StartupNorth

Category: Angel Investors

  • Founders & Funders: Nov 18, 2014

    It’s that time again – to bringing together the people that start emerging technology businesses and the people that fund them, early.

    Who should attend?

    Uhm, yeah. Founders & Funders.

    Founders

    You are a founder of a emerging technology company or a technology-enabled company. You are actively raising a round of capital or starting to think about raising your next round. Feels like we’re leaning to Seed and Series A – basically if you’re name is Tobi or Ryan most investors know who you are 😉

    Funders

    Space for funders will be limited. We have room for approximately 60 people. And we like to keep the ratio of 3:1 founders to funders. This means we roughly have room for 15 funders. We’re going to be picky, the target will be Seed and Series A.

    Why should you attend?

    Relatively small and intimate gathering of other emerging technology company founders and the people that fund them. The funder mix ranges from individuals that write first and very small cheques to larger institutional funds.

    • Social event – no formal pitches
    • Community is the framework – chance to talk to other founders about the current fundraising climate

    What to expect?

    It is a chance to have a bite to eat and a drink with other founders and investors that are actively investing in Toronto companies. It’s a chance to figure what has worked for others, to figure out which investors you want to spend more time with, and just connect.

    How do I attend?

    Submissions will end on Nov 10.

  • How we raised a $2MM seed round in 2 weeks

    This is a guest post by Mike Katchen, founder of Wealthsimple, Canada’s first online investment manager. He recently moved back from San Francisco where he led marketing at 1000memories (YC S’10, acquired by Ancestry.com).

    In May, we raised a $2MM seed round for Wealthsimple (and didn’t really tell anyone). It took us 2.5 weeks to raise from 15 amazing investors in Toronto including David Ossip, Dan Debow, and Roger Martin. Here are a few tips based on what I think we did right.

    Note: Table stakes for seed rounds are a good idea (in a massive market) and a killer team.

    1. Find your lead investor early.
    Most first-time founders I know make the same mistake. They think that fundraising is about convincing investors of the merits of your idea and the strength of your team. Unfortunately, that’s bullsh*t. Investors follow the herd. They care more about who else is investing than what you do as a company. When you start to fundraise, laser-focus on getting your first investor. Don’t go broad until you have your lead lined up.

    I met our lead investor the day we started fundraising. He is an icon in the financial services industry. We got him on board through a combination of special terms and appealing to him emotionally about building his industry “legacy”. It took 2 meetings over 1 week to get him to sign. Once he was in, it took 1.5 weeks to close the round.

    2. Your angel investors don’t have to be in tech.
    We closed our round with 14 angel investors, only 5 are from tech. The other 9 are from financial services. I see lots of entrepreneurs focus exclusively on local tech angels and VCs like those listed in this great post by David Crow. That’s a mistake. Look for successful entrepreneurs and executives in your industry – you’re likely to find a sizeable group of potential investors that actually know your business. A few industries with strong local investors include real estate, financial services, professional services, and healthcare.

    3. Most decks suck. Make yours good.
    A compelling deck is short, clear, and well designed. If you have a solid story (don’t forget the table stakes above), then tell it in 4-5 pages: (1) what you do, (2) market size, (3) team, (4) growth plan, (5, optional) competition. Here’s our pitch. You can also find great examples at bestpitchdecks.com. Keep it short, pretty, and exciting.

    4. Set a deadline.
    Fundraising has a nasty habit of dragging on. As soon as you have your lead investor, set a closing date (2-3 weeks out) and use that to drive urgency with other investors. You don’t have to stick to it, but you’ll find that things move way faster with a deadline.

    5. Put some money in yourself (if you can). It goes a long way.
    The Wealthsimple team were the first investors in our seed round. If you can afford it, investing in your own round goes a long way. It signals to investors that you are committed, aligned, and will be a responsible steward of their capital. Surprisingly few teams invest in their own rounds so it can also help you stand out.

    Let me know if you have any tips to add or want to discuss fundraising strategies – always happy to chat. You can reach me at [email protected] or @mkatchen

  • The children are our future

    We’ve been talking about how much support and infrastructure has changes for young entrepreneurs. When I graduated from the University of Waterloo, I did not know about startups. I looked at places like Interval Research Corporation, Xerox PARC, Advanced Technology Group as where new technology and innovative products were built and launched. When I thought about becoming an “entrepreneur”, it looked more like owning a sports store or being a consultant. I did not have role models or experiences that showed me the path to becoming an entrepreneur.

