking higher earnings and bigger outcomes.

III. Canada’s track record of resilience leaves us destined for new opportunities

Times are undeniably tough right now. The economy is anticipated to shrink at an annualized rate of 25% in the second quarter of 2020 and as many as 2.8M jobs may be lost. Startups are hiring less (job postings have decreased by one-third), and three-quarters of companies report the intention to scale back hiring to accommodate a looming recession. Nearly two-thirds of startups are conducting layoffs, amounting to 5% of Canada’s startup workforce. Anecdotes circulate of executive teams reducing or completely eliminating their own salaries to try to keep teams (and morale) intact.

“Canada’s competitive advantage is our flexible, dynamic and well-educated labour force, consistently ranking among the leaders of the OECD group of countries in terms of education attainment. Moving forward, we are well-positioned to take full advantage of an economy that will tilt to brains over brawn. To take full advantage of these accelerating trends, however, we need businesses and investors to ramp up R&D in the emerging sectors to provide the tools necessary for the workforce of today to be ready for the economy of the future.” — Craig Wright (Chief Economist, RBC)

Investment activity into startups has also slowed down in 2020. VC investment in Q1 of 2020 ended at $834M, the first decline after three successive quarters exceeding $1B. Nearly 70% of startups in Canada reported during the COVID-19 pandemic that their fundraising prospects have been negatively impacted by the crisis, with 40% deciding to postpone fundraising to a later date to better their odds.

The macro-risks facing Canada’s tech ecosystem are no less daunting. One potential risk is that foreign investment into Canada may dwindle as sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors pull back. In addition to being a major source of capital for Canadian VCs, foreign capital also represents between one-third and one-half of investment in Canadian companies, with the U.S. being the leading source of international investment.

Purchasing activity is also expected to slow down, stalling the growth of our scaling startups. A May 2020 CIBC equity analyst report forecasted a significant decrease in IT spending in 2020 which “runs counter to much of the commentary on Q1 earnings calls from the software providers.” Declines are predicted across most IT segments, but cloud software may see a boon: “As organizations have been forced into embracing remote work, the importance of nimble, accessible infrastructure and a clear digital strategy have been made evident.”

VC returns and liquidity may also suffer, threatening capital availability and thereby the near-term outlook of the industry as a whole. Threats to the VC industry may be amplified by less capital from high net worth (HNW) individuals, family offices and corporate venture capital (CVC), and other sources of alternative capital being injected into the industry. Cash-strapped startups in more hard-hit sectors (such as travel, mobility, hospitality, live entertainment, real estate) may struggle to stay afloat, which will challenge investors with too much exposure in these sectors within their portfolios.

But, we have seen in the past a world of uncertainty can offer outsized opportunities for Canada.

“As the world shifts from “growth at all costs” to “path to profitability” and a focus on metrics, the Canadian companies and entrepreneurs forced to do more with less should easily transform into by-the-numbers’ superior companies. Proximity matters less and less as a result of COVID; Canadian companies should now feel emboldened. To be sure, COVID has caused dislocation and the need to rethink value propositions, but we are still in the early innings of global digitization. It is essential our entrepreneurs continue to tackle difficult problems, think globally and leverage Canada’s powers of attraction as it relates to immigration and culture. We are poised to succeed.” — David Rozin (Vice President and Head, Technology and Innovation Banking, Scotiabank)

As talent becomes more distributed, Canadian companies that thrive in this “new normal” will be better positioned to compete for global talent — whether that talent finds its way into the Canadian borders or not. After the pandemic, the workforce may look very different and Canada may need to accelerate its reskilling of the population to fit the needs of the emerging economy. Our aptitude to do so may very well position Canada as a model globally.

“For the better part of the past century, Canadian expats have been quietly inserting themselves into pretty much every significant movement, from international human rights to global media, usually excelling with those common Canadian — and globally rare — attributes of empathy, balanced thinking and reasonable accommodation. In few sectors is this more evident than technology, where Canadians can be found almost everywhere, with a combination of tech skills and human skills. A divided, distanced world will need these bridge-builders even more. And Canadian foreign policy — challenged anew by a fractured world — can harness them for our country’s strategic advantage.” — John Stackhouse (Senior Vice President, Office of the CEO, RBC), from his upcoming book Planet Canada: How our Expats are Shaping the Future.

Talent-based immigration is a core competency for Canada, and an opportunity to double down its position globally. As the U.S. consistently closes channels to immigration, will Canada continue its pattern of opening up? In an economy where one of five tech workers is foreign-born, Canada may very well be the place the next generation of entrepreneurs and operators choose to make home.

