NACO Canada

Today, on World Entrepreneurship Day, we recognize and celebrate the incredible entrepreneurs who fuel innovation and drive economic progress. These trailblazers are the backbone of our communities, turning challenges into opportunities and ideas into impactful ventures. At NACO, we’re committed to supporting and nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit that powers Canada’s growth. Thank you to the entrepreneurs who inspire us with your vision, resilience, and determination—your contributions make our country, and world, a better place.

"Women will invest when they see other women investing," Shambhavi Mishra, Antler 🚀 Huge thanks to NACO Canada for partnering with WFW and hosting Monday's roundtable discussion at MaRS Discovery District. It was a safe place that fostered honest, valuable insights from both funders and founders. 🙌 Shoutout to our incredible attendees for sharing your perspectives. From women who just wrote their first angel cheque to seasoned angels, our conversation was rich with great ideas. Your participation is crucial in driving real change. 🌟 Looking forward to continuing working with NACO Canada in bringing more female angel investors to support women led ventures across Canada. Let's bridge the funding gap! #WomenFundingWomen #Empowerment #Entrepreneurship #WomenEntrepreneurs #WomenLedBusiness #InvestInWomen #WomenInBusiness #AngelInvesting #AgentOfChange #BridgeTheGap

$2.4 billion fund for AI 🇨🇦🤓💸 Exciting Developments in AI and Angel Investing from the NACO Canada Summit 2024 in Ontario 🚀🇨🇦 I'm thrilled to participate in NACO Summit 2024, currently underway here in Ontario. It's a gathering of visionaries and investors where the future of Canadian innovation is taking shape right before our eyes. 👀 An impressive $2.4 billion is earmarked in the upcoming Canadian budget to enhance our national AI capacity. A substantial portion, $2 billion, is dedicated to a new fund designed to provide essential access to computing capabilities and technical infrastructure. This strategic investment will accelerate the development and application of AI technologies across various sectors in Canada. 💰💻 The National Angel Capital Organization (NACO), playing a pivotal role in this ecosystem, continues to be a cornerstone of Canada's entrepreneurial success. Since its inception in 2002, NACO has grown to represent over 4,000 angel investors and over 100 organizations, including angel groups, incubators, accelerators, and early-stage venture funds. Their members have invested a remarkable $1.54 billion into more than 2,000 Canadian companies. The success stories are numerous and inspiring, with companies like Slack, Thinkific, Verafin, WealthSimple, ApplyBoard, Paper, Jobber, and Neo Financial showcasing the transformative power of angel investment. 💡💸 As an AI expert, the intersection of government support and angel investment at this summit presents a promising horizon for Canadian innovation. It's a privilege to be part of it, and I look forward to seeing how these initiatives will propel our collective potential even further. 🤖🌟 #NACO2024 #AI #AngelInvestment #CanadianInnovation #TechStartups 

With Parliament Hill and Lagevin Block as the backdrop, NACO Canada brought together entrepreneurs and both angel and VC investors for a timely conversation: the growth of venture allocations in Canada and the new proposed rules on capital gains that threaten to destroy all the progress we have made in the last decade positioning Canada as “the” place to start and grow a business. Thank you Claudio for your leadership in bringing us together and to Senia Rapisarda, LL.M, CIM Joe Canavan and Isaac Dream Maker Olowolafe for a wonderful hour together.

Claudio Rojas and his team at NACO put on spectacular conference last week filled with extraordinary, thoughtful and dynamic speakers. It was a full house in Ottawa with a 2000 person waiting list!! As the closing speaker, I was interviewed by Kevin Carmichael, esteemed journalist from The Logic and formally the Editor-in-Chief of the Financial Post. Our topic was “How entrepreneurship can drive national prosperity”. Despite the damage that will be caused in the innovation sector by the recent tax changes, I started my remarks with what Canada could become if we built our future around a mission called “Innovation Nation 2034”. This has happened with Skiing “Own the Podium”, the LTAD programs for Tennis and Basketball…They all had a vision for the ideal world in their sport and over the past decade we have launched some of the finest athletes in each sport in our country’s history. My key points were: Have well-defined vision, mission and innovation strategy Incent and support the actions we believe will achieve success for the sector. Done correctly we increase investment by reducing personal income tax to 49.9%, capital gains tax capped at a maximum of 25% and allow tax free rollovers into the next generation of Canadian startups post exit. This will keep the capital flowing domestically and will attract significant capital from foreign investors which is imperative for sustained growth. Attract talent from abroad and retain the incredible talent being trained at our top universities to build globally competitive startups and scale up’s We can achieve massive regional successes like we did in the last decade with KOHO Financial in Vancouver, Neo Bank in Calgary, Harvest Ventures in Saskatchewan, Skip the Dishes in Winnipeg, Radian 6 in New Brunswick, Hopper in Montreal, Golnstant in Nova Scotia. This mission, if executed correctly, will create tens of thousands of jobs across the country. This will increase the quality of life for Canadians, will instill pride in our business accomplishments, will improve our productivity levels, enhance prosperity for Canadians creating thousands more millionaires from today’s lower and middle class and be a massive boost in tax revenue for federal and provincial governments. Let’s remember that more than 80% of startups fail. These courageous founders and angel investors are often first and second generation Canadians from lower income backgrounds. They are visionary, innovative, driven young people who passionately believe in an idea that has the potential to transform the world that we live in. These are not the “rich” that the government keeps vilifying! Most angel investors who believe in them and support them financially are well meaning Canadians who want to foster growth and opportunity supporting a virtuous cycle of innovation and entrepreneurial success. As Charlie Munger, one of the greatest investors of all time taught us, “Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome”!!