    I have been lucky to be a part of the creation of UW VeloCity. VeloCity happened because of a generous donation by Ted Livingston, the vision of Bud Walker and  the leadership of Jesse Rodgers. For me, VeloCity was that thing I wish I had as an undergrad, beyond the cooperative education. The simplicity and support that high potential growth, technology companies were something that I could do (sure I had a degree in Kinesiology, but I was building software on NeXT machines). I did not have context or exposure to founders and the “startup” mindset.

    It is great to see the support that IAF continues to offer Ontario entrepreneurs. The announcement of the Youth Investment Accelerator Fund is amazing. It was launched in 2013. We haven’t talked a lot about it as a funding source. But it is unique. The program invests up to $250,000 per company in technology-based startups founded by entrepreneurs under the age of 30.

    The program has announced it first investments that include:

    Go read Ian Hardy’s BetaKit piece for more details on the companies.

    I continue to be surprised at the level of support for Canadian entrepreneurs with the government programs. There are conversations that need to be had about the efficacy of the direct versus indirect investing and services model. And it seems like this is happening at many levels from the Venture Capital Action Plan. (This is a conversation that needs much social lubricant – bring on the whisky).

    I love seeing the changes and support of entrepreneurship as a career path with programs like UW VeloCity, Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone, UofT Creative Destruction Lab and others. The additional support of programs like the Youth IAF (and the IAF proper) where capital is deployed by real VCs to companies is fantastic.

    Keep up the good work Barry, Michelle, Scott, Jared, Rob and the whole team.

  • Syndicating Canada

    In 2013, Angel List launched its syndicates feature, a way for angel investors to pool their funds. By turning syndicates into a turn-key process, Angel List has made this fundraising option broadly available and drastically lowered the barrier to entry for individual investors. Unfortunately, this feature is only available to startups that have a US entity as part of their structure. Can we kick off the process of having more syndicates in Canada?
    (more…)

  • What is the problem accelerators are solving?

    There is currently a preoccupation with accelerators in the entrepreneur world resulting in a large increase in programs.  Arguably, the result of this frenzied growth is that ‘entrepreneurship’ is as commoditized as college. Unlike college, it is extremely hard to know which programs are adding value and which ones are wasting everyone’s time. This doesn’t mean investors aren’t in the know and they are favouring the programs they like – example, YC or TechStars.

    It could become (or has already become) virtually meaningless to be an accelerator born internet entrepreneur so why would you give up 6-12% of your company to do it? For investors it is really hard to cut through the noise. I think this is because few people actually know why accelerators exist at all. In some cases I fear that the people that are creating new ones aren’t likely clear on why they are creating these programs either.

    How does anyone know which ones work? What problem are they solving? What metrics should they be tracking in order to get better at what they are doing?

    Defining the problem(s) accelerators solve.

    There are three problems I think accelerators are trying to solve:

    1. Investors need to identify talent.
    2. Talent needs to find the right investors and coaches.
    3. Education system failure.

    The first is a relatively easy problem to solve. It is hard for investors to identify talent at an early stage, accelerator programs offer a filtering tool for investors as they can take the top talent that applies and narrow it down to those that have the highest potential based the criteria of the particular program. If an investor trusts the filtering job done by the accelerator than that accelerator is providing value.

    A suggested metric for this: measure how many alumni of a program receive funding, from what type of investor, and in what time span?

    The second problem that talented people and teams have is finding the *right* investors and coaches. By the right investor I mean someone that will give you enough money and coaching that you can slowly de-risk your startup a little more and build momentum as you grow towards being a sustainable business. Founders need coaches to apprentice under while they build their company. The right investor is someone who will put in enough of their own money and time and they can help you get your business through the major milestones it faces. This likely means that party rounds are bad. What I think should be the goal are 4-6 investors and/or an individual (not a VC) has a 1/2 to 1/3 of the total round.

    This should result in the person(s) who put in significant capital also have a board seat and have their sleeves rolled up ready/able to help.

    A suggested metric: track who put in the most personal money in the round and are they on the board of directors or some other significant role in the company? How much time a week/month do they spend with the founders?

    The failure in education is a much harder problem to solve. Is it the traditional silos that are limiting education or is it the expectation that you go to school to be trained for a job or a bit of both or something else? Is the failure the education system (K-12) or is it the students or both? In higher education you have environments that are designed to encourage independent thought that is backed by facts and thinking. You should be exploring and developing your networks.