What is the call to action? Canada’s expat community and diaspora network can play a key role in propelling our nation forward: it’s about the power of people and community.

This piece was built in collaboration with C100’s Foundational Partners:

As we write to you today, helicopters circle overhead and protestors kneel, march, and chant for racial justice. We would like to use this opportunity to affirm C100’s values and our stance on diversity and inclusion; and to open the door to frank discussions with our own community about how C100 can be an agent of service in the fight against racism in our society.

Together with you, we are angered and saddened by the appalling death of George Floyd last week, by the shootings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, the still-mysterious death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet among others, and we are deeply distraught by the racist treatment of Christian Cooper by a Canadian woman in Central Park in New York. We know many of you feel deep pain and inner turmoil that such hatred and racism is a reality today. We feel that pain with you.

To Black members of our community at large, C100 stands with you. We stand against racism and prejudice, individual and systemic, in all its forms. Unequivocally, C100 affirms that #BlackLivesMatter. As an organization, we aim to embody the very best expression of our Canadian ideals, standing for diversity, respect and inclusion.

As an organization, this means that we are committed to actively seeking out opportunities to support diversity in our programs, in our own business practices, and in the communities we touch. As a community, we encourage all of our members, in whatever role you play or where you sit to use your platform to advocate for positive change. Actions may range from personal to public, from seemingly minor to the transformational. But each is an act in the elimination of racism from our society, our system, and our own hearts. This appeal is not specific to citizens of one country or another, but to our very humanity, and to the global citizenship we each hold.

The C100 community is one whose individual members hold some of the most esteemed positions in leadership in the technology world. And so we’d like to open the door to your ideas about how we can best support each other and our communities at this time, how we might be able to use the C100’s unique platform of entrepreneurs, investors, and senior leaders to impact the issue of anti-Black racism. However you might be moved to be an agent of change in the fight against racism. If you think C100 can amplify your impact, we want to hear from you.

Canadian leaders in our community have stepped up and we hope their actions inspire you in some way.

Shopify will donate $500K to the NAACP and $250K each to the Black Health Alliance and to Campaign Zero, which campaigns against police violence in the U.S.

Stewart Butterfield (CEO, Slack) and his partner Jen Rubio pledged $1M in donations and will match up to $300K to ten organizations, including the NAACP and #BlackLivesMatter.

Lastly, we’d like to draw attention to the Black Innovation Fellowship, an initiative run by C100’s Partner, the DMZ, an incubator and accelerator based Ryerson University in Toronto. Here, they have profiled a few Black founders in their community who are giving a “new meaning to inclusive technology”.

In solidarity and support for the movement, the three of us have made financial contributions to the following organizations: National Bail Fund, Black Visions Collective, the NAACP, Campaign Zero, and have signed the Color of Change platform of structural demands and reforms on the policing system.

Laura Buhler, C100 Executive Director

Andre Charoo, C100 Co-chair

Shari Hatch Jones, C100 Co-chair

Access to Capital — What To Expect and How to Best be Prepared

Financing rounds could halt to a near standstill in the months ahead. As Geoff Lewis, Managing Partner of Bedrock, says “runway is the new product-market fit.” Startups should target 18, even 24 months of runway. To accomplish this exercise, founders will need to (1) predict how revenue could be impacted 6, 12, and 18 months from now, (2) address cost lines, and (3) strategize how to access capital in a very different market.

1. Predict how your revenue will be impacted. Watch our recent webinar focused on adapting your business plan for recession times.‍

2. Address cost lines: Reassess your plan for an 18-month runway. Know it and watch it closely:

• Check out this tool called “Runway” by LTSE, which can help you understand your burn rate by modeling your revenue and expenses.
• Another major cost: payroll. Because this cost is more than just a line item and it is deeply personal, we hosted an entire Roundtable on the topic with advice on how best to manage your team and keep your business operational. Resources on that in the following section. Bottom line: Be compassionate and generous.

3. Access capital either through pre-existing GP relationships OR new connections you may not previously known or considered: 1) strategic and/or corporate VCs; 2) VCs who’ve just raised a first fund; and 3) venture debt.

• VCs that have recently closed a first fund present a unique opportunity for founders raising capital: Not only do they have capital to invest, but they don’t have portfolios to help get through the crisis today. We did the work for you and put together a list of “first fund” VC funds that you can find at the end of this post.
• Angels may be more reluctant to invest in new market dynamics. As many GPs enter into crisis-management mode to help their existing portfolios, their attention span for new relationship-building with new founders may be fragmented (at best). Many will outsource new relationship-building to associates.

