Allan Isfan of Favequest has taken up the challenge of connecting “the people that start companies, and the people that fund them” in Ottawa. This is the fourth regional venue. We’ve hosted events in Montreal and Toronto. The Communitech team is hosting a Founders & Funders in Waterloo on October 9, 2008. Ottawa is the next to pick up the torch.

Founders & Funders is a social event. It was conceived by the awesome Austin Hill and the preeminent Patrick Lauzon in Montreal. The goal was to provide a social setting to help bring the people that start companies and the people that fund them together. This is not a pitch event. It is an opportunity to find out who is doing and funding what in your region.

What is Founders & Funders?

Founders & Funders is a social event aimed bringing together the people that start the next big successful company with the people that fund these companies in their earliest stages. The event is social. It is not a pitch fest. It is not a DemoCamp. It is an opportunity to meet other entrepreneurs and funders in your local community. The goal is to help facilitate opportunities for people to meet, share and build relationships that will grow into the NEXT BIG THING.

Founders and Funders is dedicated:

• to helping Canadian entrepreneurs to meet each other;
• meet potential funders: angel, VC or other money sources;
• to have fun;
• and see how we can help each other create the NEXT BIG successful company.

How do I get involved?

The event is "by invitation only’ and is limited in terms of availability. Please send Allan Isfan allan.isfan@favequest.com a note and let him know why you should participate. You will be contacted no later than October 20 with a confirmation, payment details and location.

I’ve been working with the fantastic of folks (Kevin Tuer, Iain Klugman, Gary Will and the team at Communitech) to get a Founders & Funders event to happen at Entrepreneur Week. The event is sponsored by Communitech, Microsoft and TechCapital.

What is Founders & Funders?

Founders & Funders is a social event aimed bringing together the people that start the next big successful company with the people that fund these companies in their earliest stages. The event is social. It is not a pitch fest. It is not a DemoCamp. It is an opportunity to meet other entrepreneurs and funders in your local community. The goal is to help facilitate opportunities for people to meet, share and build relationships that will grow into the NEXT BIG THING.

Founders and Funders is dedicated:

• to helping Canadian entrepreneurs to meet each other;
• meet potential funders: angel, VC or other money sources;
• to have fun;
• and see how we can help each other create the NEXT BIG successful company.

How do I get involved?

The event is “by invitation only’. The easiest way to get invited is to send Kevin Tuer – kevin@communitech.ca a note explaining why you should participate.

Jevon MacDonald and I are please to announce the second Toronto Founders & Funders dinner on June 4, 2008.

The inaugural Toronto event sold out. And we’re expecting this event to reach capacity very quickly.

We are limited to 100 seats. The fee for the dinner is $100 which will include drinks and dinner.  This is a private networking event and we are selecting the audience to ensure a quality group of attendees. And to provide the best chance to network together.

How do I get an Invite?

If you would like to attend the dinner, please fill out the following form and let us know who you are.

We will be contacting those invited with details on the registration and attendance details for the dinner in the coming weeks.

Special Guest - Dan’l Lewin

We’re incredibly lucky to have Dan’l Lewin scheduled to be in attendance (Dan’l is the Corporate Vice-President, Strategic and Emerging Business Development for Microsoft). Check out GigaOM’s interview with Dan’l where he talks candidly about his role in Microsoft and how Microsoft works with other emerging technology companies.

Dan’l Lewin is corporate vice president of Strategic and Emerging Business Development, responsible for managing worldwide strategic business relationships with venture capitalists and emerging venture-capital-backed businesses, as well as managing the business relationship with leading global industry partners such as SUN, Adobe, Intuit and BEA to ensure their applications interoperate with and run well on the Microsoft platform – for the benefit of the companies’ common customers. Lewin is based at Microsoft’s Mountain View, Calif. campus.

A 25-year Silicon Valley veteran, Lewin was most recently CEO of Aurigin Systems Inc., an enterprise software company focused on intellectual property asset management. He also spent 18 years as an executive, leading sales and marketing divisions for companies including Apple Computer Corp., NeXT Inc. and GO Corporation. In addition, Lewin has served as a consultant for emerging companies, venture capital firms and corporate joint ventures.

Lewin holds an A.B. in politics from Princeton University.

Sponsors

We’re working with a number of great organizations to sponsor the event.

• Microsoft Canada
• Atlas Venture
• General Catalyst Partners

If you would like to sponsor this event or other Founders & Funders events across Canada please feel free to contact David Crow or Jevon MacDonald.

Patrick Lauzon and I are pleased to announce that we are going to be holding the second Montreal Founders and Funders dinner on the evening of May 14th.

To help expand the community of people we can be invited, we are opening up a registration system for invites allowing anyone who is a founder, angel investor or VC investor to register for an invitation.

We are limited to 100 seats for the dinner. The fee for the dinner will be $100 which will include drinks and dinner.  This is a private networking event and we select the audience to ensure a quality group of attendees have a chance to network together.

Given the interest we received after the first event and the fact that we won’t be able to invite everyone who has expressed interest to the dinner. As a result we are also going to be hosting an after dinner open cocktail networking (A nice roof top terrace party). The networking event will cost $20 and include two drink tickets.

Attendees to the dinner will be able to attend the networking event. The networking party afterwards is open to anyone interested in the technology community in Montreal (not just Founders & Funders).

All profits from the event will go to support Barcamp events in Montreal.

