We are finalizing a new date with the venue. I’m leaning towards Monday, March 1, 2010. I’d like to connect with everyone before SxSWi & Mix.

Once the new date at the venue is finalized, I will begin sending out personal invitations. How do you get an invitation? Step 1 is to let us know that you are interested. We have begun reviewing applications (and in case you’re curious, we make everyone tell us why they should participate: Founders, Funders, a limited number of Service Providers – Jevon made Jonas and me justify our participation I am hoping to finalize the venue and date this week, with the first round of invitations sent out by Friday.

Cheers,
David, Jevon & Jonas

The event is “invitation only” and  is limited in terms of availability. That is there are a limited number of available spaces, and Allan and Rick are currating the guest list like any good dinner party. If you are a startup in Ottawa, or you are a funder drop them a note.

Just a sidebar on “funder”, this means active funders, not necessarily just high net worth individuals. The event is best for individuals that are active, i.e., have deployed capital in the past 18 months. And if you haven’t deployed capital, you have a very good reason (waiting for previous investments to mature; trying to hit an earn out, etc.).

If you’re in Ottawa on December 3 (and not at DemoCamp Toronto #24), here’s how you get involved.

The event is “by invitation only’ and is limited in terms of availability. If you would like to attend, please send Allan Isfanallan.isfan@favequest.com or Rick O’Connor rickoco@theottawanetwork.com a note and let them know who you are and why you should participate.

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.

• Rick Segal, JLA Ventures
  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.
• John Marshall, Ministry of Research and Innovation
  MRI has launched $165 Million Ontario Venture Capital Fund. MRI announced Fund in November 2007. Fund will be up and running in 2008.
• Albert Behr & David Berg, Behr & Associates
  Behr & Associates is a boutique investment bank that provide strategic working capital and accelerates revenue generation opportunities.
• Jacqui Murphy & Peter Frisella, Tech Capital Partners
  Tech Capital typically invests $500,000 to $2 million in the seed round, and then continue to support the company through follow-on investments.
• Robin Axon & Duncan Hill, Ventures West
  Ventures West Capital Ltd., a private venture capital investment group, is one of Canada’s leading investors in early stage technology companies.
• Mark Skapinker, Brightspark
  We are funders and founders of startup Internet and software businesses.
• Amar Varma, Extreme Venture Partners
  
• Roger Chabra, GrowthWorks Capital
  GrowthWorks is a recognized leader in the Canadian venture capital industry, specializing in the management and growth of regionally based venture capital funds.
• Colin Webster, Hero Ventures
  “I do early stage investing”
• Craig Hayashi, MapleLeafAngels
  Maple Leaf Angels is a group of private investors with initial investment size ranges from $250,000 to $500,000.
• Richard Reiner, Angel Investor
  Dr. Richard Reiner is the founder and CTO of Assurent Secure Technologies, a TELUS company.
• John MacRitchie, OCE
  Invests in the commercialization of research from Ontario universities and colleges through start-ups and industry – researcher collaborative projects.
• Frances Fast, Q1 Capital Partners
  Q1 Capital is a leading boutique Investment Bank with a primary mandate to serve the unique financing and M&A needs of private Canadian technology companies.
• Mark Organ, Angel Investor
  Mark Organ is the founder of Eloqua.
• Robert Antoniades & David Unsworth, RBC Venture Partners
  Finance Company financing setup of software and technology companies
• Marc Faucher & Brian Kobus, Summerhill Venture Partners
  A Venture Capital Firm focused in the areas of ommunications, digital media and information technology.
• Paul Sorbara, The Sorbara Group
  Angel investments.
• Suzie Dingwall Williams, Venture Law Associates LLP
  I work with a number of US angels looking for Canadian opportunities. We will defer/reduce legal fees for our early stage clients in exchange for equity, although we don’t consider this to be investing.
• Rob Hyndman, Hyndman Law
  From Start to Exit, Business Law for Technology Companies.

Here is the first attempt to design a name tag to improve the connections between attendees at the event. These badges are based on the badge design concepts by Mike Davidson. The goals of the initial design are:

1. Name – As Dan Saffer says “First Name. BIG! I don’t want to have to stare at people’s badges any longer than I need to. A rapid glance should boldly display the wearer’s first name, often to just refresh my memory or as a cue if I’m looking for someone I haven’t met but want to.”
2. Company – I want to know who you work for, but this is secondary to who you are.
3. Founder or Funder - As designated by both the icon and the color. The color (for those of us that aren’t colour blind) should allow you to identify the basic composition from a distance. The icon is a secondary method for identifying the role.

We want to make it easier for attendees to connect with each other. Other things I’m thinking about for the badges:

• Including a list of attendees, email addresses, company description, URL and stage. This would be a foldout in the back of the badge.
• Holder for business cards. This is not the most important thing, but at conferences I always put my cards and cards I receive in the badge holder, if they fit.

One thing I host that all Founders provide us is a 2 page summary sheet. The team at StumbleUpon provides a Fact Sheet which summarizes the business. We could then distribute this information to each of the Funders attending so they’d have a great way to follow up with the attendees they meet and more relevant details than provided by a business card.