How does this impact Venture Capital Funding?

Be prepared for shifts in the VC landscape in the crisis:

1. Potential decrease in interest and valuations in the consumer, travel, and enterprise software sectors. Considering the present environment, we may observe an overall valuation “reset”. Companies in these sectors may want to consider other verticals in the interim where they can find a fit.

2. Potential shift towards sectors for which it has been more difficult to raise capital in recent years, such as medical devices and biotech, to name a few.

3. Potential shift in mantra from “growth” to “profitability”.

4. GPs may find it more difficult to raise new funds, and will spread out their investments more over time resulting in a decline in overall investment activity.

5. Shift from a founder’s market to a VC’s market, for example:

• Term sheets with less founder-friendly terms, or terms more commonly reserved for late stage rounds, such as liquidation preferences, the ability to block sales, and board seats.
• In that environment, Founders should want to push back strongly on the aforementioned terms and be opportunistic on what they are willing to give on a financial term.

6. Down rounds and recaps will become more common. In the words of panelist Geoff Lewis: “Down rounds will become the new flat rounds, and flat rounds will become the new up rounds.”

What if business is “up”? Should I still reach out to GPs?

Our VC panelists suggested that, if you can, wait a couple weeks.

When you do, be very clear in terms of why the VCs should talk to you now. (The same rule applies for any time you are trying to get a GP’s attention, but now, even more so, and the reason should not be because you’re in need of money.) Be sure to highlight your team, and how your business is poised to thrive through the current situation and beyond. Startups will be expected to demonstrate that they and their leaders are “recession proof”.

How can I best lead my team through this?

Is there advice for a best team crisis management strategy? Do I conduct layoffs, furloughs, ask everyone to take pay cuts?

If you are in team crisis management working through layoffs, furloughs, and other headcount adjustments, check out our Roundtable on the matter here with Michael Scissons (CEO, Careerlist), Jen Holmstrom (Head of Talent, GGV Capital) and Madan Nagaldinne (Chief People Officer, Blink Health).

Be compassionate and generous, but get it right: “Hiringplan” by LTSE will show you the cost of hiring and rehiring, in terms of cash and equity, for this largest expense line item.

Jen Holmstrom summarized that if you do need to make adjustments to your payroll line, there are really three options at a high level: layoffs; salary reductions; and “furloughs”, but no matter that you do, make sure you have legal counsel involved in the process. But, as our panelists shared in this session and in one on “Adapting your business plan to accommodate an economic downturn”, there are “best practices”, even in the worst of times. Suggestions include:

• Layoffs: Gary Kovacs strongly urged founders to try to avoid layoffs at all costs, but if they are necessary, do them only once. “Laying people off at this time should be absolutely the last choice”… “The only time to lay people off is when you are going to do it in such a meaningful chunk that it’s going to make a really impactful difference. If you lay off 5%, you destroy 100% of morale and culture. Laying off 20%, you destroy 100%. You do not see immediate benefit, but you do have immediate destruction”
• Salary reductions: Use with executives first. People will accept foregoing bonuses, vacation, and salary freezes, hiring freezes much more easily than layoffs.
• Furloughs: According to Madan Nagaldinne, a “furlough” is “a leave of absence, of sorts”, where employees keep their benefits, but employees do not perform their job and forego pay. NOTE: Generally speaking, furloughed employees can take unemployment benefits but if you receive “back pay” after the furlough period, they will need to pay back the government benefits. This varies state by state and province by province in Canada, so get counsel if this is an option for you.

One common thread through this discussion: be open, be truthful and transparent with your teams. Projecting transparency will help you and your teams through this.

Has this post been useful? Sign up for our newsletter here for more insights, event invitations, and registration information for our next Virtual Roundtable.

Special thanks to our panelists: C100 Charter Members Janet Bannister (Managing Partner at Real Ventures); Geoff Lewis (Founder and Managing Partner at Bedrock); Madan Nagadinne (Chief People Officer at Blink Health); Jennifer Holmstrom (Head of Talent at GGV Capital), Tihomir Bajic (CEO of LTSE Software); Michael Scissons (CEO of Careerlist); Gary Kovacs (CEO of Accela).This article is a combination of key learnings from the virtual roundtables and not necessarily the reflection of any individual named here.

