Archive for the ‘ Canada ’ Category
The Fall 2011 issue of PRIVATE CAPITAL Magazine was mailed out to CVCA members last week. And the electronic version has been posted on the CVCA home page and here is the link http://tinyurl.com/Private-Capital-Fall-2011 .
Enjoy!
Curated content – frst published by Eric Brooke, Startup Visa Canada
When polled 72% of Canadians stated that Canada needs to stay ahead of the US in attracting entrepreneurial talent and two-thirds of Canadians (66%) think the US have the right idea with the Start-up Visa Bill. *
The Canadian start-up visa campaign wants to upgrade the immigration program to make it easier for people who want to create science and technology companies in Canada by reducing the funding needed to enter the country on the conditions that they have Canadian investors and create new jobs within a couple of years.
Eric Brooke, a campaign spokesperson “The end result should be more jobs for Canadians, stronger economic growth and a larger number of science and technology companies in Canada both large and small”
“There is a opportunity here for Canada to get ahead of the game, as the US political system does not seem to have the collective will to take this issue by the throat and encourage technology or science entrepreneurs from other countries to create businesses and jobs in the US.
Boris Wertz, an investor and co-founder of GrowLab “ Its worth remembering that 52.3%** of start-ups in the Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants, with an effective start-up-visa program maybe we can convince foreign entrepreneurs and job creators to build their companies here in Canada instead of the US. We are already falling behind countries like Chile, Singapore and Britain who have already upgraded their programs, but I believe we can learn from their programs and make ours better.”
One of Canada’s’ leading venture capital associations (CVCA) is onboard with the idea. “The direct experience of a number of our member funds that have been launched by immigrants in Canada; these funds have made enormous contributions to our industry as well as to portfolio companies and to the economic well-being of Canada” said Chris Arsenault, Director at CVCA. “Our belief that we must promote a culture of entrepreneurship in order to successfully compete in the new global economy; Canada can become a beacon, attracting the best and the brightest from across the globe”
Danny Robinson, BC Innovation Council member, Entrepreneur and investor believes there is an opportunity for the provinces to step up. “It seems to me there is a possibility for one of the provinces to create a pilot using their Provincial Nominee Program (PnP). I believe the province that upgrades their PnP first will be able to pick the best entrepreneurs. ”
Notes
In a poll conducted by Vision Critical conducted on the Angus Reid Forum, earlier this year the following results were found:-
A large majority of Canadians believe Canada could become a real hub of entrepreneurial activity in North America with the right policies in place (86%) and 72% think Canada needs to stay ahead of the US in attracting entrepreneurial talent.
Two-thirds of Canadians (66%) think the US have the right idea with the Start-up Visa Bill being introduced, with 72% agreeing that it will attract entrepreneurs to the States and 70% seeing that there could even be a risk of attracting Canadian talent as a result.
Just over two-thirds (68%) would support a Start-up Visa being introduced in Canada. (Almost three-quarters of those with University upwards education, 74%)
The majority of Canadians agree that securing Canadian investment is a reasonable alternative to requiring large sums of money in personal funs, and approaching half, 44%, realise that most start-up entrepreneurs would not have $300,000 in personal funds as per current requirements.
Half of those with university education upward agree that current processing times are too long.
Three-quarters of Canadians believe that the entrepreneur should retain at least a third of the equity in the business.
** 52.3% is from the following report page 10 table 4
Curated content from Rick Nathan of Kensington Capital Partners, August 9th, 2010
Investors have been on a scary ride in the public markets through the past few days. With near back-to-back 500-point drops, all of the major North American stock market indexes have turned decidedly negative for the year to date. The historic S&P downgrade of US Government debt adds to the weight of worry on investors, alongside falling commodity prices and the continuing risks in Europe and Japan. Most investors have suffered from these rapid and severe declines in public markets.
Private equity investors have greater stability in their portfolios. Of course, all markets are affected by a weakening economy. And if access to capital becomes restricted, the effects will spread to private equity dealmakers soon enough. We saw this happen in 2007-2008, when banks stopped lending, public equity markets fell, and private equity firms found it difficult to buy businesses at realistic prices through 2009.
The correlation between public and private equities is indirect. Private equity portfolios will obviously be affected if the current market correction leads to a sustained period of lower valuations, or a new recession. But only after investors have connected this capital market activity back to the real economy. Private equity portfolios are not seriously affected by day-to-day gyrations in the public markets that do not lead to new economic conditions.
