Surge in Late Stage VC deals proves the point
Thanks to the good work of Kirk Falconer at PEHub, Canadian policy makers are getting an early look at the state of Canada’s innovation ecosystem, well before Finance Minister Bill Morneau puts pen to...
Tagged: business development bank of canada
"Access to Late Stage Capital" is not Canada's key innovation hurdle
The drums are beating, and members of the venture capital ecosystem recognize the sound. During the global financial crisis, Jean-René Halde, the recently retired activist CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada, convinced a naive...
Not so much a Blogging strike as a second guessing….
As my niggling concerns about the true utility of blogging grows, despite almost eight years of dutiful service, I’ve been negligent of late. The pros and cons of the entire exercise are becoming more...
90 days into its new Federal mandate, Northleaf goes off script
News report: Canada’s new “Venture Catalyst Fund” invests in $46M Wattpad deal I’m so utterly confused. For years, Canadian entrepreneurs and VCs begged Ottawa to get involved in arresting the multi-year decline in our...
Northleaf's Venture Catalyst Fund gets to work
Depending on your point of view, things are either going quickly or they’re not when it comes to the execution of the Federal government’s Venture Capital Action Plan. Announced formally in January 2013, the...
A Crown-owned Wireless Corp.? Perhaps the CEP Union is right.
Knee jerk reactions aren’t always the right ones. I initially scoffed at the suggestion by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) union that the Federal government should set up its own 4th national wireless...
The irony of the bank mortgage truce
Leave it to the Globe and Mail’s Boyd Erman to point out such a brutal irony to me. I just finished his article about the passive way that Canadians reacted to Finance Minister Jim...
C.D. Howe report recommends BDC mandate shake-up
Things take time, but with patience and sticktoitiveness, often you are rewarded. Another of those days has arrived as the C.D. Howe Institute has discovered what we’ve been preaching for years: the Business Development...
Without ambition, there can be no success
Does Canada have a start-up culture? Should governments be in the business of creating an environment of innovation and risk-taking? These were questions I was glad to see tackled by my morning newspaper over...
Feds on right path with Innovation ecosystem consultations
Hi. I’m from Ottawa and I’m here to help. As jokes go, it is a tired one, and usually followed by a sarcastic guffaw among friends at the start of any meeting involving the...
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