    At no other point in your life will you be surrounding with that much leading edge research and thinking. Just because a school doesn’t hand you your first startup with funding and office space does not mean the education system is failing entrepreneurs!

    There is also already a process for very smart people to apprentice under others that have already developed their ability to take massive amounts of information and focus it on an outcome. It also happens to come with a filtering mechanism built right in that improves the likelihood that the person that finishes is relatively in the top few percent. It’s graduate school. The process is not perfect but it is a process that works.

    Educating people is hard. Coaching people is harder still. If an accelerator is going to solve the failure of the education system in educating entrepreneurs it should take that part very seriously and not dismiss the education system as having nothing to offer.

    A suggested metric: Does the accelerator have qualified educators and coaches that put in a significant amount of time (more than 1 hr a week) with each entrepreneur? Are there measurable outcomes expected on the entrepreneur? Are there consequences for not meeting expectations?

    Accelerators should be more than marketing to the entrepreneur and placing them in a zoo for the public to see them in action. Education is serious business and it is about people’s future. Entrepreneurs need to have realistic expectations and enter with a clear idea of what they want out of the opportunity.

    Everyone around accelerators is still learning about how to make them work and figure out for whom do they exist. It is an exciting time in education — just be sure to track stuff that matters while you run the experiments!

  • Dog Yogurt or Why angel invest in Toronto

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    [Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Chris Maeda LinkedIn . Full disclosure, Chris as he mentions in the article, was an investor in Influitive, a company I co-founded. Chris is the CEO of Brick Street Software and an active angel investor. He’s looking for deal flow and we will be hosting a series of Founders & Funders in Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver and a few other cities to connect those that start high tech, high potential growth companies with those that fund them. Subscribe to Founders & Funder$ notification list for updates. If you’re looking to connect with Chris, my advice, is to reach out to him on AngelList, but hey, it worked for me and I’m a sucker for patterns.]

    I’ve been an angel investor in Toronto since 2011.  Towards the end of the dot.com days, I traded my SOMA loft for a New Hampshire cottage, partly as a by-product of some public company M&A transactions.  I began investing with a New Hampshire angel group in the mid-aughts.  I like living in NH, but the deal flow you see there is quirky.  There weren’t very many software deals, and New Hampshire has a lot of trees and cows, so the angel group ended up looking at non-software deals, like online wood pellet distributors and dog yogurt manufacturers.  When I was hearing the dog yogurt pitch, I had a what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here moment of clarity and quit the angel group.

    Then two things happened.  First, my company, Brick Street Software, decided to set up a customer support center in Toronto so I started coming to Toronto for business on a regular basis.  Second, Influitive was advertising a round on AngelList.  I met the Influitive founders (Mark Organ and David Crow) and, after verifying that they were not planning to enter the dairy products business [Ed. Note: I have a dairy allergy so I’m kind of anti-dairy], I invested in their pre-venture rounds and joined their board.  I recently invested in a second Toronto company and am working on a third.  I’m starting to see patterns for why Toronto is great place to invest.

    1. Activity, talent pool, and competition:
      As I tell my American friends, Toronto is the New York and Los Angeles of Canada.  So almost everything that happens, happens in Toronto.  I’m sure I just ticked off a bunch of people outside of the GTA, but this is reality when viewed from the US.  The software talent pool is pretty good; there are lots of startups but everyone complains about a shortage of capital.  So this forces Canadian entrepreneurs to have a bootstrap mentality and means that valuations are not outrageous.  The seed funding bubble has come to Canada but its not as gassy as the US.
    2. Lots of public money and assistance:
      the US does not have SR&ED credits, IRAP grants, refundable HST, or the network of publicly-funded innovation centers that you find in Ontario.  A Toronto company that I’ve invested in has probably raised as much money in grants as it has from investors.  This means the Canadian government is reducing my dilution and (hopefully) goosing my investment returns.  Thanks, guys.
    3. Corporate customers are nearby:
      Many of the large corporate buyers are headquartered in Toronto.  I rode along on a sales call to a large Canadian company.  I usually have to get on an airplane for something like this; in Toronto I can take a cab.   I can even take transit if I’m not in a hurry.
    4. Better for international business:
      There are a number of little things that make Canada a good place for an international business hub.  For a variety of reasons, Canadian employees are less expensive than Americans, and the NAFTA treaty makes it easy for Canadian companies to expand into the US with minimal US headcount.  You can have bank accounts in foreign currencies (e.g. US Dollars and Euros). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Canadian market is so small that startups have to plan for international expansion from day 1.