When public market turmoil does foretell a slowdown in the economy, the impact on private equity portfolios is typically muted. The chart below shows the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the Kensington Global Private Equity Fund measured against the major public market indexes in the period from August 2008 through July 2010.
Kensington Global Private Equity Fund vs. Public Market Performance
July 31, 2008 – July 30, 2010
As can be seen in the chart, the sharp declines in the public markets in September 2008 and following did not have as significant an impact on the Fund’s NAV. The values of private companies were re-set more gradually over subsequent months as it became clear that a recession had begun, with weaker prospects for sales and profits across the Fund’s diversified portfolio of more than 100 companies. During that period, the valuations of private companies declined, but nowhere near the levels reached at the depths of the public market panic.
Private companies are valued on Main Street, based on the real economy. Their prospects change with the economic cycle, but not every day or every minute. This can create a sharp contrast to the valuations of public companies established on Wall Street and Bay Street, so heavily influenced by rapidly changing market sentiment, program trading and other immediate distractions.
One reason for the different valuation approach is the lack of liquidity in the private markets. Investors cannot buy and sell at will, and so they see no need to continuously revalue their portfolios. When valuations are prepared, they are based largely on business fundamentals or completed corporate transactions (such as the sale of the company), which results in much less volatile pricing.
An allocation to private equity can therefore act as a shelter from stormy public markets, or at least as a shock absorber. Large institutional investors such as public pension funds have learned this lesson, and continue to increase their allocations in recent years, now in the range of 10% to 20% of total assets.
Individual investors can find similar shelter through a similar allocation to private equity in their own portfolios. A diversified private equity investment such as the Kensington Global Private Equity Fund can add real stability during times of market stress.
Of course, a diversified private equity portfolio such as the Kensington Global Private Equity Fund is not immune to public market fluctuations. Many private equity funds hold a small portion of their portfolios in publicly traded stocks, typically as a result of an IPO of one of their portfolio companies. For example, our Kensington Fund currently holds shares in a company that completed its IPO on the NYSE in June. These shares remain restricted under standard underwriters’ lock-up agreements for a six-month period following the IPO date. As a result, the Kensington Fund will experience some volatility based on this exposure. Public market stress may also reduce our ability to sell additional portfolio companies into the public markets for some time. However, since most of our portfolio companies are in the mid-market where company sales are primarily completed through strategic M&A transactions, this impact should be relatively less significant.
Curated content: first posted by By Heri on June 14th 2011 for Montreal Tech Watch
A new initiative entitled Startup Canada Campaign aims to “celebrate, inspire, & accelerate” Canadian entrepreneurship, with 2 main initiatives: fostering first discussions about canadian entrepreneurship, and provides a marketplace of support services for startups.
For the past year, we’ve seen around the world different initiatives. There was first StartupAmerica, an initiative by Barack Obama to support entrepreneurship, mainly by early-stage & innovation funds, as well as partnerships with proven programs like TechStars.
Another brilliant program is Startup Chile, which aims to propulse Chile into the 21st century. With open arms, Chile is inviting talent to come over & launch businesses, with funds to help the bootstrapping process. You can check out a video here to understand the motivation behind the program, and lots of hackers and entrepreneurs got the message by going there, even successful entrepreneurs based in California.
Startup Greece is another initiative led by the Greek government. It’s mainly a directory to help entrepreneurs “navigate” the troubling waters of greek entrepreneurship and how to do good business in Greece. It feels less empowering and less inspiring than Startup Chile or Startup america, but at least it’s an objective reference that you can consult regulalry.
On more questionable initiatives, Startup Britain was launched a few months ago. It’s a private initiative that was presented to inspire, support & accelerate entrepreneurship in the U.K., and it effectively got the support of the prime minister at its launch day. The program was heavily criticized though, since it was seen by many as a glorified link farm, i.e. nothing much more than few html pages pointing out to services and blog posts on the Internet. What was the added value? The step 4 in a series of steps to create your business was “Create a logo” (doh!). StartupBritain seemed to present only a very basic business crash course, which was too broad and wasn’t going far enough. The initiative was so laughable it inspired those two sites.