C100’s List of “First Fund” VCs

As angels may grow reluctant to invest in new market dynamics, and many GPs enter into crisis-management mode to help their existing portfolios, their attention span for new relationship-building with new founders may be fragmented (at best). Many

The below is a list of VCs that have recently closed a first fund¹. Not only do they have capital to invest, but they don’t have portfolio companies to help get through the crisis today. New funds may present a unique opportunity for founders raising capital in this present downturn.

Disclaimer: The funds represented below include funds that, to our knowledge, closed in 2018 or later. C100 does not endorse these specific funds in any way. (Help us grow this list! If you know of other fund managers that have just closed their first fund, let us know at connect@thec100.org)

Canada:

• Active Impact Investments (ClimateTech)
• Amplitude Ventures (biotech, precision medicine)
• BCF Ventures (Corporate Venture Fund of BCF Law Firm)
• Concrete Ventures (focus on Atlantic Canada)
• Conexus Venture Capital (focus on Saskatchewan)
• Disruption Ventures (female founders)
• District Ventures Capital (food and health)
• Framework Venture Partners
• Luge Capital (fintech)
• Panache Ventures
• Ripple Ventures
• StandUp Ventures (Women-focused)
• The Group Ventures
• Verstra Ventures

USA:

• 2048 Ventures (B2B and B2C)
• Acrew Capital
• Agent Capital (biotech and biopharma)
• Alpha4 Ventures (Latin America)
• Arcview Ventures (cannabis focus; US, Canada, Israel)
• AV8 Ventures
• BlueStone Venture Partners (life sciences)
• Bond Capital
• Brick & Mortar Ventures (architecture, engineering, construction)
• BuildGroup
• Building Ventures (architecture, engineering, construction)
• Casa Verde Capital (cannabis)
• Castle Island Ventures (exclusive focus on public blockchains)
• Clean Energy Venture Group (ClimateTech, cleantech)
• Cleo Capital
• Coefficient Capital (consumer brands)
• Company Ventures
• Day One Ventures
• Define Ventures (digital health)
• DGNL Ventures (consumer focus)
• Differential Ventures (B2B data science)
• Dragonfly Capital Partners (crypto)
• Energy Innovation Capital (oil, gas, energy tech)
• Entrada Ventures
• Equal Ventures
• Evolv Ventures (food value chain)
• First Leaf Capital
• Fulcrum Global Capital (food value chain)
• Goat Rodeo Capital (alcohol beverage focus)
• Harlem Capital Partners (minority and female founders)
• Human Ventures
• Inspired Capital (consumer and enterprise technology)
• Intelis Capital (energy focus)
• Kindred Ventures
• Knightsgate Ventures (B2B and B2C)
• Las Olas Venture Capital (B2B)
• Lavrock Ventures (B2B)
• Legendary Ventures (consumer retail)
• Moonshots Capital (military veteran founded or run)
• New Technology Ventures (cybersecurity, software, and healthcare IT)
• NewView Capital
• Next Ventures (sports, fitness, nutrition and wellness)
• Pace Capital
• Plexo Capital
• Quansight Initiate (education, IOT, data-management, data-science, machine-learning and AI)
• Rock River Capital Partners (Midwest focus)
• Rx3 Ventures (consumer focus)
• Salveo Capital (cannabis)
• Scopus Ventures (business intelligence and automation, cybersecurity, SaaS, digital media, healthcare IT and fintech)
• SRI Capital (enterprise SaaS and deeptech)
• Stage 2 Capital
• Starting Line (consumer focus)
• Stipple Ventures Management
• Summit Peak
• Supernode Ventures
• Sure Ventures (insurance focus)
• Tessera Venture Partners (finance, healthcare and media)
• The Fund
• Thursday Ventures
• Trolley Venture Partners (central Virginia)
• True Wealth Ventures (female founders)
• Two Lanterns Venture Partners
• Valo Ventures
• Vensana Capital (healthcare)
• Wave Capital (marketplaces)
• Westlake Village BioPartners (biotech)
• Zone 5 Ventures (sports tech)

Help us grow this list. If you know of other fund managers that have just closed their first fund, let us know at connect@thec100.org!

¹Sources: Pitchbook; BDC. Special thanks to C100’s Partners BDC and CPPIB for helping compile this list.

Today, the C100 team is humbled and proud to announce our latest cohort of 26 early-stage Canadian entrepreneurs to 48Hrs in the Valley, C100’s signature program that aims to support and inspire the next generation of Canadian success stories through mentorship, thought-partnership, and venture guidance. However, given the quickly-worsening global business environment and growing human tragedy surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the decision to postpone the program’s physical convening in Silicon Valley to October 6–7, 2020 (ordinarily held in May). While the necessary postponement of our Spring events calendar has been difficult on our organization and on the entrepreneurs we serve, it has also given us the opportunity to examine how we can deepen our delivery on our mission “to support, inspire, and connect the most promising Canadian entrepreneurial leaders.”

