You’ve got 5 hours on the afternoon of Thursday, July 10th, to wow just one of these Investment Prize Judges. You can find them in the Investor tent in our tent village from 12-5pm, or track one of them down onsite (identifiable by a bright blue lanyard). You only have to sell one of them by end of day, to be shortlisted for the prize. If you’re a chosen one- you’ll be invited for a private meeting with all of the judges to help them deliberate. End of day Friday, July 11th, one startup will be awarded the $100k investment prize (currently at $90K).
Meet the Investors
Anna Goodson
CEO & Founder of Anna Goodson Illustration Agency (AGIA)
Anna Goodson is the CEO & Founder of the Anna Goodson Illustration Agency, a contemporary creative boutique representing some of the most prominent illustrators from around the world. Founded in 1996, AGIA has a proven track record of expertise that has served the visual market well. AGIA works with leading advertising agencies, design firms, magazines, publishing and newspapers from around the globe. In the spring of 2010, Anna launched The MEATMARKET™, a place to hook up with the very best in the International Photography Industry. Prior to launching AGIA, Anna worked 5 years in Advertising. She started her business career at the tender age of 19 while doing her BFA at Concordia University and working part time at her father’s printing agency company. Anna’s father and grandfather were both entrepreneurs and her grandmother was in sales in 1925. Anna thinks that being an entrepreneur is in her blood and looks forward to founding and investing in other business in the future.
Phil Telio
Founder and Producer of the International Startup Festival and President at Embrase
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.
David Chamandy
Senior Director, Investments at Machkor Capital
David is an entrepreneur who co-founded internet dating site Lavalife -arguably the world’s first iteration of the modern day social network- in 1986 in Toronto, Canada. Upon exiting Lavalife in 2004, he co-founded Darwin Dimensions Inc., a Montréal based CG developer of the web-based EVOLVER avatar generator for the online game and feature film industries and later sold to Autodesk Inc., in summer 2011. In 2007, David began moonlighting as an active angel investor and currently serves as the senior Director of Machkor Capital., a seed and early stage venture capital fund headquartered in Montréal that includes Beyond the Rack, Buyosphere and Gamerizon Studios among its holdings. Machkor invests in emerging, internet, mobile and enterprise based start-ups in Canada and the United States but can also invest opportunistically beyond these parameters. David currently sits on the Board of independent casual game developer Gamerizon Studios Inc., and on several Boards of Advisory including Montreal based seed stage venture fund Real Ventures, and the privately run Atwater Racquets Club of Montréal.Senior Partner, XPND Capital
Alexandre Taillefer, a senior partner since 2011 with XPND Fund L.P., an investment fund with interests in technology, media and entertainment companies, is a born entrepreneur who has made a name for himself in the development of new technology companies. After studying computer science at the Université de Montréal and administration at the École des Sciences de la gestion at UQAM and at HEC Montréal, in 1993 he became the founding president of Intellia, later Nurun, a leader in web development in Canada. In 2001, he founded Hexacto, which in just two years became the leader in mobile games before being bought by Jamdat Mobile and then Electronic Arts. In 2007, he co-founded Stingray Digital, a company specializing in digital entertainment. Chair of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal since May 2012 and chair of Montréal’s advisory committee on public art, Mr. Taillefer also sits on the board of numerous companies, including C2.mtl, gsmprjct, Lumenpulse, BeHaviour and iPerceptions, and is a member of the Montréal, Cultural Metropolis steering committee. His involvement in the culture sector began in 2005 with his successive appointments to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ acquisition committees for Canadian and then international art. He was also Chairman of the Board of the Opéra de Montréal from 2006 to 2012.
Michael Hollinger
President at H.W. Hollinger (Canada) Inc. Insurance Brokers 
BS Electrical Engineering – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1988, MCI Telecommunications Corp.; 1988-1991, H.W. Hollinger (Canada) Inc. Insurance Brokers, President; 1991 – Present
LP Maurice
Co-Founder and CEO BusBud
Serial entrepreneur. Co-founded first startup at 16. Lived in 7 cities in last 7 years, but loves Montreal the most. LP Maurice is the CEO & Co-founder of Busbud, a travel startup focused on intercity bus travel. Previously, LP worked in Silicon Valley at Yahoo, LinkedIn and Radar Networks (acquired) in product management, marketing and business development. LP holds an MBA from Harvard University, a Master’s degree in Corporate Law from the University of Montreal and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from HEC Montreal. LP is co-founder of entrepreneurship club Entrepreneurs Anonymes, founder of Interaction Ventures, member of Anges Quebec and mentor at Startup Weekend Montreal. He also serves as VP of the HBS Club of Montreal and the Harvard Club of Quebec.
