Depuis des années, c’est le prix le plus convoité du Startupfest. Nous réunissons un groupe d’anges investisseurs remarquables pour réaliser cet investissement. Rencontrez les juges de 2020 ici :
La majorité des biographies sont disponibles en anglais uniquement.
Heather Adelson
| Ms. Adelson has been investing in growing companies for the past 30 years. With over 15 angel investments over the past 8 years, as well as investments in numerous funds and funds of funds, Ms. Adelson’s contributions to the startup community have touched nearly every industry in the Quebec startup ecosystem. With a degree in Commerce from McGill, Ms. Adelson brings her skills in finance, strategy and behavioural elements of business into every deal she explores. |
Her ability to identify critical success factors and obstacles have led her to a career of interesting investment opportunities and ongoing business relationships.
A consummate “student of investing”, she keeps current with the latest business and technological developments, hones her analytical skills and polishes her professional skepticism through attendance of trade conferences, reviewing business plans and communication with various professional advisors. She is an active member on several boards of both for profit businesses and non-for profit organizations.
Ms Adelson is extensively involved in philanthropic ventures, an area close to her heart. She always seeks opportunities to use her skillset and relationships to amplify the efforts of socially minded organizations. Ms. Adelson has been recognized for these efforts as the recipient of several awards highlighting her invaluable contributions to society.
Francis Baillet
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Francis Baillet was Vice President of Human Resources at Ubisoft Divertissements from 2007 to 2013. Since April 2013, Francis is Vice President, Corporate Affairs. The organization currently employs over 5,000 people in its studios in Canada: Montreal, Quebec, Saguenay, Piedmont, Halifax, Toronto and Winnipeg. Francis has twenty years of experience in human resources management. He was Vice President, Human Resources and Corporate Affairs at Bell Business Solutions (previously known as Nexxlink Technologies). |
He also was Director of Global Compensation for North America at Rexel, Director of Benefits at Westburne and a pension consultant at Towers Perrin.
Francis is a board member of Conseil du patronat du Québec, Montréal International, KnowledgeOne, Entertainment Software Association of Canada, Alliance numérique and The 7 Fingers Foundation.
Cary Goldwax
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Now a veteran Judge at the festival, Cary has been working for over 25-years to bring companies to the next level as a hands-on Angel Investor, seasoned C-Level Executive, active Board Member and a very outspoken accelerator program Mentor. After co-founding and successfully bringing Web APM company Coradiant to exit, he’s managed several prosperous ventures, including Stack8, where he currently leads operations for the global leader in Unified Communications solutions. |
He has over 300 million dollars in exits under his belt and is a strong proponent of boosting Canada’s tech scene on the world scale.
Nathalie Marcoux
| Nathalie Marcoux, CPA is vice-president of Capinabel inc, a private holding company, since 2001. Mme Marcoux is president of the advisory committee of HEC’s Remi Marcoux Entrepreneurial track and a member of the advisory committee of Tandemlaunch. Since 2014, she has been a member of many juries such as the one of Startupfest, of 25 Emerging Entrepreneurs supported by the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation at C2 Montreal and of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year. |
Phil Telio
| Phil may have an engineering background, but this seasoned entrepreneur got a taste of the startup world fresh out of university. His journey started in the early 90s pre-internet era when he joined Public Technologies Multimedia—a startup that grew from a handful of people, to hundreds of people in just a few short years. Although he launched his career as a programmer, Phil was quickly drawn into the business side of startups and has pursued this vocation ever since. |
From PTM he joined Locus Dialogue, who was eventually bought by InfoSpace (another startup that grew quickly).
In 2003 Phil decided to start his own chapter with Embrase, a business-consulting firm centered on bringing innovation to the enterprise market. Despite his 20+ years of executive experience driving strategic business development, his heart was always in startups so he created a series of events that have now come to be the largest events in Canada for entrepreneurs. Phil is also a board member of the Osmo Foundation and is the President and Chairman of the Montreal Startup Foundation. As the Founder of Startupfest, and the Elevator World Tour, Phil has invested in every one of the investment prizes- including Paris, and Tel Aviv.
Gary Pudles
| Gary A. Pudles is a “serial entrepreneur” who focuses on helping organizations execute better and become more profitable all while having fun. He is the Founder and CEO of AnswerNet, and the co-founder of TextGen, SA Billing, Splendtastic, and Subout. He is a winner of the SmartCEO Best-Run Companies award and the prestigious “Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year” for business service providers and has led AnswerNet to the 21st spot on the Inc. 500. |
He also teaches Entrepreneurship at the University Of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School Of Business and is a regular participant in Startup Camp and the Intl’ Startup Festival.