We could not think of a more urgent time than now to deliver on this mission. While we will not gather in person until October 6–7, 2020, we recognize the needs of the entrepreneurs in our 2020 cohort may only grow more urgent in these uncertain times. C100 is committed to continuing to support Canadian-led technology businesses and their leaders, and while we cannot do so currently in person, we have begun and plan to continue to connect our community through virtual roundtables. Our cohort will also participate in virtual programming beginning in May, introducing them to a network of Canadian entrepreneurs, investors and operators poised to help them navigate these challenging times. Additionally, all cohort members will be connected to a mentor and other founder peers for additional support. Through added initiatives such as these, along with the marquee event in the Fall, we aspire to deliver meaningful outcomes for these founders through their connections to mentors, partners, investors, and talent.

We are proud to introduce our 2020 class of founders who will join us virtually (for now), and in person (in October). We look forward to connecting them into the preeminent global community of Canadians in tech. We implore you, our community at large, to join us by supporting these 26 Canadian ambitious entrepreneurs through mentorship, investment, and partnership.

Acorn Biolabs — Toronto

CEO and Founder: Drew Taylor

Acorn offers affordable, non-invasive live cell collection, analysis and cryopreservation unlocking preventative and regenerative healthcare through the simple non-invasive plucking of a few hairs. Acorn enables people to save their young cells today for use in future regenerative medicine to give them the best chance of therapeutic success.

Avalon Holographics — St Johns

President and Co-Founder: Wally Haas

Avalon is a holographic display company making the next generation information display. Their technology revolutionizes the way people consume visual content. Their technology path allows holographic displays to be widely deployed including, movies, television, computer monitors and mobile phones

Beatdapp — Vancouver

CEO and Co-Founder: Andrew Batey

Beatdapp helps music labels find and authenticate up to 15% of missing royalties and help digital service providers (DSPs) fight streaming fraud and save money. Beatdapp has developed a native blockchain and Proof of Authority consensus algorithm to facilitate tracking of plays, metadata, and IP ownership resulting in an improvement of royalty collections.

Booqed — Hong Kong

CEO and Co-Founder: David Wong

BOOQED is a digital platform for tenants and landlords to find or monetize short-term unused business spaces. They address the pain of trying to find the right space to meet or work: cost, flexibility and time. With over 1,800 listings across 9 Asian cities, they can help reduce the time it takes for you to find that right workspace, meeting or event venue from days or hours down to minutes.

Breathe Life — Montreal

CEO and Co-Founder: Ian Jeffrey

Breathe Life is an Enterprise Distribution Platform for the Insurance Industry.

Their API-driven platform is focused on delivering new business, using advanced analytics and AI to unify customer data into a single view and dispatch leads to the right channel with the right insurance product at the right time. Using the Breathe Life platform, carriers can sell more policies through advisors, direct, or anywhere in between.

Casca — Vancouver

CEO and Co-Founder: Braden Parker

Casca is a footwear brand developing revolutionary everyday shoes. With the use of proprietary 3D manufacturing techniques, photogrammetry and a user-centric platform, they are disrupting the footwear supply chain and providing unmatched performance, comfort and quality in daily footwear. They envision a zero-waste apparel and footwear industry that leverages technology to create purposeful products in a better way for humans and the planet.

Cinchy — Toronto

CEO and Co-Founder: Dan DeMers

Cinchy is an enterprise software platform that enables large complex organizations to avoid having to buy, build, and integrate bespoke applications. Their vision is a single secure network of interconnected data.

Clutch — Toronto

CEO: Dan Park

Clutch is an online marketplace for used cars. Clutch doesn’t operate within a large glass showroom or employ commission-based salespeople so it can pass on those savings onto its customers. Their goal is to create an exceptional customer experience. They invite customers to browse their inventory online and book a test drive. All of their cars undergo an in-depth 210-point inspection by certified mechanics.

Conversation Health — Toronto

CEO and Co-Founder: John Reeves

ConversationHEALTH provides a cloud-based conversational AI platform that is uniquely tailored for the Life Science Industry. Their Conversation Management Platform (CMP) powers Commercial, Scientific Affairs, and Clinical Trial solutions that help companies better engage their health professionals, patients and consumers. The product was designed to meet the demands of consumers, patients, and healthcare professionals seeking information through a friction free channel 24/7.