Now we’ve got Startup Canada campaign, which also aims to re-create the same Startup Britain initiative, as written in its about page. Only this time, it’s not supported (yet) by the Canadian government and as such, does not exist in a context of the U.K. government trying hard to help entrepreneurs start businesses in the U.K. So what does Startup Canada have? Unlike Startup America, there’s no investment fund. There’s no accelerator program like Startup Chile. Nor does it appear to have extensive ressources on how to launch a startup.
Of course, StartUp Canada is a nice idea and anything that spreads the word about entrepreneurship and the benefits it can provide isn’t entirely bad. But we do need more work that just mentioning Startup Britain or telling that you’ll aggregate links to partners. Or maybe I’m mixed up. I associate a startup with almost exclusively a tech-based, scalable, early stage business whereas this is for any type of business. Please help me understand StartupBritain.
Disclaimer: Heri owns doing enterprising.ly, a marketplace of service providers, to support tech projects
Ian Jeffery explains the value of FounderFuel from Heri on Vimeo.
Ian Jeffery, general manager of startup accelerator program founderfuel.com, summed up to me yesterday why you should join an accelerator program: it’s all about the networks and the connections.
Currently, it takes less and less resources to develop and launch a product. With $10,000, a startup team can take a few months to build a web or mobile app, and have enough to support an initial product launch. What matters though is access to markets, getting connected to network, or having first customers, and programs like FounderFuel can exactly do that: get your first foot into the door. FounderFuel has all the mentors you could need, such as successful entrepreneurs to mentor you in your startup process, executives to get deals, and access to investors. Moreover, Ian Jeffrey explains that those mentors will also introduce you to their network. And that’s something money can’t buy.Currently, it takes less and less resources to develop and launch a product. With $10,000, a startup team can take a few months to build a web or mobile app, and have enough to support an initial product launch. What matters though is access to markets, getting connected to network, or having first customers, and programs like FounderFuel can exactly do that: get your first foot into the door.
FounderFuel has all the mentors you could need, such as successful entrepreneurs to mentor you in your startup process, executives to get deals, and access to investors. Moreover, Ian Jeffrey explains that those mentors will also introduce you to their network. And that’s something money can’t buy.
The lesson here is that any entrepreneur (currently new or with an existing startup) can’t miss the FounderFuel opportunity. For those who were still hesitating, there’s only a few days left.
“We believe startups to be the driving force behind job creation and prosperity,” says [CVCA's] executive director Richard Rémillard. “We need to be more attractive to foreign entrepreneurs.” Thanks for supporting the Startup Visa Canada Initiative. It’s been about 5 months since we launched. During that time, the team has been busy reaching out to government officials, influencers and organizations across Canada to gather data and garner support for an alternative visa for entrepreneurs.
Here’s a quick update on our progress:
Chris Arsenault, iNovia Capital joins the Founding Team
Who’s In?
Supporting Organizations
Startup Visa Canada has also received some great coverage in CVCA Magazine, BC Business, Techvibes, StartupNorth and Hacker News. You can find links to more stories in the Press section on the Startup Visa website.
How You Can Help
- Tell your friends to endorse the Initiative, if they have not already done so.
- Tweet and blog about the initiative @startupvisaca
- Send your local MP’s a message with a link to the site and express your support for Startup Visa Canada
- Follow us on Twitter @startupvisaca and like us on Facebook
The Startup Visa Canada Team
By Chris Arsenault, Managing Partner iNovia Capital
I’ve been an active board member of the CVCA – Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association – for many years, with somewhat of a focus on helping make the annual main event a unique and uttermost valuable gathering of the minds that define our private capital industry.
I’m predicting that this year’s event will set new groundbreaking records. In fact, I think that this year’s event will break every record we have logged at the CVCA! And why you may ask? Because this year’s event speakers and attendees are made up of the most active and opinionated leaders in our industry.
We have the largest group ever of Limited Partners attending, coming from across North America, Europe and Brazil, which, in turn, is attracting practically every Venture & Private Equity Fund Manager and General Partner in the country.
This year’s Annual conference is being held from May 25-27th in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, at the Westin Bayshore.
The speaker lineup is amazing and includes:
Leo DeBever, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo)
Barry Gonder, Managing Partner, Grove Street Advisors, LLC
Doug Pearce, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC)
Maurício da Rocha Wanderley, CIO, Valia
Sebastien Burdel, Principal, Coller Capital Ltd.
