James DeGreef

Light AI (ALGO:CBOE) has begun trading, presenting a promising future as it positions itself as a leader in AI-based healthcare technology. $30M CAD invested since 2016, the company’s proprietary algorithm boasts 97% accuracy in diagnosing viral or bacterial throat infections, addressing a global healthcare challenge: antibiotic resistance. The leadership team includes AI veteran CEO Peter Whitehead and prominent advisors like the former CIO of Johnson & Johnson, Tom Scarnecchia, and Emmanuel Blin, a healthcare distribution innovator in low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs). Light AI's disruptive technology aims to modernize diagnostics in LMICs, reducing the misuse of antibiotics. With a total of $26.5M CAD raised in private and RTO rounds and a marketing budget of over $3.5M, the company is poised to capitalize on the booming AI sector, which has seen peers like Healwell and Verses achieve significant valuation growth. Light AI's innovative approach and strategic capital deployment position it for strong market traction in the coming months. I am a shareholder.

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If you're a Canadian entrepreneur, investor, or founder then this past week has made it painfully clear that when it comes to innovation and economic recovery the calvary won't be coming and is in fact running in the opposite direction. The federal government and associated regional innovation support agencies (ie Invest Ottawa) are failing to look at solutions aimed at effectively addressing an overall decrease in entrepreneurship and economic activity across the nation and it is now on us, as resilient Canadian entrepreneurs, to empower those who can bring the most value to the table if we are to strive for the quickest path forward towards economic recovery and helping the average Canadian family better their quality of life. I am proud to announce that RHA Ventures Inc. has answered that call 👏 In the face of rising costs for domestic businesses in Canada and competition from abroad, RHA Ventures, an Ontario-based venture capital firm specializing in cutting-edge technologies, announced today its investment in Real Life Robotics, a Waterloo-based company designing real robots for real businesses. This investment marks a significant milestone in the development of Real Life Robotics and underscores RHA Ventures' commitment to supporting true, tried, and tested founders and Ontario’s growing startup ecosystem despite an overall decrease in entrepreneurship across the rest of Canada. “Real robots, real people, and real-world challenges are what differentiate RLR as a technology company. We could not be more thrilled to have RHA Ventures, a group of experienced founders and problem solvers, on board as strategic advisors and investors as we help elevate Ontario globally as a home for first-in-class robotics and automation technology - empowering businesses with transformative robotics solutions that unlock new levels of efficiency, reliability, and scalability,” - Cameron Waite, CEO of Real Life Robotics. The numbers clearly show that the cost of getting involved in a business or launching a new product is too high for the average inexperienced Canadian and our economy has slowed in growth accordingly. On a macro level, we are placing too high an importance on new founders in a down market when we should be rewarding and doubling down on our true, tried and tested investors, founders and legacy businesses who have shown they are willing to take the risk. Thank you, Brian Foster and the rest of the team at RHA Ventures Inc. for taking this first step of the journey with us 🙏 https://lnkd.in/gSr5TP48

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Spent a wonderful week in Canada with family! Now back to business.. Here's your weekly AI update: 🔙 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬: 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 Week 51 | August 5 - August 11 The OpenAI Brain Drain Industry: 🚨OpenAI co-founder John Schulman leaves for Anthropic; President Greg Brockman is taking extended leave through the end of year. What's interesting is that three of their most technical co-founders (Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Andrej Karpathy) have all left the company now. This then begs the question - is this a result of natural silicon-valley attrition, or is there something deeper going on here? And moreover, how will this impact the technical moat that OpenAI has built over the years? (https://lnkd.in/gztRKhwV) 🚨Google announced that new Gemini AI-powered features will be incorporated in a variety of home devices, such as Google Home and Nest (https://lnkd.in/gV2QacAQ?). It also announced a significant reduction in token cost of Gemini 1.5 Flash (https://lnkd.in/gbNe6yNU?) 🚨Figure releases Figure 02, it's newest humanoid robot. Figure has been actively testing robots with BMW at a manufacturing plant. Figure last raised $675M Series B in February 2024, valuing the company at $2.6 billion. (https://lnkd.in/gZnPSke4) 🚨Mark Zuckerberg said on Meta's Q2 earning call that to train Llama 4, the company will need 10x more compute than what was needed to train Llama 3. (https://lnkd.in/g5pEPrTw?) 🚨Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, renewing claims that the company is betraying its founding aims of benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits. (https://lnkd.in/gAk5grU6) Financing and M&A: 🚨Groq raises $640m in Series D at a $2.8B valuation. The round was led by Blackrock Private Equity Partners with participation from other investors such as Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco, KDDI, and Samsung Catalyst Fund. (https://lnkd.in/gRtKQKvW?) 🚨Hugging Face acquires Seattle data storage startup Xethub. The HF team plans to integrate Xethub's backend storage technology, enabling developers to host more large models and datasets than currently possible. CEO Clem Delangue 🤗 confirmed this was the largest acquisition the company has made thus far. (https://lnkd.in/g8fJ-BjT) 🚨OpenAI is leading a $60m Series B funding round for Opal Camera, a maker of professional-grade webcams(https://lnkd.in/gMT9dkTG) 🚨ProRata.ai a company that has invented an attribution technology to properly compensate content owners, has raised a $25m Series A, led by Prime Movers Lab, Mayfield Fund and Revolution Ventures. (https://lnkd.in/gumjbWmj) R&D: 🚨Alibaba Group releases Qwen2-math, a SOTA model for math-specific tasks. (https://lnkd.in/g8Jh3M7T?) Other Interesting Resources: 🚨 Between May and August, more Humane AI Pins were returned than purchased (https://lnkd.in/gy56qpKm?). 😯

