Rahul Nirula

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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🚀 Just had an incredible experience meeting Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans in Toronto! Here's a mind-blowing stat: OnlyFans has paid out $15 billion to creators since 2016. Yes, billion with a B. 💸 The company takes 1/5th of the payments generated. With over 3 million content creators on the platform, it was fascinating to discuss the future direction of the business - which really has a ripple effect... OnlyFans has already shifted culture and how we think about creators. But their next big wave goes beyond content and culture—it’s about challenging traditional banking norms. With its massive financial footprint, OnlyFans is pretty well poised to reshape the financial landscape for lawful, profitable businesses often marginalized due to stigma. (👋 Shoutout to Sextech School founders, Women of SexTech, and other businesses that struggle to transact or even open business bank accounts.) Keily’s background as a partner at a law firm specializing in cyber, privacy, and security makes her the fit to take on the big banks. I love learning about how people found their ways into these sorts of spaces - for her, OF was a former client (and a fav client). I learned so much in our meeting. One last nugget that stood out: OFTV (their safe-for-work streamer) just licensed their first reality show to Netflix! At this point, the mainstream influence of OF, whether it's in entertainment or financial sector, is undeniably having a hand in what our future looks like.

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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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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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Today, I’m thrilled to announce our ‘24 Fall Release at Brex 🍂 With this release, we’re putting our money where our mouth is, by introducing a new Impact Dashboard that shows you real-time data on the value you’re getting from Brex — directly within the product. Across spend controls, time savings, rewards and yield, you’ll also find personalized recommendations on how to automate more manual work, and help every dollar of spend go further. Every feature we build at Brex (including this release) is designed to do one thing — make every dollar count toward your mission. We felt this was a critically important north star, because it means founders and finance leaders can spend confidently on Brex, knowing every dollar is making a clear, discernible difference in growing their business. There is so much incredible work to talk about — but here are a few key highlights: 📈 A new Impact Dashboard with detailed, real-time metrics on expense policy compliance, time saved through automation, and total rewards and yield earned. And more importantly, suggestions on how to further optimize spend to earn more. 🌎 Local-currency bill payments in 50+ countries by ACH, check, or wire from a Brex business account, with zero FX markups. 🔎 A smarter search experience that helps you find exactly what you’re looking for in fewer clicks, so you can spend less time in Brex. 🔥 50+ new features that make it easier to spend smarter, including vendor migration, a new Sage Intacct integration, improved bookkeeping access, simplified accounting, card integrations, and so much more. Link in the comments to learn more.

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My 7-year journey via Maple VC with Clay. Thanks Josh Scott at BetaKit for covering the story. I was first introduced to Kareem Amin through a fellow Canadian expat and now Maple founder, Michael Hershfield of Accrue Savings. They first met working at Sailthru in NYC where Kareem sold his first company. In 2016, Kareem started to tinker on new ideas with his cofounder Nicolae Rusan and I was fortunate to meet them at this time. This happened to align with me establishing Maple 1 in November 2016 on the simple thesis of backing Canadians building in America. We noticed that Canadian expats, who graduate from Canadian universities, go on to build some of the biggest companies in tech – Uber, Slack, Instacart, Notion, Faire, Databricks, Cloudflare, Roblox and most recently, OpenAI. Kareem and Nicolae seemed to match this pattern as two graduates from McGill University building in the US. In 2017, they landed on a very clear mission to make programming accessible to all. They painted a picture of replacing the black terminal that developers use, with a spreadsheet that is connected to the internet which could allow non-developers to automate work. What we saw immediately that gave us conviction was a very big ambition (making programming accessible to all) with a unique insight (using a spreadsheet) via a new method of no-code tooling. This reminded us of the early days at Uber: The promise to deliver you anything (big ambition) by starting with a black car that takes you from point A to point B (unique insight) via your phone (new method). We first committed to investing in Clay in Jan 2017 before the company had a lead. In June 2017, we were thrilled to learn that First Round Capital was going to lead their Seed. Sequoia Capital led the Series A in June 2019, which was surprising, since we had no revenue and were still figuring things out. However, the low-code no-code category was starting to take off. Then, they spent the next 3 years figuring out where to focus. During this phase it was fascinating to witness the many disbelievers. We had folks tell us that we should mark this investment to $0. In late 2021, they decided to narrowly focus on automating sales and this turned out to be the big unlock. Varun Anand joined as a cofounder leading their GTM efforts. The timing played out beautifully with new LLMs that we could use to automate growth in a way that hadn’t been done before. Clay relaunched in Feb 2022 with $0 in revenue and has not looked back since. We 10x’d two years in a row, all organically, achieving 100k users, 2500+ customers, and 11k people exchanging ideas in our Slack community. Maple has tripled down since the Seed through the Series B which was just led by Meritech Capital. We have a strong feeling that Clay has a real shot at realizing that vision they first shared with us 7 years ago.