Alan Hibben, Managing Director, Mergers and Acquisitions, RBC Capital Markets
John McCoach, President, TSX Venture Exchange
Andrew Rippy, Managing Director - Investment Banking, Pacific Crest Securities
Blair Cowan, Vice-President, Corporate Finance, CIBC
Vipon Ghai, Managing Director, Manulife Capital
Mark Jenkins, Vice-President and Head of Private Debt, CPP Investment Board
Greg Woynarski, Managing Director and Head of the Global Debt Capital Markets Group and Global Co-Head of Credit Capital Markets Group, Scotia Capital
Chris Arsenault, Managing Partner, iNovia Capital Inc.
Jeff Clavier, Founder and Managing Partner, SoftTechVC
John Ruffolo, Senior Vice-President and Head of Knowledge Investing, OMERS
Boris Wertz, CEO, W Media Ventures
Frank Dennis, President and CEO, Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company
Brett Hodson, President and CEO, Corix Group of Companies
Peter Luit, President and CEO, Livingston International
Tim April , Managing Director, Fund Investments, BDC Venture Capital
Jacques Bernier, Managing Partner, Teralys Capital
Jennifer Brooy, Vice President and Head of Equity, Export Development Canada
Melissa McJannet, Managing Director, Northleaf Capital Partners
Todd Tessier, Vice President, BC Renaissance Capital Fund
Stephen Dent, Partner, Birch Hill Equity Partners
Kelly DePonte, Partner, Probitas Partners
Aaron Gershenberg, Managing Partner, SVB Capital
David Henderson, Managing Director , XPV Capital Corporation
Tim Kelly, Partner, Adams Street Partners
Susan Long McAndrews, Partner, Pantheon
Dave Mullen, CEO and Head of Private Equity North America, HSBC Capital (Canada) Inc.
Deanna Brown, CEO, Federated Media Publishing Inc.
Matt Klainer, Business Development Manager , Google
Michael Shim, Vice President, Mobile Partnerships, Groupon
Jim Orlando, Managing Director, OMERS Private Equity
Scott Stedman, Partner, The Yucaipa Companies
Gary Rubinoff, Managing Director, Summerhill Venture Partners
Chris Wormald, Vice President – Strategic Alliances, Research In Motion
Paul Deninger, Senior Managing Director, Evercore Partners
Jennifer Morais , Senior Principal, Funds and Secondaries, CPP Investment Board
Jim Pittman, Vice President, Private Equity, PSP Investments
Rakesh Saraf, Portfolio Manager, Private Investments, Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund Board
Lincoln Webb, Vice President, Private Equity & Infrastructure, BC Investment Management Corporation
Miguel Ferreira, Head of International Markets, Tarpon
Tim Formuziewich, Managing Partner, Brookfield Brazil
Miguel Perrotti, President, Invest Tech
Maurício da Rocha Wanderley, CIO, Valia
Duncan Littlejohn, Managing Director for Latin America, Paul Capital Partners
Michael Woolhouse, Senior Principal, Private Investments, CPP Investment Board
Sidney Chameh, Chairman, ABVCAP Founder and Partner, DGF Investimentos
Martin Pose, Partner, TozziniFreire Advogados
David Snow, Founder & CEO, Privcap
Bing Gordon, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Don Mattrick , President, Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft
Neil Young, CEO, Ngmoco
Stephen Todd Walker, Managing Director, Oppenheimer & Co., and Author of ‘Wave Theory for Alternative Investments’
And yes! The rumors were well-founded. Entertainment before the traditional Scotch Tasting Evening on the 26th will be provided by none other than “Great Canadian Entrepreneur and Entertainer Howie Mandel”
HOWIE MANDEL
Howie Mandel, one of the biggest names in comedy, will entertain us after dinner. Howie Mandel has remained a constant force in show business for over 30 years. This summer he embarked on his latest endeavor as a judge on NBC’s hit talent competition series “America’s Got Talent” alongside Sharon Osborne and Piers Morgan. Howie recently received an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Reality/Competition Host” for “Deal or No Deal” and a Daytime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Game Show Host” for the syndicated version of the show.
So if you are not registered and are looking for “the place to be” later this month, then LINK TO CONFERENCE WEB SITE, SPEAKER LIST & AGENDA and register today – we are almost sold out!
See you in Vancouver!