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As a founder, have you ever been curious about this whole angel investing thing? This week's findfunding.vc spotlight is on an investor who's an expert in it you simply have to know: Matt Wilson, MBA from Allied Venture Partners. He: 🇨🇦 Is Calgary based 😇 Manages one of Canada's largest angle investor syndicates (now at 1,800+ members!) 🏒 Worked as a professional ice hockey referee, which he says shares remarkable similarities with investing Amongst founders, Matt Wilson, is known for bringing empathy and perspective as a former founder himself. Aside from financial support, his goal is to be the 'right' investor - one that aligns with a founder's vision, shares his network, and provides strategic insights when asked. ✉️ Make sure to pitch him, invest, scout, advise and more at https://linktr.ee/alliedvc For more, check out our funder spotlight card below along with Allied Venture Partners' profile on findfunding.vc (link in comments).

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Are you a B2B software startup founder at the very start? Then you have to meet this early-stage investor! This week's findfunding.vc spotlight is on Dominic Lau from Ripple Ventures. He: 🇨🇦 Is Vancouver and Toronto based 🎣 Loves to fish 🎶 Founded the RippleX Fellowship - a platform to help underrepresented founders access mentorship, intros, and the tools to get from idea to revenue to funding Amongst founders, Dominic and his team at Ripple Ventures, including Matt Cohen, are known for being hands-on partners who open valuable networks, navigate challenges together, and assist in closing crucial revenue and funding deals. Make sure to: ✉️ Pitch him at [email protected] 👀 Look into the RippleX Fellowship - they take 10 companies 2x a year through the Founder Fellowship program and also back companies through the Fellow Fund For more, check out our funder spotlight card below along with Ripple Ventures' profile on findfunding.vc (link in comments).

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"Entrepreneurship is painful and sometimes rewarding." This quote naturally came out during a check-in call with my good friend and fellow entrepreneur, Gilad, who is building a great product at Sequence (I just wish they were available in Canada) 😢 As soon as I said it, both Gilad and I reflected on how true that statement is in describing the journey of building something. Shoutout to all the business owners and entrepreneurs out there taking the pain with a pinch of reward. #startupjourney #pain #entrepreneurship #grit

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The size of Canada combined with the geographic distribution of health conditions make the country ideal for multi-channel healthcare (e.g., Telehealth). Despite the significant demand for healthcare broadly, those business models haven't been able to achieve exponential growth or ideal unit economics just yet -- they've certainly grown and many are profitable, but millions of Canadians still lack primary care. It's a problem that's on the cusp of being solved (e.g., AI, integrated care) and could unlock significantly more access to care for Canadians. 

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Sidewalk Labs (Part of Google), another showcase of Canadian politicians bending over for a big US corp, with ZERO tangible results 💩 Roxana and I attended a "private investor demo" session in 2019. A block of wood was passed among the audience, supposedly the NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGH in urban development! Demo concluded, by observing a piece of wood! Building blocks of future skyscrapers! The promise? With this, Google will build a "Smart City" for us, the peasants of Toronto, in Queens Quay 🏖️🏢 Sidewalk Labs' website now points to a newer Google scam, it reads: "Build Sustainably with Google Earth"! Bait and switch, but let enough time pass so no one remembers 🤢 https://lnkd.in/gd3B-a6m Guess now the investors and Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario have shit loads of these wooden blocks, ready to shove up somewhere, to find a use for! All because the name "Bloomberg" sounds authoritative enough to our ears? Surely that's capital well spent, instead of investing in local talent! 🤔 Will Canada's tech ecosystem ever crawl out of Silicon Valley's shadow, and stand on its own? ⌚👀⛔