How to Get An Invite

If you would like to attend the dinner, or the networking event after the dinner please fill out the following form and let us know who you are.

We will be contacting those invited with details on the registration and attendance details for the dinner in the coming weeks.

We will also be announcing the great sponsors who are supporting us throw the event.

If you would like to sponsor this event or other Founders & Funders events across Canada please feel free to contact Austin Hill or David Crow.

The inaugural Founders & Funders went off without a hitch. It was a fantastic evening. It wouldn’t have been possible without our sponsors, thank you very much Microsoft and JLA Ventures, the event wouldn’t have happened without their support.

Jess and Chris from Istoica snapped a fantastic pictures of the event and the attendees. The gallery from Founders & Funders event is available. Maybe we should do a set of hockey cards of Founders & Funders. On the back of each card it could have stats like amount raised, fund size, number of deals, etc. Until then, check out the pictures from Istoica.

The goal of Founders & Funders is to create a social environment where the people who fund companies and the people who start companies can begin conversations outside of the pitch. As an attendee, I’ll extend an invitation to connect you with any other attendee you might have missed.

Thank you for making the inaugural Toronto Founders & Funders a success. We look forward to hosting another event later in 2008.

Cheers,
David & Jevon

Monsoon
100 Simcoe Street
Toronto, Ontario

(Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps)

I really don’t want to miss out on hearing from all of you, even if you can’t make it to Toronto for the dinner tonight, so I thought I would post the questions we will post tonight at the dinner. Please comment below with your thoughts on the state of funding in Canada. Answering these questions isn’t a requirement at the dinner, but we wanted to set the tone of the discussion to focus as much as possible about what we can do to change things in Canada.

• Do Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists get enough recognition for the deals they do in Canada?
• Do Canadian universities inspire and support entrepreneurship? Could a “Startup Co-Op” program help?
• What is the minimum amount of funding a startup should be able to deliver a product with?
  
• Is the Dragon’s Den the most visible face of Canadian Entrepreneurship right now? What is wrong with that?

Some of these questions may change by tonight depending on the answers we get.

Head over to StartupNorth to respond or to suggest another question.

Rick has led the charge calling for disruption in the venture capital community. Rick has provided detailed documentation on the venture funding process and continues to have “No Harm, No Foul” meetings with entrepreneurs to provide feedback on the idea, the revenue model and the customers. The “30 minute no harm, no foul” meetings are a great way to learn about how a VC thinks about your company, the problem space you’ve chosen and your solution.

JLA Ventures invests in Internet, digital media, e-commerce, communications security, mobile computing, and enterprise software companies. Portfolio candidates typically possess superior technology, a sustainable competitive advantage, and exceptional growth prospects.

Our investments range in size from $500,000 to $10 million, with an initial investment normally being between $2 million and $5 million. As active, multi-stage investors, we provide long-term capital for growth purposes.

JLA Ventures portfolio includes

• Iloverewards
• b5media
• PlanetEye
• QuickPlayMedia
• ZipLocal
• SIRIT
• Truition Marketplace Solutions
• Tungle
• Fun Technologies
• and others

Appetizer, choice of:

• seasonal daily soup
• baby greens in pappadum cup with yuzu vinaigrette and seedlings

Main course, choice of:

• organic “firecracker” chicken supreme with azuki forbidden rice and tiger lilly buds
• beef tenderloin on garlic chive mash and tosa-zu king oyster mushrooms
• arctic char with wild mushrooms and e-fu longevity noodles
• vegetarian option - butternut squash gnocchi
  

Dessert

• monsoon dessert platter – chefs’ daily creation

• Chris Sukornyk, Kaboose, Inc.
  In between startups
  Evaluating ideas. Currently VP Product Development at Kaboose Inc. Formerly founder of BubbleShare (sold in 2007) & founder of Fivelimes (sold in 2007).
• Leila Boujnane & Paul Bloore, Idée, Inc.
  Expansion
  Idée is the first company to introduce an image monitoring service allowing image providers to track where their images appear in print and online.
• Steve Hulford & Chris Becker, Filemobile
  12 employees, 21 clients and almost a million in revenue
  Filemobile is a media management platform, providing tools to enable social media to big brands, media companies and advertising agencies.
• David Gratton, Project Opus Technologies
  Heritage Canada and Friends & Family funded. Product launch spring 2008.
  Project Opus builds non-DRM technologies that enhance the value of recorded music, giving consumers a desire to purchase digital music.
• Stuart MacDonald, TripHarbour
  Will be in to beta in Q1 2008.
  Tripharbour.com connects you to your ideal cruise holiday with the web’s first combined cruise community and cruise planning/booking site.
• Robert Dunlop, Flavour Technology
  We are embarking upon many exciting projects – all require funding.
  We have transitioned our business over the past year to become a BUSINESS INCUBATOR for several start-up organizations.
• Jay Goldman, Radiant Core
  Angel Seeking
  World’s best web shop with great clients, starting to build our own brilliant products.
• Scott Murrary, Organization Metrics
  We are a classic restart
  Our software enables organizations to ensure they have the right talent in the right place at the right time
• Albert Lai, StillinStealthMode
• Robin Gambhir, OpenBlue Networks
• Jeremy Wright, b5media
• Mark Ruddock, Viigo
• Derek Szeto, Redflagdeals.com
• Bogdan Chmielewski, SweetCaesar
• Brad Stewart, PayMail
• Tom Purves, WirelessNorth