  • Should you pay to pitch an angel group? What the data says

    tennis-serve-technique-pitchWe have seen a pretty amazing wealth of information about financing models and structures come to light in the last 10 years. It wasn’t that long ago that VC and Angel financing were dark arts which few entrepreneurs understood. We have always worked hard to demystify startup financing on StartupNorth and have done a long series of articles which was focused on shedding light on angel investing as an option for entrepreneurs which began in 2006.

    But the question we hear a lot is “Should I have to pay an angel group to pitch them?” 

    I’ll keep it simple: Generally the answer is No. By definition angel groups are made up of wealthy individuals who are happy to foot the bill to organize the group.

    For example a group might have 100 members all paying $1000 a year. That would mean that the angels themselves are fronting $100,000, which is generally enough to hire a part time (or even fulltime) director or organizer as well as to host the necessary meetings (sometimes members will donate space for the meetings as well or offer other services in-kind).

    But if you do have to pay, how much should you expect to pay?

    The Angel Capital Association provides direct guidance on this here.

    • 31 out of 81 angel groups surveyed charge fees.
    • Of the groups that charge, the range of fees is $175 – $750
    • with two outliers at $1,500 and $3,000, average = $580
    • average without outliers = $338

    We have surveyed all Canadian groups and with the exception of one of the outliers mentioned by the Angel Capital Association above, fees in Canada are at similar levels but are charged less often (closer to 25% of the time).

    We have only found two groups in North America which currently also charge a percentage fee (Both in Atlantic Canada, one charging 8% and the other charging approx a 1/2 percent to 2 percent) of the transaction, so generally speaking you will never have to give another fee or piece of the transaction over to the group. We have not completed our research on this and if we uncover any more we will share that data here.

    Our advice? Tell the angel group that you prefer to forego the fee completely. If they believe you have a great deal then a shrewd angel group will still want to get an opportunity to fund you. If they say “no way”? Then you have to decide just how serious you think THEY are.

  • If not an Angel Network, then what?

    back black swan shotDavid posted a pretty in-depth piece on the First Angel Network this week. This followed an awesome discussion on TechVibes about angel groups over the weekend. The structure and funding model for First Angel Network were a pretty big surprise to me when I moved to Halifax 3 years ago.

    Frankly it is pretty easy for us to write a post like David’s because the facts really speak for themselves: Millions of dollars from government sources are flowing in to finance what appears to be the exclusive personal gain of two individuals.

    $3000 + 8% is just not acceptable and what makes it even worse is that the 8% does not contribute to the growth or sustainability of the angel group in any way. ACOA and other agencies are the ones paying to maintain the group while the cream is skimmed off the top.

    My guess is that the First Angel Network will tell you that their model is normal and that it is on par with what is happening elsewhere. Simply put: it isn’t. It is artificially sustained, it is egregious and the model needs to be wiped out.

    Shortly after David’s post went live I had a call with one of the most active angel investors in Atlantic Canada. He’s someone I admire and who always seems to be a step or two ahead of my own thinking. When he speaks I try to listen (which means I have to stop talking. . .).

    He doesn’t have much love for a model which skims off the top either, but he’s pragmatic too.

    His question to me was: If not First Angel Network, then how do we keep money moving?

    Angel groups are not an easy thing: There are large groups of willing but relatively unsophisticated investors out there. They have to be marketed to, rounded up, fed a decent meal (usually) and encouraged to focus while a startup pitches to them for an hour or so total. Not easy and it certainly doesn’t have obvious economics for the organizer. It is a tough model no matter which way you slice it. The question is valid and it is something we need to think about a lot.

    The world of tech startups is, or should be at least, different in many ways however. I believe it HAS to be different.

    Sophisticated tech angel investors are accessible and they are ready to do deals almost anywhere. Value-add investors will, by definition, be accessible to the network and available to look at deals. We have a significant opportunity here in Atlantic Canada as well because we have some of the best angels in the country living and working here.

    The landscape is changing for seed investing in tech and I think we need to find new models which make more sense for a typical startup today.

