Chris Arsenault

Chris Arsenault is a senior executive with over 25 years of general management experience in high technology industries, with extensive experience in business development, strategic planning, venture growth, and scaling operations. Chris is the co-founder, President & CEO of Inovia Capital, a Venture Capital firm launched in 2007 with now over US$2.2 billion dollars under management.

Chris currently serves as a director on the boards of AppDirect, Groupe Dynamite, Super.com, Talent.com, LifeHouse; and until recently, Lightspeed (IPO NYSE), Luxury Retreats (acquired by Airbnb in 2017), Pola (acquired by IFS), Reflex Photonics (acquired by Smiths Interconnect in 2019), and Well.ca (acquired by McKesson in 2017). Chris is also a board member of Montreal Heart Institute Foundation, and of Forum AI Québec (part of the Quebec Supercluster for Artificial Intelligence), and a proud Charter Member of Silicon Valley-based The C100.

Before launching Inovia Capital in 2007, Chris first joined MSBi Capital in 2002 as a Partner and prior to that, had founded, co-founded or launched a number of Software, Mobile and Consumer Internet technology start-up companies, including two spin-offs of telecom giants Microcell and Teleglobe.
Chris’ entrepreneurial and investment experience includes several notable exits that generated large shareholder returns, such as Lightspeed (IPO), Luxury Retreats, Localmind, Poka, Well.ca, Routehappy, Airborne Entertainment, Copernic Technologies, Wanted Technologies, and SIT Inc. His work in the mid-90’s as co-founder and CEO of SIT provided him with the opportunity to play an important part in the initial growth of the Internet. As one of Netscape’s first external partners and integrators, SIT’s security products and dial-up technology eventually grew to become an integral part of Netscape’s deployment. SIT, after the winding-up of its Quebec offices, was sold to Ubizen of Belgium in 1999 for €42 million. Chris is also proud to have been instrumental in the creation of the ENABLIS Entrepreneurial Network, a G8-sponsored venture capital seed fund now operating in 15 countries.

Chris believes that Entrepreneurship is a “state of mind”, and thus part of one’s core. It may be sleeping (waiting to be activated, nurtured, or mentored), but it can’t be taught or infused into a person. Entrepreneurship is not a profession; an entrepreneur has unique character traits that enable him/her to do amazing and impossible things.