Pudles’ philosophy is that every project he is involved in must be with the intent of helping companies run their businesses more efficiently and profitably. However, it must be according to their unique style – not by forcing them into a predetermined template, but by replicating proven processes and adding that custom twist unique to their needs.
Michele Bertrand
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Véritable passionnée et forte de son expérience en direction de projets pour des comptes majeurs depuis 2001, Michèle Bertrand fonde BLVD Agence Créative en 2011. Spécialisée en marketing, communications et événementiel dans le domaine corporatif, l’agence compte parmi ses clients : Embrase, Coca-Cola, Devimco Immobilier, Bud Light, Les Alouettes de Montréal, Charton-Hobbs, Budweiser et plusieurs autres. |
Son rôle d’Associée, Leader Opérations et son goût pour les défis permettent à Michèle de chapeauter plusieurs projets en parallèle avec une main de maître, en faisant une professionnelle incontournable du domaine, à l’écoute des besoins de ses clients et de leurs enjeux.
En parallèle de ses activités, elle devient professeure pour l’AEC en organisation d’événements et de congrès pour l’ITHQ où elle a été initialement formée, et fait profiter de ses connaissances et de son expérience aux étudiants de la promotion 2019.
Son approche créative et pragmatique, son sens de la rigueur, sa capacité à s’entourer de partenaires expérimentés et son dévouement sans faille pour ses clients permettent à Michèle et son agence d’aller au-delà des attentes en se réinventant sans cesse.
Josh Felker
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Josh is the founder and managing partner at BoxOne Ventures, an asset management firm whose VC activities are focussed on early stage companies across several sectors including fintech, applied ML/AI, synthetic biology/biotech, crypto/decentralized finance. Prior to BoxOne, Josh Felker was the co-founder of the Montreal based proprietary trading firm Vigilant Global. A leader in the most latency sensitive and technology driven areas of trading, Vigilant was an early pioneer in the use of FPGAs and wireless communication technologies in financial markets. |
Vigilant was acquired by proprietary trading firm DRW Trading in 2012. As partner at DRW, Josh helped oversee a highly diversified global trading firm spanning liquidity provision operations, risking-taking/directional trading, real-estate, venture investing as well as cryptocurrency trading.Josh has a degree in Genetics from Western University and is a father of three.
Beshoy Sidrak
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Beshoy Sidrak is a University of Toronto graduate with a degree in Management & Information Technology. In 2016 he got his first opportunity to start investing in Canadian startups and has been doing it ever since. In early 2020 he formalized his practice by establishing Lo Ventures, with the goal of making pre-seed and seed investments in early stage B2B, ICT companies. In particular, cross-industry AI, IoT and Blockchain projects. |
Notable Angel Investments: Kepler Communications, Ledn
Tuyen Vo
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Tuyen Vo travaille avec des entrepreneurs prospères depuis près de 20 ans. Cadre chevronnée en banque commerciale, en financement des moyennes entreprises et en services bancaires technologiques, Tuyen s’est jointe à la Banque Nationale du Canada en février 2019 à titre de directrice générale et chef – Technologie et Innovation. Son équipe est spécialisée dans l’adaptation de solutions de financement non dilutif et de gestion de trésorerie aux startups en croissance rapide et aux entreprises matures dans tous les pôles du paysage de l’innovation au Canada. |
Avant de se joindre à la BNC, Tuyen a travaillé dans deux autres grandes banques canadiennes, où elle a occupé des postes de direction au sein des divisions aux particuliers et entreprises. Elle est très fière des équipes solides et engagées qu’elle a bâties en cours de route.
Tuyen détient un diplôme en finance de HEC Montréal, incluant un passage à l’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Pô).
Tuyen est impliquée dans de nombreuses causes alignées sur ses convictions en matière d’éducation, de lutte contre la pauvreté et d’intégration des immigrants. Ayant vécu sur trois continents, Tuyen parle couramment trois langues et peut commander un verre dans cinq autres.
Jamie O’Hara
| Grise Global actively seeks investments across a wide mandate. Other investments include Montreal based WAVO, GuestDriven, Bus.com, and Toronto based OneClass. Jamie is a Patron of the Signature Theatre Company and an active fundraiser for the Mount Sinai Hospital Benefit Committee, NYC. |