DarwinAI — Waterloo

CEO and Co-Founder: Sheldon Fernandez

DarwinAI helps enterprises build AI they can trust. Their patented ‘AI building AI’ technology allows enterprises to develop faster with AI development automation, deploy with and faster production-ready models, and explain AI’s black box for a variety of applications.

Finaeo — Toronto

CEO and Co-Founder: Aly Dhalla

Finaeo is powering the future of life and health insurance with their all-in-one platform. Their digital marketplace connects carriers, brokers and clients through a fully-integrated experience.

Freshline — Vancouver

CEO and Co-Founder: Robert Kirstiuk

Freshline is increasing accessibility to quality food ingredients to in turn pave new paths for local suppliers and consumers to connect. The company believes everyone deserves great food, anywhere.

G Batteries — Ottawa

CEO and Co-Founder: Kostyantyn Khomutov

GBatteries is an advanced battery technology company on a mission to charge electric vehicles (EVs) as fast as it takes to fill a tank of gas. They have developed an innovative way to charge Li-ion batteries using artificial intelligence. Their protocol uses adaptive pulses as an alternative to CCCV (constant current, constant voltage), enabling ultra-fast charge without compromising the health of the battery.

GoFor Industries — Ottawa

CEO and Co-Founder: Brad Rollo

GoFor is an on-demand logistics marketplace for the construction industry. They work with the largest suppliers and construction companies in North America to ensure building materials are onsite when they are needed, increasing efficiencies and productivity.

Jane — North Vancouver

Co-CEOs and Co-Founders: Alison Taylor & Trevor Johnston

Jane is a modern and beautifully designed practice management software used by practitioners in a variety of allied health disciplines around the world. Jane focusses on a design that considers all aspects of private practice users: the admin staff, the practitioners, the patients booking online and the owners running a business.

Lane — Toronto

CEO and Co-Founder: Clinton Robinson

Lane is creating a universal platform that powers interacting with any workplace anywhere in the world. Their modular technology is custom suited to your office, instantly allowing you to offer services, functionality, and software integrations that drive tenant and employee engagement.

Medchart — Toronto

CEO and Co-Founder: James Bateman

Medchart is an online medical record sharing platform that digitizes and simplifies the request and release of health information for healthcare providers, lawyers, insurance providers, and patients. Their vision is to create the world’s largest health data marketplace.

Ossiaco — Montreal

CEO and Founder: Marc Forget

Ossiaco sits at the nexus of residential solar power, electric vehicle charging, the smart home and customer-centric utilities. Their patented power electronic technology coupled with AI-driven sustainable technologies enable people to leverage solar energy to power their cars, their homes and their lifestyles.

Proof — Whitehorse

CEO and Co-Founder: Ben Sanders

Proof empowers governments to go paperless by streamlining approvals, digitizing forms, and improving data-driven decisions so they can spend each taxpayer dollar perfectly.

Ratio.city — Toronto

CEO and Co-Founder: Monika Jaroszonek

Ratio.city enables their customers to make data driven decisions about land acquisition and development. They bring together a broad spectrum of real estate data sources and provide 3D analysis tools for Real Estate Industry professionals.

RedCircle — San Francisco

CEO and Co-Founder: Michael Kaden

RedCircle is a marketplace for podcast advertising and monetization. They help podcasters grow their audience and monetize their content as well as planning , launching and measuring podcast advertising campaigns quickly and at scale.

ScholarMe — New York

CEO and Co-Founder: Femi Adebogun

Shift — Victoria

CEO and Co-Founder: Nadia Tatlow

Shift is a SaaS productivity company that helps customers manage and streamline their work across multiple apps, accounts, and workspaces with deeper focus and higher efficiency.

Smart Access — Edmonton

CEO and Founder: Tim Regnier

Smart Access has developed a web and mobile platform that leverages physical connection points to help large retail workforces learn, understand and execute faster through curated delivery of information where the workforce needs it — on the floor and on the go.

Spocket — Vancouver

CEO and Co-Founder: Saba Mohebpour

Spocket is a marketplace that enables online retailers to source products from thousands of suppliers all over the world without holding inventory, Retailers can download Spocket from Shopify or WooCommerce and instantly have access to hundreds of thousands of products which they can add to their online store and sell, without ever holding the inventory.

Virtuo — Calgary

CEO and Co-Founder: Casey Kachur

Virtuo blends tech and human support to liberate people from all the painful experiences in their homeownership journey. They take care of all the time-consuming tasks, from connecting them to trusted movers and delivering special eco-friendly boxes, to transferring their internet and utilities and organizing cleaners on their behalf.

