I had the privilege last night to attend the inaugural edition of founders and funders in Ottawa. Kudos to Allan Isfan, James Smith of Labarge Weinstein and The Ottawa Network. This was a great event and I made a number of very valuable connections. Thank you everyone, I appreciate how much work it is to put an event like this together.

Austin Hill is founder of Akhoa, Angel and Funders and Founders instigator Austin drove in from Montreal and was the keynote speaker for the event. I thoroughly enjoyed his talk. He mentioned that yes in fact the VC industry in Canada and undergone a contraction, however, this has in fact created a stronger more vibrant entrepreneur focused funding community. Basically most of those funders that survive and continue to fund in the current economic climate were in fact entrepreneurs themselves and understand and relate to the start-up challenges. What we have is a pool of friendlier money that will facilitate and build much stronger start-up community. Albeit a much smaller pool but one that will build leaner, stronger and better companies.

I like to think of this as a culling of the herd by the “greed is good” virus. Basically those funders motivated by the mantra of money at all costs, who take advantage of founders and are only concerned about the exit are becoming or have become extinct. I had never really thought about it with that lens on. A bit of the old “That what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”.

While I knew almost all of the start-ups there were quite a few funders that I was not aware of. After figuring out that the funders had $ on their badges they became a whole lot easier to spot.

A great event and kudos again to Allan, James and TON for organizing the event.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Start-up by Ian
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