Launching the Build Ventures Blog

By: 5th May 2015 Portfolio, Strategy

It’s hard for Rob and I to believe but Build Ventures just had its two year anniversary. There was a surprising amount of ‘administrivia’ involved in setting up a first fund and a lot of fundraising meetings which took the fund from $48.5M when we launched to $65M today. Most importantly, of course, was getting out across the region to meet companies and begin building our portfolio. To date we’ve made six investments: Introhive, Affinio, Smart Skin, Resson  and Celtx. For those counting, the sixth just closed and will be announced soon.

One thing which clearly got neglected was our blog. There is already a tremendous amount of very high quality content out there on venture capital and the startup process in general. After really digging into our Atlantic Canadian technology community over the past two years and working with our portfolio companies, our thinking is becoming much clearer on how this all applies to our region. There are a number of tremendous advantages to building a company in Atlantic Canada. There are also a lot of challenges.

Our plan for the next year is look at the big question – what is it going to take to build the next wave of successful companies in Atlantic Canada?

We’re going to discuss the community generally, good and bad, some of the key things to focus on as you build a company here, and of course our investment strategy in the region – what we look for and how we work with companies. We’re looking forward the discussion!

Rob and Patrick