Our team is proud to introduce Andre Charoo as C100’s new Co-Chair. Andre takes the baton from Co-Chair Sean Harrington and joins Shari Hatch Jones in leadership of the C100 Board of Directors. Until recently, Andre has served on the Board and as a proudC100 Charter Member. Andre brings a special blend of a passion for working with Canadian entrepreneurs and a profound expertise in the talent space.

By day, Andre is VP of Strategic Development at Hired, Inc., a job search marketplace. Andre was one of the first 25 employees at both Uber and Hired. He has made substantial impacts at tech startups across the Bay Area, New York, and Toronto over the course of his career. Andre is committed to accelerating the growth of Canadian founders and their companies. We had the chance to sit down with Andre prior to jumping into his new leadership role with our organization to learn about his own entrepreneurial journey story and his enthusiasm for insatiable interest in building a supportive community of great Canadian leaders accelerating the Canadian tech ecosystem.

Can you describe the early days at Uber? Did you immediately recognize you were a part of such an influential and disruptive company?

Yes, I saw the potential right away. In my interview, I asked Travis Kalanick (CEO & Co-Founder) what the vision of Uber was and he provided an instantaneous and clear response, “we plan to deliver you anything and that happens to start with a car that takes you from Point A to Point B.” A ride-sharing app poised to evolve into a massive logistics engine to move cities. Looking back now with some pattern recognition, there were a few things that particularly stood out me in a crowded field of tech companies: (1) I was attracted to the bold vision; (2) I was impressed with the caliber and breadth of talent in my future co-workers; and (3) Travis had an ability to elevate the company’s purpose to a much higher level than merely an on-demand app to get a ride. When I took the role, I had friends say, “why did you join a cab company?” and those same friends now say “why did you ever leave that cab company?”

A company with a very big vision is actually a competitive advantage. Travis would say “we are rolling out a transportation alternative to the city — there are buses, subways, trains, and there is Uber.”

Companies should not just be working on what consumers want and see at face value today, but instead focus on building something visionary that can scale without limits. There is something extremely special about a company that can elevate their messaging to such a high level that you can see the tangible impacts the product or service would have on a neighborhood, a city, a country, an industry, etc.

What factors contributed to your decision to ultimately leave Uber?

I got recruited by a company called Cinemagram out of Montreal while in Vancouver attempting to launch Uber. Cinemagram had more downloads than Instagram simultaneous to Instagram’s acquisition by Facebook for $1B USD. There was a frenzy to identify the next massive social app, one that would allow you to share a few seconds of your life with followers. There was a debate in the community regarding what would be the “Instagram for video.” Here I am being introduced to this platform with 1M+ users within weeks of launch. The founder convinced me this was a massive opportunity and I should be Employee #1. Similar to Uber, I saw a big vision, clear user traction, and a high-impact role.

In my exit interviews with Uber, both Travis and Ryan Graves (Employee #1 & then Head of Operations) spent an hour with me. The front half was spent celebrating my accomplishments at Uber: launching in Washington with Rachel Holt (current Head of New Mobility), expanding internationally into Canada, and proudly hiring Andrew Macdonald (a Canadian!) as Uber’s first GM of Toronto (recently promoted to run global operations). The back half was spent debating Cinemagram— Travis loves evaluating business opportunities, and he and Ryan saw this as a good one and both recognized my conviction.

Fortunately, I can say that I took Cinemagram from 1M to 9M users over 10 months. We raised a $8.5M Series A from Menlo Ventures, the same investor in Uber’s Series B. I had every celebrity you could think of in my inbox wanting access to this platform. Fast forward, we were the most downloaded app of 2012 and could outpace Snapchat to become the big video-sharing app. I picked the right category but didn’t bet on the right horse. I have no regrets though because I did work that was well-recognized at both companies.

Bringing Uber to Canada was certainly a big moment for me. I’ve had partners in the Canadian cities we launched send me personal messages after the big IPO thanking me for convincing them to join the journey. I aim to have an impact in whatever I do, and granted it was a short amount of time I believe I accomplished significant milestones at Uber. That helps me sleep at night despite the money I may have missed out on.

You have built a career in launching products in new markets. What advice would you impart on earlier-stage entrepreneurs assessing what new environments to expand their product into?