1. Problem solved – “help people discover interesting or informative web content that they wouldn’t have thought to search for.”
2. Company history – “Originally launched in Calgary in 2002″
3. Why it works - “Stumbling is so easy that through word-of-mouth alone, nearly one million people have installed the StumbleUpon toolbar extension, stumbling an average of 20 times per day”
4. Revenue model – “Free membership is supported by a unique, targeted advertising model which guarantees relevant audiences and elicits community feedback. Members who opt to pay an annual fee never have to see an ad.”
5. Founders - “StumbleUpon was founded by three Canadians: Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, and Justin LaFrance. The three recently relocated to San Francisco.”
6. Funding - “Until March 2006, StumbleUpon was completely self-funded and fully bootstrapped. Growth was achieved solely via word of mouth. To accelerate growth, the Company has attracted private investment from leading technology investors and entrepreneurs”
7. Board of Advisors
8. Contact Information

If you can’t summarize your business using a format like this, you’d better be Microsoft or General Electric.

Name, Company
Please describe your Company if explained in a single twitter post (140 characters max)
If asked to describe what “stage” your startup is at in 10 words or less

You can follow the Tweets at http://twitter.com/foundersfunders

We’re assembling a great group of founders.

• Michael Garrity, CommunityLend
  Funded and prepping for Beta Launch
  Peer to Peer Lending Service for Canada
• George Favvas, SmartHippo
  Public beta; very early revenue
  SmartHippo is the first ever site that uses the power of the community to help people find the best rates and save money. Based in Montreal.
• Craig Fitzpatrick, DevShop
  Commercialization
  A project management application that gets to know the team members’ behavior to predict & insulate projects from risk.
• Ali Asaria, Well.ca
  Early-stage Startup
  Well.ca is a Canadian online health & beauty store and a leader in the online Canadian retail health market. We’re also super friendly.
• Scott Brooks & Bernie Aho, ConceptShare
  Growth Phase poised for expansion.
  ConceptShare has developed a web application that allows users to easily share, discuss and mark-up designs for review over the web.
• Kevin Thomason & Ilya Grigorik, AideRSS
  An early stage ready to dominate the RSS filtering market
  AideRSS helps you breakthrough RSS information overload and read what matters.
• Stephen Benson, Innovation Exchange
  revenue generating
  IX is a platform corporations use to accelerate their ability to innovate by connecting them with a Global Community of innovative thinkers.
• Sandy Ward, HomeZilla
  Alpha!
  HomeZilla is a one-stop shop for home buyers and agents to find neighbourhood information about a home.
• Chris Ragobeer, Nametaggs
  Beta and Unfunded
  Nametaggs is a social media service that allows people with a domain name registered with their name on it to promote their content.
• Christopher Golda, IPartee
  Early-stage
  IPartee provides the tools to plan, publish and promote events. Find events and venues you and your friends want to attend.
• Ross Bennet, SlashID
  Beta launch, boot strapped, looking for Angel investment
  SlashID will increase the number of registrations your website receives, to improve your business.Solves the identity problem for your users

Microsoft Canada has agreed to help sponsor the event on one condition – that I take remedial mathematics help.We’re really excited to have Microsoft participating.

The Microsoft Canada team is working hard to bring the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program to Canada. The program is focused on startups in the US, UK, France and India. However we’re lucky to have Lynda Ting, from the Emerging Business Team in Silicon Valley (and a former early-stage Toronto VC) flying up to join us for the evening. Microsoft is committed to working with industry leaders, academic institutions, local policy makers, the venture capital community and others to build strong local commercial software industries. There are Partner Programs like the Empower, where you are building a product, you get free (or very close to free) access to almost every Microsoft tool and product.

Microsoft continues to host MIX, an intimate conference for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the web. MIX is a 72 hours conversation exploring the latest wave of opportunities and help redefine the boundaries between: content and commerce, PC and TV, Windows and the Web.

I was lucky enough to get invited to MIX07 and I’ll be at MIX08 where I know there will be a lot of very interesting technologies.

Founders & Funders – Toronto
A evening of socializing and dinner for entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists
January 21, 2008
$75/person – Limited to 75 attendees
Private 3 course dinner at Monsoon Restaurant

There has been a lot of discussion about the needs of entrepreneurs in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Canada. It has been summarized very well, as,

“you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds” – Paul Graham

This is our community-driven attempt to bring together the people who start tech companies and the people who fund tech companies in Toronto in a engaging, social environment.

There has been a buzz of activity in the web 2.0 community in Toronto. DemoCamp. StartupCamp. CaseCamp. TransitCamp. We often hear about a successful entrepreneur or an interesting startup, but it is incredibly difficult to find time to attend all the events and meet all the interesting people. The inaugural Founders & Funders Dinner Toronto is an effort to bring together the nerds and people with money in Toronto.

Interested in attending?

We’re looking for founders, entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists and others.

Contact us for an invitation – space pending, of course.