The Founders and Funders dinners are a series of invitation-only dinners that are held across Canada several times a year. They are a sort of summit on the state of each community and we do our best to make sure that the best startups possible have a chance to meet the most respected and active investors who are doing deals in those cities. There is always a mix of locals and people who come in for the event as a way to get connected.

We believe that if you cannot sit down and have dinner with someone, then you probably shouldn’t invest in or take investment from them. This is a great chance to apply a social filter to the dealflow in any one place.

What is it?: An invitation-only 3 course dinner. Cocktails before, cocktails after….

Who is coming?: The top investment-ready startups and active investors in Canada.

Where is it?: Downtown Toronto

When?: February 16th, 2012 at 6:30pm

How much is it?: Tickets range from $125 (startups) to $500 (service providers)

We are now accepting requests for invitations and the first round of invitations will go out this week.

Apply to attend F&F »

We have also decided to include a brief fireside chat with Daniel Debow at this dinner. We rarely do this sort of thing at a Founders and Funders but 2011 was such a great year we thought it would be fun to look back on the ups and downs of Rypple through the years and how they got to their eventual exit, some of which was written about in Forbes this week.

Daniel and Rypple have also been a big part of the Canadian startup community and he has also been an active angel investor recently.

We are excited to hear what he has to say about how we can help build more great Canadian companies and how to build awareness in Silicon Valley when your HQ is back here in Canada.

We hope you will join us as we kick off another great year for the Toronto and Canadian startup community.

We will be announcing Founders and Funders dinners in other cities soon as well.

• 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.