    1. There are many individuals investing regularly in extremely early stage opportunities in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
    2. There is far more information available to entrepreneurs about financing structures and models than there ever has been before
    3. 10s of Thousands of investors are accesible via AngelList and other sources
    4. The ecosystem is larger than just these few provinces– we are easily connected in to what is happening in other communities.
    5. Legal and other fees should be minimal. Startups should be able to get a round closed for $5k with a max of $10 for a complicated and priced round.
    6. Early stage capital IS flowing in this part of the country from more formal funds such as OMERS, Rho, Real, Version One Ventures and others.
    7. There is a new fund coming online here which will be leading deals and syndicating with outside investors.

    Alternatives will emerge once there is a void to fill and I believe that capital will still flow to great opportunities, while we may have to watch some less awesome ones whither.

    There is a loose syndicate of angels emerging in this part of the country and from what I have seen they are all extremely high quality. It is a group made up of exited founders, successful investors and quality operators. THAT is who should be seeing deals and they do far more than 4 deals a year– dozens are getting done.

    In the end the challenge we have is not simply to tear down the old. The challenge is to take responsibility for building something that matters in the future and that will create more startups through a better model. I believe that First Angel Network’s model needs to change to become less predatory and more focused on creating value in the ecosystem, otherwise we need a new alternative to replace it.

    That is our job here and that is what will really make a difference.

    Right now we have the beginnings of an alternative:

    These are all founder-friendly and accessible routes to getting access to early stage capital. None of them take 8%.

    It’s not perfect, but we will get there.

  • Atlantic Canadian Founders Deserve Better Than FAN (First Angel Network)

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    Recently, I have had the pleasure of travelling to the East Coast and working with founders. I have seen the amazing companies and the founders across the region. Moncton, Halifax, Saint John, St. John’s and Charlottetown (among the varied cities). There are amazing companies like LeadSift (disclosure: I work for OMERS Ventures who is an investor in LeadSift), GoInstant, Verafin, Clarity.fm, Lymbix (disclosure: I sit on the Board of Directors), Introhive, InNetwork, Compilr and others.

    The region is bristling with great founders, great ideas and a lot of untapped talent. It also holds some amazing secrets like Toon Nagtegaal (LinkedIn) who runs a (also ACOA funded) program for startups that I have been lucky enough to be invited to co-teach (disclosure: this is a paid consulting gig). There are amazing people and companies across the Atlantic Region. It’s only a matter of time until there is another HUGE exit.

    However, the region also is a small community that has it’s own culture and politics. Those small town politics have allowed nepotism and crony capitalism to seep in and it has allowed terrible deal structures to be put upon unsuspecting founders and companies. This pisses me off!

    When we started StartupNorth we promised ourselves we would always stick up for founders and startups when it mattered. We continue to  support, educate and connect startups and founders with other founders, with capital, with new ideas and educational resources. We need to identify the BULLSHIT that is being allow to pass in Atlantic Canada as supporting entrepreneurs so that the amazing investors that are there don’t have to compete with a backwards and ill-conceived entity.

    First Angel Netowrk

    Who? I’m talking about First Angel Network (FAN). Why? Here is an example of the full deal they present to entrepreneurs:

    1. Startups apply to pitch the non-profit FAN which is funded and supported by ACOA and others.
      • Most of this funding goes to pay salaries as well as to cover travel expenses.
    2. If a startup is selected to pitch FAN, the startup must agree to pay $3000 to the non-profit  FAN.
    3. Startups MUST also sign a “Consulting Agreement” with a for-profit consulting company owned by Ross Finlay and Brian Lowe.
      • You can NOT pitch the non-profit UNLESS you sign the consulting agreement with the for-profit company.
    4. Startups then pitch the non-profit and if successful get a deal done
    5. If a deal is done, the consulting agreement gives the for-profit shell company and FAN organizers 8% of the total proceeds of the transaction
      • 4% in stock directly to Ross Finlay and Brian Lowe (not the consulting company, directly to the individuals)
      • 4% in cash to the consulting company

    This is so wrong! On so many different levels. This is worse than pay to pitch.

    Crony Capitalism

    The thing that pisses me off the most is that the most nefarious part of the process, the consulting company and payouts to individuals, is not listed on the FAN Funding Process page. We have individuals who collect a salary that is partially (if not completely) funded by a government agency (ACOA). First Angel Network Association received at least $1,123,411.00 in funding between 2006-2011 (nothing reported for 2012). That is an average of $224,682.20/year in funding, and that is just what we could source publicly.