I’ve developed a skillset around physically launching products in new cities, many of which are more tech-enabled than ever. Often businesses require a local presence in order to effectively grow. I believe it is critically important to figure out your business in an initial 1–2 market(s). Many people are surprised to learn that Uber spent a full year in San Francisco before even considering expansion to other markets. Hired did the same. I’m an investor in Setter and Ritual and both did the same. It is so important to go slow in the beginning because most businesses haven’t figured everything out early on in their lifecycle. Entrepreneurs have to know what works before replicating. Premature expansion can generate problems that will quickly compound from operational, team cultural, and unit economic standpoints — especially for marketplace businesses. It is very easy to underestimate the pace of keeping up with what is required to enter new markets.

Figure out your core market and do everything you can to understand it from every aspect of the business before you put the pedal to the metal.

You’ve had the opportunity to witness and contribute to 10x growth at Uber and 50x growth at Hired. Are there key lessons you have learned about building great teams that you can share with entrepreneurs?

People often index on skill when they are looking to hire — who can do this job at a high level extremely well. I view this as table stakes as many people can often do the job you are hiring for. At the time I trusted intuition and co-workers when hiring, then I would build pattern recognition from that. When I reflect on the people who worked well versus the individuals who did not, three qualities stand out:

(1) Level of grit: The idea that I have failed — either personally or professionally— and I got back up and bounced back. You’ve got to have a chip on your shoulder. I’d recommend Angela Duckworth’s book and her identification of ‘effort’ as the x-factor.

(2) Startup growth mindset: Startups are constantly in turmoil and if you pay too much attention to the daily grind (ups-and-downs) you’re more likely to give up. Those who can focus on the trend line and see the bigger picture will get a lot further.

(3) Self awareness: Is a team member aware of how they make other people feel? Startups encounter a lot of stress you will see people at their best and worst. Demonstrating empathy goes a long way and is necessary to move the ship.

Each stage of hiring at a company will look different. Early teams may be unqualified on paper but can be off the charts in other aspects if they possess a learning mindset. Be open to hiring talent with non-linear paths.

Tell us about Maple. What do you aspire to build with your VC and what are you looking to invest in?

Maple was founded two and a half years ago with the thesis of investing in exceptional Canadian founders regardless of location. We have made nine investments at the $100–150K level, seven of which have been in Canadian founders. My goals are to identify great founders, co-invest with big players (currently with Sequoia, Greylock, and a16z), and be helpful to entrepreneurs at all stages — especially at the growth stage given what I’ve done with Hired.

The bigger goal of Maple is to capture some of the talent that Canada readily exports and bring the returns back to move the needle forward.

Ideally in 5–10 years I could replicate the personal satisfaction I’ve experienced in joining companies early on by helping many other companies.

How do we propel Canada to become the top destination for global tech talent? What are we doing well and what can we improve on?

I believe Canada’s largest and most influential export is talent. For whatever reason, we don’t seem to pay enough attention to or keep in touch with Canadians abroad. It should be encouraged for any Canadian to pursue their life goals wherever that may take them. We can do a better job keeping them within our global network if we frame our thinking to view the country as a ‘hub.’ We can pull Canadians in regardless of if they are physically in Canada or not — especially as we aspire to build global companies at home. I hope to help C100 continue to build the largest network of Canadian entrepreneurs anywhere in the world. We have an opportunity to engage these talented folks and leverage their potential to forcefully drive Canadian entrepreneurship forward.

We have to change the narrative that once a Canadian leaves our borders they are out of our purview. That is what most excites me about being a part of the C100 as I believe it is the best organization to accomplish the objective.

Why have you decided to make giving back to Canada a fundamental part of your entrepreneurial journey?

Canada has been so great to me. I grew up in Toronto and it was an amazing place to be. I appreciated it more as I got older. Although I never worked professionally full-time in Canada, I got to spend a lot of time launching Canadian marketplaces at Hired and Uber. There are exceptional people here driven by an inspiring value system centered around giving back and returning the favor.

I look back at my wins and see a Canadian thread running through them. Here I go with Maple and the great founders I see are Canadian. I got to work with Garrett Camp (Co-Founder, Uber) and now Matt Mickiewicz (Co-Founder, Hired) — two incredible Canadians. I’m still trying to convince my wife — who is not Canadian — that we have to move to Canada. This is such a great moment in time for the country. I’m proud to be Canadian and represent the C100 by bolstering our amazing entrepreneurs and giving back to an incredible community.

Interested in learning more about Andre? Check out his our stories_ video:

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Article written by Joshua Goodfield, C100. Provide any feedback to jgoodfield@thec100.org. Last updated: June 25, 2019.