"I think it's important because I'm going to say some very critical things about our country today. I'm a big believer in Canada. I'm very optimistic about Canada's future. I just fundamentally believe we get the Democracy that we earn." I was invited to the NACO Canada summit to talk building in Canada. We discussed the necessity of GDP growth, the over-rotation on the cap gains tax, why I started KOHO, taking pride in capitalism and the Canadian economy, the drift between the government and business community, trying to win in Canada, finding the Canadian equivalent of 'American Exceptionalism', how most of SR&ED goes to zombie companies, market driven vs government driven outcomes and what I would do to try and fix it. Thank you to Claudio Rojas for inviting me and Kevin Carmichael for being a superb host.

I want to see more women owned businesses, more women entrepreneurs & more women angel investors. As an Entrepreneur & an Investor myself, I have so much respect for those who walk down the difficult path of taking big risks to make an even bigger impact. I have a deep passion for empowering women & I love being able to share my insight & my story in hopes of inspiring others to know that they can do anything. Thank you to the NACO Canada team for putting on the #NACOSummit. It was an honor to have insightful conversations with some of the most brilliant minds who are working to shape innovation, entrepreneurship & capital in Canada. Thank you for your commitment to all of Canada’s entrepreneurs, & especially, empowering Canadian women to change the statistics. #innovationnation 🤍✨

Crisis brings out the best and worst in all of us. Across many conversations at NACO Summit we saw the inspiring character of our community. Entrepreneurs, investors and champions of Canada’s innovation ecosystem pulled together to have tough conversations, hear fresh perspectives, and share insights on the path forward. The hike to capital gains inclusion is a devastating setback that will disproportionately impact entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities, stifling the power of entrepreneurship to enable social mobility. The innovation economy we build today, will be the economy of the future. I'm hopeful that as a united ecosystem that cares deeply about the future of the country, we will course correct so that Canada can continue its transformation into an innovation nation. Thank you to everyone that joined us. We're grateful to have spent this time with you. Really looking forward to next year. #NACOSummit 🇨🇦 NACO Canada Les crises peuvent révéler le meilleur et le pire en chacun de nous. Au fil de plusieurs conversations lors du Sommet NACO, nous avons vu le caractère inspirant de notre communauté. Des entrepreneurs, investisseurs et champions de notre écosystème de l’innovation se sont réunis pour engager des conversations parfois difficiles, entendre de nouvelles perspectives et partager leur vision de l’avenir. L’augmentation du taux d’inclusion de l’impôt sur le gain en capital est un revers dévastateur qui aura un impact disproportionné sur les entrepreneurs issus de communautés sous représentées, étouffant le pouvoir de l’entrepreneurship en tant que facteur de mobilité sociale. L’économie de l’innovation que nous bâtissons aujourd’hui sera l’économie du futur. Je suis optimiste qu’en tant qu'écosystème unifié qui a à cœur le futur de notre pays, nous rectifierons le cap afin que le Canada puisse poursuivre sa transformation vers une nation innovante. Merci à tous ceux qui se sont joints à nous.Nous sommes reconnaissants d’avoir pu passer ce temps avec vous. J’ai déjà hâte à l’année prochaine. #NACOSummit 🇨🇦 NACO Canada

🎉 **NACO Summit 2024: A Memorable First Experience!** 🎉 As a first-time attendee at the NACO Summit 2024, I felt like I was part of something truly special alongside Jake Malette — convergence of angel investors, venture capitalists, innovators, and trailblazers! 🌟 Claudio and the entire NACO Canada team deserve applause for curating an inspiring lineup of speakers and attendees. 🙌 From groundbreaking sessions to the interconnections between angel capital, venture capital and entrepreneurs, the NACO Summit 2024 buzzed with energy. It was all about Canada’s Innovation Nation, productivity, and the transformative power of AI. 🚀🇨🇦 This summit is exactly what Canada needs to be prosperous. Keep that inspiration burning bright, and let's continue building a brighter future together! 💡 #NACO #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #AI #Canada Ray Rashed Senia Rapisarda, LL.M, CIM Kim Furlong Joe Canavan Emilie Boutros Mike Cegelski Benjamin Bergen Sandi Gilbert Philippe Telio Matthew He

This week I was invited to the NACO Canada Summit in Ottawa to speak on the topic of Building Resilience in Entreprenurship! 🇨🇦 I spoke about my fundraising journey to a room filled with forward thinking entrepreneurs and investors making an impact in the Canadian startup ecosystem. If you weren’t there, here were the key points I left with the audience: 1. The best investors are those who are incredibly ✨passionate✨ about what you’re building. 2. Seek out investors who have been through hard things. Have they built a company before? Lost a loved one? Immigrated to a new country? Raised children? Survived a difficult school program? These folks are typically incredibly resilient and will have empathy as you go through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Overall, it was a pleasure to share my journey and learnings with others! 🥰 Honourable mention to some of the great people I got to listen to, reconnect with, or meet for the first time: Claudio Rojas, Safina Allidina, Efosa KC Obano, Patricia Chareka, Majid Mirza, Melisa Ellis, Bryan Duarte, Naz Dian, MBA, Christy Pettit, Camille Saltman, OKGN WMAN, Alieu Jallow, PMP®, CSBS.D, Gabriel Marechal, Upasana Sharma, Oriana Cordido, Dallas Barnes, Hilary Kilgour, Sam Haffar, Juanita Lee-Garcia, Wesley Kosiba, Tarek Sadek, Joe Canavan, Nicole Stephenson, Popoola Akande, Rochelle Salvador Reyes, Isaac Dream Maker Olowolafe, Kim Furlong, Senia Rapisarda, LL.M, CIM, Keshia Chante, Danielle Brewin Graham, Alison Nankivell, Daniel Eberhard, Anna Sinclair, Rechie Valdez, and many more!