    Getting paid by a government agency to source your own deals. Seriously, if you thought management fees were high, what about tax dollars going towards salaries of investors. They are using federal funding to source their own deals and cover expenses and salaries. Something is wrong here. Then they charge entrepreneurs for the privilege of their investment. Which someone already paid them to source. The cost of this capital is incredibly expensive to entrepreneurs taking this investment and to the region.

    Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs and startups deserve better than this.

    Do Not Pay to Pitch

    Startups should not pay angels or angel networks to pitch. Jason Calacanis wrote the definitive piece on why startups should not pay angel investors to pitch.

    “It’s low-class, inappropriate and predatory for a rich person to ask an entrepreneur to PAY THEM for 15 minutes of their time. Seriously, what is the cost to the party hearing the pitch? If you answered “nothing” or “the cost of two cups of coffee” you win the prize!”

    Jason eloquently describes why this doesn’t work. It is a imbalance between cash poor startups and rich investors. The imbalance is made worst by. We have been running Founders & Funder$ events. There is no imbalance. Everyone pays the same. Founders. Funders. We try to curate the audience to ensure that only founders actively raising money attend. We also invite a limited number of funders that are actively doing deals (criteria change based on angel investor versus institutional investors). We want everyone to be on equal footing.

    And there are a lot of startups and founders that will argue that Jonas, Jevon and I have strong track records (well at least Jonas & Jevon do) and even stronger networks:

    “Now, before you go saying “Jason is connected and he has access to angels” remember that I hustled my way into this industry from nothing. I networked at free conferences and figured out a way to get on the radar of uber-angels like Ted Leonsis, Fred Wilson and Mark Cuban. They paid attention to me because I had good ideas. If my ideas had sucked, they would have ignored me. Period.”

    Our goal has been to help connect and educate founders and startups. We continue to believe that it is not government agencies, or venture capitalists, or angel networks that will build the next generation of successful Canadian companies. It is the founders and the employees of these startups. It’s the big ideas and the big execution that result from the efforts of dedicated people. They are the ones who deserve a great deal, not some middle man.

    What can you do?

    1. Do not pay to pitch. Avoid groups like First Angel Network like the plague.
    2. Tell the people who fund FAN and other angel groups who have a pay to pitch model that you believe they should cut off funding.
    3. If you know an angel investor within an angel networks that make you pay to pitch like FAN, tell them what a bad deal they are getting and offer to connect them to great founders.
    4. Help fellow entrepreneurs by making introductions to qualified angels directly
    5. Explain to your peers that an investment by networks which make you pay to pitch, such as FAN, can only be considered as a means of last resort, and taking this money will affect your future funding opportunities negatively.
    6. List your startup on AngelList, our StartupIndex, Techvibes index and other places to get exposure FOR FREE to great investors

    Atlantic Canada is generating some of the highest returns in the country right now for angel investors. The community is small but very focused on big outcomes and it is really showing. I think it’s time to cut ties with this old model and to start giving the founders in Atlantic Canada a deal worth taking.

  • Mission Accomplished – StartupVisa Canada

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    Remember back in 2011 when I was xenophobic and wasn’t supporting Startup Visa? To the credit fo the incredible StartupVisa Canada Initiativea team, which I was lucky enough to join and support, the Federal Government is launching a new class of immigration visa with the participation of CVCA and NACO. Check out Christine Dobby’s summary from the press conference (it’s where all my statistics and data are from). Go read Boris Wertz’s story about Summify founders and the impetus for Startup Visa Canada.

    “We believe startups to be the driving force behind job creation and prosperity,” says executive director Richard Rémillard. “We need to be pro-active in attracting foreign entrepreneurs.”

    The new visa is replacing the old “entrepreneur class” visa, which required the applicant/immigrant to hire one person for one year. In 2011, the federal government issued approximately 700 of the old entrepreneur class visa. The government is making 2,750 visas, issued to immigrants based on selection and funding by venture capital investors. Immigrants receive immediate permanent resident status. Looks like a pilot program with a 5 year lifespan, with the opportunity to make permanent depending on uptake.

    Thinking by Zach Aysan (zachaysan)) on 500px.com
    Thinking by Zach Aysan

    My issues back in 2011 and previously, were not with the intent of the program. But in the proposed implementation details. One of the biggest assets, in my not so humble opinion, is the population diversity, with 46% of Toronto’s pouplation being foreign born. It is the creative tension between differing viewpoints that makes Canada an amazing place. The implementation of startup visa makes Canada an even more attractive place to recruit foreign born scientists, engineers and now entrepreneurs. I love it!