Laith Shukri is the Director for Platform Engagement at RBCx, where his role is to help early-stage companies grow and scale in Canada. To this end, he consults with various ecosystem stakeholders to identify ways that RBCx can best serve their needs as they scale. Laith is particularly passionate about using his background and talents to help founders their companies to the next milestone; his skills include providing feedback on pitches, business models, capital raising strategies, as well as fostering connections between Canada’s upcoming game-changers and the most influential peers, organizations and programs in Canada’s innovation ecosystem that can help set new ideas in motion.
Prior to joining RBCx, Laith served as the Senior Market Development Manager at SVB Canada, and ScaleUP Ventures, a Toronto-based VC fund. Earlier in his career, Laith worked at the DMZ, a leading accelerator for tech startups in Canada. During this time, he built the incubator’s capital program from the ground up, growing the investor network from 30 to 400 names and facilitated hundreds of curated 1:1 founder/funder connections. The program helped the DMZ become a go-to source and thought leader on how to build similar programming in other accelerators and hubs across Canada.