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Next one up, Flagler Health! In an attempt to demystify some of the non-obvious elements we found when we first met the founders of our fastest growing portfolio companies at 186 Ventures, here is the third edition of the "idiosyncratic phenomenon". This highlight will be on Albert Katz, Leon Anijar, and Will Hu and their journey building Flagler Health to bring unprecedented AI enabled patient care to the world of musculoskeletal (MsK) providers. As the healthcare industry shifts to a value based care paradigm, there will be increased pressure on the entire industry to ensure patient outcomes improve, all the while helping providers generate more revenue / become more cost efficient. Since we co-led their March, 2024 seed round with Streamlined, the company has rolled out some of their newest remote therapeutic and chronic condition management features to many patients and providers alike, experiencing high revenue growth in such a short period of time. The company continues to face unmet customer demand as it continues to scale its expansion into 2025. https://lnkd.in/exesTcmC

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✨ Breaking: Pender Ventures' Technology Inflection Fund II LP Announces New Fund.- Pender Ventures' Technology Inflection Fund II LP Pender Ventures focuses on Canadian B2B and health tech startups poised for scale-up, with over $100 million in available funds. https://lnkd.in/eJSYQQ4d Please share to let other #Founders know For the ❤️ of Startups #Fusion42 #Startups#Venturecapital

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PTN raw deal data 24/09/2024: Scribenote / $8.2M / Canada / AI-powered medical scribe for veterinarians / Andreessen Horowitz, Inovia Capital, Velocity Fund Pyka / $40M / USA (Alameda, CA) / Autonomous electric aircraft / Obvious Ventures, Piva Capital, Prelude Ventures, Metaplanet Holdings, Y Combinator Invizius / £950k / UK (Edinburgh, Scotland) / Biotech treatments for dialysis patients / Mercia Ventures, Calculus Capital, Syensqo, University of Edinburgh’s Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise Letta / $10M / USA (San Francisco, CA) / Generative AI / Felicis, Sunflower Capital, Essence VC, Various Angels MetOx International / $25M / USA (Houston, TX) / High-temperature superconducting wire / Centaurus, New System Ventures Jump / €11M ($12M) / France (Paris) / Freelancer benefits / Breega, Index Ventures, Raise Ventures Fal.ai / $23M / USA / AI-generated audio, video, images platform / Andreessen Horowitz, Kindred Ventures, Robin Rombach, Aravind Srinivas mbue / $1.8M / USA (Austin, TX) / AI-first construction tech / Techstars, Geek Ventures, 2045 Ventures, Spatial Capital, Factorial Capital David Energy / $23M / USA (NYC) / Grid technology / Cathay Innovation, Union Square Ventures, Keyframe Capital, Equal Ventures, BoxGroup HavocAI / $11M / USA (Providence, RI) / Autonomous uncrewed surface vessel technology / Scout Ventures, Trousdale Ventures, Outlander VC Kestra Technologies / $8M / France (Paris) / Event-driven orchestration platform / Alven, ISAI, Axeleo Capital, Various Angels Integrum ESG / £3.4M / UK (London) / ESG data insights platform / YFM Equity Partners Sparrow BioAcoustics / $13M / Canada (St. John’s) / Bioacoustic AI technology / Killick Capital, Klister Credit, Pelorus Ventures Vicebio / $100M / UK (London) / Novel vaccines for respiratory infections / TCGX, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Avoro Ventures, venBio GPDQ / £1.2M / UK (London) / Primary healthcare provider / IW Capital FluoRok / £7.7M / UK (Oxford) / Fluorochemical reagents and battery electrolyte salts / BGF, Green Generation Fund arqu / $10M / USA (San Francisco, CA) / Wholesale insurance brokerage / Crosslink Capital, Intact Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Foxe Capital, Nationwide Ventures GC Therapeutics / $65M / USA (Cambridge, MA) / Cell therapy-based medicines / Cormorant Asset Management, Mubadala Capital, Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health Alan / €173M / France (Paris) / Health insurer / Belfius Bank, Teachers’ Venture Growth, Temasek, Coatue, Lakestar Amnis Finance / $2M / USA / Liquid staking protocol on Aptos blockchain / OKX Ventures, Aptos Labs, Arkgrow Pte Ltd, Ambush Capital, Gate Ventures, Turneo / €2M / UK (London) / Travel tech startup / Bessemer Venture Partners, Underline Ventures Permissionless Labs / $10M / USA (San Francisco Bay Area) / Content delivery network (CDN) on Solana / Multicoin Capital, Robot Ventures, Sorted Wallet / $1.5M / Hong Kong / Cryptocurrency access platform / Tether Operations Limited

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Hopper cut 30-40% of its team in the last year to restructure around the success of its b2b products. So I took a quick look back at the history of the Canadian Fintech unicorn. And what I found is that Hopper is a pivoting machine. Here’s the story… In 2007 ex-Expedia Group employees launched Hopper, a travel content site. It was basically an aggregator of travel blogs. In 2014 Hopper published a piece on "the best time to book cheap flights". The article drove 100x more traffic than the previous four years combined. Based on that surge they decided to pivot. In 2015 Hopper got into travel booking and cut 50% of their team. They launched a consumer app that notified travelers of the best times to book their trips. In 2021 Hopper launched b2b “travel fintech” products like flight insurance, price freezing, and price drop guarantee that were embedded into third parties like Air Canada, Uber, KAYAK, & Capital One. Today, Hopper’s b2b business represents ⅔ of its revenue 🤯 Pivoting as a startup is expected. But pivoting while doing over $700m in revenue is remarkable. Love this story! -- Want more? Subscribe to the Canadian Fintech Newsletter in the comments below 👇

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Check out this epic interview.