Marc Helwani
Managing Partner, Avenue A Ventures
Avenue A Ventures is early stage VC based in NYC that is looking to invest primarily in consumer facing startups with a focus on the intersections of technology & finance as well as technology & retail/fashion.
Marc Helwani, the managing partner of Avenue A Ventures, was born and raised in Montreal. He began his career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in NY and then joined York Capital Management in 2003, which was a $1bn event driven hedge fund based in NY. At the time of Marc’s departure in April 2014, York had reached $23bn in assets under management. Over the last decade at York Capital, Marc has been a co-PM of a $1.8bn+ fund that was twice named to Bloomberg’s top 100 large hedge funds (2012, 2013). Furthermore, he was acting COO and charged with building out the firm’s non-investment infrastructure between 2010 and 2014. Marc has also been an angel investor over the last several years with approximately 15 investments over that time frame.
Jesse Kaplan
Partner at Plaza Ventures
Jesse Kaplan, CFA is a partner with Toronto based venture capital firm Plaza Ventures. He is also an active angel investor through his Seek Captial holding company.
Mark Bruneau
Chairman, Neotech Capital
Mr. Mark R. Bruneau is currently employed at Neotech Capital. Mr. Bruneau is a Senior Fellow at The Monitor Company. From 2004 to 2007, Mr. Bruneau served as an Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Bell Canada Enterprises. He founded and served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of ADVENTIS. Mr. Bruneau was an advisor and commentator on content, applications, bandwidth convergence, and restructuring of the global communications industry. He was with Mercer Management Consulting, focusing on industry analysis and competitive strategy development in the communications and computing sectors. He served as an Assistant to the President of Bell Canada International Inc. Mr. Bruneau serves as a Director of the Boston Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, NeuroScience Canada, Centaur Theater, and Carrefour Arc-en-Ciel. Mr. Bruneau serves as the Chairman of Neotech Capital and M’Pact TV. He is frequently quoted in Business Week, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, as well as the Globe and Mail, and has helped shape the modern day telecoms and web 2.0 industry structures. Mr. Bruneau holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Ottawa and his M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. He is Member of Advisory Board of Telfer School of Management.Sylvain Carle
Managing Partner @FounderFuel and @RealVentures
Meet the Advisor Judges
David Nault
Principal, iNovia Capital
David is Principal at iNovia Capital, a Montreal based venture capital fund with $275M under management. David started his career at VIPswitch as President for a disruptive telecom technology for which he later helped raise $15 million to grow. Later, while Director of Business Development at Pivotal Payments, an emerging payment processor, he was part of growing the company from a few to over 60,000 customers, 400 employees and more than $8 billion in transaction volume. More recently, David was named President of Callio Technologies whose intellectual property was acquired by Bell Canada.
Chris Shipley
Driving Actionable Innovation Strategies
Chris Shipley is a leading technology and product analyst. Best known as the executive producer of the DEMO Conferences from 1996 to 2009, she has helped technology companies bring more than 1,500 new products to market. She co-founded Guidewire Group in 2004 to help emerging technology companies identify market opportunities and accelerate products to market. Today, the company is building a robust business development platform that helps startups and Global 2000 companies identify and engage with new opportunities. Chris has covered personal technology since 1984 and has worked as a writer and editor for a variety of technology and consumer media. Fortune Small Business Magazine placed Chris on its “Top 10 Minds in Small Business,” the San Jose Business Journal named her a “Woman of Distinction,” and it 2010 the SVForum honored her with its Visionary Award.
Steven Abrams
Partner, BDC Venture Capital IT Fund
Steven Abrams is a partner in the IT Venture Fund. Hejoined the BDC in 2001, after almost nine years in investment banking with Scotia McLeod and two years as CFO of an interactive advertising agency. As a director in corporate finance, he participated in many IPOs, privatizations, M&A advisory mandates, and equity and debt financings for companies in sectors, including technology, transportation and telecommunications. For an Internet company, he raised a first round of venture capital, did three acquisitions, two startups, and helped grow the company from 20 people to 145. Mr. Abrams holds an MBA in Finance from Cornell University and Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University.
Convertible Note Agreement