Curated content: Posted by Chris Arsenault of iNovia Capital, February 25, 2011
Come join us for AccelerateMTL on March 31st The C100, iNovia Capital, Real Ventures and BDC Venture Capital have collaborated to bring the Montreal tech entrepreneur community a major event about the “What” and the “How” of building successful tech companies at high speed.
The event kicks off at 2:00 pm with “Do More Faster: Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup”, a keynote and open Q&A session with Brad Feld, co-founder of Techstars and Managing Director of the Foundry Group, investor in Zynga.
Brad will be followed by a panel of leading C100 seed investors and VCs from the US and Canada who will share what they think it takes to get their money and build world class companies from your own backyard.
Not to be missed is the final portion of the program – keynotes from Dave McClure, the Founder of 500 Startups, and Howard Lindzon, Founder of Stocktwits – to be followed by an interactive Q&A with both Dave and Howard.
We also adding the second floor with tables as a business “office hours” area, allowing investors, entrepreneurs and C100 chartered members to hold one-on-one meetings.
Come join us to mingle and network with entrepreneurs, VCs and angels who’ve done it and want to support the next generation of great Canadian entrepreneurs.
Note: We will also be announcing the CIX Accelerator winning Montreal Entrepreneur that will be attending the Silicon Valley based Plug and Play Technology Center for three months
**Doors open at 1:00 pm – come early!**
And for all of you interested in coming to the following day AccelerateMTL Ski Day register HERE
Curated Content: First posted by Arshia Tabrizi on Wed, January 26, 2011 for TechVibes
So for the longest time the problem in Canada was phrased as follows: we are great at R&D but we can’t commercialize or build products that can generate revenue from that R&D.
Much money and effort was spent on figuring out ways to help move R&D from our universities and hospitals into the marketplace. To that effect, in Toronto, we saw the establishment of MaRS (of which coincidentally I’m a fan and supporter), and later MaRS Innovation, and the reorganization of much of the tech transfer offices across the GTA.
We also saw the establishment of brave new early stage venture funds, like Extreme Venture Partners and Rogers Ventures, who are not scared of jumping in “early” and taking a risk on early stage companies.
Over the past year, we observed some nice exits, such as Sysomos (bought my MarketWire), CognoVision (bought by Intel), and Bump Top (bought by Google).
This is great everyone said… we will be the next Silicon Valley (see Toronto Life cover article in November 2010, and letter to editor from yours truly in response in December issue).
Hold on now. We have shown we can spin out technologies from universities (coincidentally all the above companies were spun out of the same lab in the computer science department at UofT)… and our ecosystem has matured… and so have our entrepreneurs… but we are not scaling our businesses.
While entrepreneurs and fund managers are making good multiples on their exits (and many are friends, so I’m delighted for them!), we need to scale our companies if we ever plan on building the next RIM or Nortel on home soil. Otherwise, we will have become experts at commercializing R&D but not at building businesses.
That will require 2 ingredients: later stage venture capital and a focus on building scalable businesses (i.e. acquiring customers and selling products and services to generate revenue).
We can only then start to build a critical mass of innovation and truly contribute to Canada’s economic development and the establishment of a thriving knowledge industry.
by Chris Arsenault, iNovia Capital
I had the pleasure of meeting Miriam Varadi, author of Merchants of Enterprise, in 2008 and had the pleasure of participating in her research on the Canadian Private Equity landscape. Since then, the book has been doing extremely well, and continues to be the basis of on-going discussions on the subject across Canada and the USA.
Most recently, the Goldman Sachs/Facebook deal generated heated discussions and placed private equity front and center again. Miriam feels that this Facebook deal is a victory for private over public markets. Here is what she had to say in a recent BNN interview:
Merchants of Enterprise, Private Equity in Canada: The Color and Controversy is the first Canadian book to take you behind the scenes and expose the inner workings of our private equity industry. This book is all the more authoritative because she gained on-the-record access to many of the biggest dealmakers in the field.
The book’s goal is to demystify private equity by creating more public awareness, to educate and to inform. The lack of transparency in the past has lead to worrisome trends in regulation abroad. The aim here is to create openness in this area, which inspires dialogue and trust.
This easy to understand book will be of interest to professionals, entrepreneurs, investors and their advisors. Since the publication of the book, Ms. Varadi has acted as a spokesperson on private equity topics and given interviews on BNN and CBC. She also moderated a private equity panel discussion at Rotman’s Business School.
You can get a copy of Merchants of Enterprise at Chapters online.
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