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Just had to share this gem from Collision Conf in #Toronto. Among the #startups and VCs, I spotted a guy with a shirt saying, "Ask me about my CAC." Naturally, I asked. Sebastian Fallenbüchl, BASc., the wearer, shot back, "My CAC is getting lower as you just approached me." Genius. Seb’s witty remark was more than just a laugh — it was a reminder that business is about people. Metrics like CAC are crucial, but so are the connections and conversations that drive them down. Takeaway? Be #approachable. Humor and humanity can make all the difference. Thanks for the insight and the laugh, Seb. Here’s to more moments like these! #Networking #BusinessInsights

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Despite a growing and robust Canadian tech ecosystem, the country has minted fewer than 30 unicorns in the past decade compared to the US's 700. Should Canadian VCs look to invest internationally? If so, what's the optimal approach to accessing global opportunities, navigating financial and cultural differences, and providing meaningful value? Alternatively, should they focus on strengthening the Canadian tech ecosystem? Is the lack of unicorns primarily a cultural, structural, or financial issue, or a combination? Can VCs play a role in addressing these challenges? Happy to participate in the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) webinar with Mana Hosseini, JD/MBA and Kim Furlong addressing these topics. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Registration link in the comments #venturecapital #startups #investing #canada

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6 developer-first startups were involved in transactions last week 👨🏻‍💻 💰 Here is what happened the week of January 6th, 2025: On the fundraising side, 1 pre-seed and 2 series A rounds were announced, totalling $26.9 million. Gumloop, based in Vancouver 🇨🇦, raised $17 million in Series A funding led by First Round Capital. Gumloop provides a platform to build and host LLM-powered automations, simplifying the integration of large language models into various applications. Congratulations to the other companies that announced fundraising last week:  🇦🇹 SignPath GmbH 🇮🇪 Jentic On the M&A side: 🇺🇸 Gluware, Inc. was acquired by PE firm Cuadrilla Capital to enhance its portfolio in the tech automation space. 🇺🇸 Tidelift was acquired by Sonar to expand its capabilities in securing and managing open-source software. 🇫🇷 Quickwit was acquired by Datadog to enhance its data analysis offerings, especially in handling petabytes of data efficiently. That’s all for last week. If you know a startup that should have been included in this list, please ping them in the comment section.

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Excited to announce the upcoming release of “The Venture Mindset” by Ilya Strebulaev and Alex Dang! It’s been a privilege to contribute. 📖 Ilya and Alex have spent decades studying top VCs, uncovering the true drivers of their success. Their advice is not the typical advice you might expect; they dive into the details of how VCs make decisions, why they're not afraid to fail, and how to spot the next big thing. I spent some time re-reading an advanced copy over the weekend, and what stood out to me was the book's practical advice on applying VC principles to everyday business challenges. Ilya and Alex provide clear, actionable steps that you can put to work no matter what you’re building. If you want to give it a flip for yourself, head over to https://lnkd.in/gJGmKiTg and grab a copy.

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Getting your go-to-market strategy right is everything in healthtech. In a recent @Intro session, I helped a founder figure out how to reduce risks and shared lessons from building Propeller Health, which sold for $225M. Here’s what I’ve learned about successful GTM strategies: - Partnering with pharma and healthcare systems drives growth. - A clear launch plan helps you reach customers faster. - Simple, strong messaging builds trust with investors and users. Let’s create a plan that works: intro.co/davidvansickle

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Just shipped this week's Diaspora.nz podcast with Paul Copplestone, founder & CEO at Supabase. We talk about: ⚡️why open source is an unfair advantage — as a product development strategy, supercharging recruiting, and helping build customer community. ⚡️how they are building the end-to-end tech stack for AI startups — seeing many customers grow into the millions of users in just weeks, growing to be one of the most tagged products by makers on Product Hunt + most redeemed Y Combinator “perks.” ⚡️raising $116M, and scaling to ~80 people in 30+ countries over the past 4.5 years, operating as a distributed + asynchronous team. ⚡️building three startups over nearly a decade living in South East Asia. Subscribe + listen links in comments below👇 Subscribe at diaspora.nz for weekly episodes 🎧👈

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