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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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Cool-tech Callout (tm) Wanted to share a bit about Bold Metrics Inc., a company I've been fortunate to advise for the last little while (and which I was lucky to partner with for a few years before that). They're a bada** data science and product team that leverages actual data about you, they don't just ask where else you shop ... Brands love them b/c they drive $$$$$$$ (new sales and retention) - like an average 18% decrease in returns and a 232% increase in conversion. They’ve already partnered with major players like Vuori (my fave), Mizzen Main, and Columbia Sportswear to name a few. #Apparel Tech #AIRevolution They have developed transformative digital twin AI technology that revolutionizes the way we shop for clothes, making it easier and more personalized than ever before. I asked Daina Burnes, ceo of Bold Metrics for an overview and she shared a blurb if anyone interested ... Bold Metrics’ AI body data platform is a digital twin solution that assists apparel shoppers in finding their optimal size and fit, while concurrently aiding retailers and brands in boosting Average Order Value (AOV) and Conversion Rate (CVR), while decreasing returns. From just 4-6 simple shopper inputs, the Bold Metrics generative AI technology accurately determines critical points of measure to create unique digital twins of shoppers with over 50 body data measurements. The technology combines shopper body data with brand-specific garment data, providing tailor-level accurate size recommendations that show how an item will fit across critical points of measure — allowing shoppers to choose their best size based on their personal fit preference #ApparelTech #AIRevolution

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We wrangled our whole team to Ottawa to celebrate Downpay's 2 year anniversary 😭 I can't believe how far we've come. Downpay's first year was Denis and I figuring out our MVP and finding the core problem we wanted to solve. In August of 2023, we publicly launched Downpay on the Shopify App Store. Fast forward to today and it's insane how far we've come. ✨ 6+ team members have helped... ✨ 800+ Shopify Brands process... ✨ $40M+ extra GMV with partial and deferred payments. 😍 Not to mention metrics I'd never thought I'd see in my #productmanagement career. ⭐️ + 47% checkout conversion ⭐️ + 25% AOV bumps ⭐️ + 30% increase in online sales ⭐️ Millions in GMV processed in less than a day, TWICE I'm so incredibly lucky to be on this journey with all these amazing humans who have the best laughing faces. Denis Zgonjanin Ian Kelly Brittney Oberfeld Jeremy Hanson-Finger Alain Achkar BFCM, Holiday season, 2025, we're here for it! 💪🏻 Let's go. 🚀 #shopify #startup

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#FeedbackFriday Still manually typing up recap emails after customer meetings? It's 2025 - AI can do it for you, faster AND better! Thanks Sandie and team from GFD of Canada for sharing the leverage you get from Spinach AI every day 💚🥬 #AI #productivity #collaboration

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We've been hard at work over the past year at Immitracker, adding new program trackers and analytical reports! We're excited to announce that we now support analytics for four new Canadian visa and immigration program trackers 🇨🇦 Starting this August, analytical reports became available for the following program trackers: 1. Ukrainian Family Sponsorship 2. Study Permits  3. Work Permits 4. Startup Visas These analytical reports can help applicants gain unique insights into the processing timelines and current trends for their programs as well as estimate when they can expect to receive their approvals! For example, by reviewing the analytics for the Startup Visa program, we can notice just how long on average it takes applicants to even receive their AOR after application submission. Another example, for the Ukrainian Family Sponsorship program, we can notice that very few applications submitted in 2024 have even moved past the submission stage - most of them are still awaiting to begin processing. Looking for program trackers or analytical reports we don't currently have available? 🤔 Please let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments! #immigration #canada #australia #canadaimmigration #data #analytics

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🚀 How Crowdlinker Helped Honeybee Benefits Get Acquired by Green Shield Canada 🚀 In just two years, Honeybee Benefits transformed from a startup with only a dozen customers to a thriving platform managing thousands of lives. With the help of Crowdlinker, they refined their messaging, revamped their web presence, and streamlined their go-to-market strategy, which led to rapid growth and, ultimately, an acquisition by Green Shield Canada. Jason Dea, Senior Director of Product and Marketing at Honeybee Benefits, shares the impact of working with Crowdlinker and how strategic partnerships can drive incredible results. Curious how your startup could achieve the same? Watch the full story and see how Crowdlinker helped pave the way for success. #businessgrowth #digitalstrategy #startuplife #acquisition #growthstrategy https://lnkd.in/d6t82ghF

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Who better to talk about Shopify's trajectory and future than Benjamin Lang • OLY.? In our 50th podcast episode, I had an extremely interesting conversation with Benjamin about a lot of awesome topics that are close to my heart, and I can't be more excited about what's happening in the Shopify ecosystem. For example: • B2B features • From only online commerce to commerce in the more broad sense of the word • The focus on TCO • Customer centricity I'm very grateful I had the chance to talk to Benjamin, and I hope we can do it again some time in the near future as things are moving so fast. Thanks a lot for your time and effort Benjamin! #deardigital #shopify #podcast

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My favorite learnings happen in the comments section of posts. David, who co-founded Google Drive and is an exec at Shopify, shared a story about teaching his children to use with AI through voice—just as they would with other people. How do you speak well to a human? How do you develop a good relationship with someone? Provide context. Be structured in your thinking. Ask thoughtful questions. Be vulnerable. The more open you are, the better the relationship, right? The same applies to AI tools. The more open you are with AI, the better it will work for you. We’ll lean into this a lot with our voice journal app we’re building. It’s already the case with other tech products—like how LinkedIn improves job search, connections, and content recommendations based on what it knows about you. The debates around privacy and personalization are going to heat up A LOT. Maybe the lessons on how to interact with people and AI are universal.

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These entrepreneurs faced risk in their platform-dependent business. So they opted to sell their Shopify app: Canadian entrepreneurs Derek Morin and Bogdan Radu knew there was a risk to building apps for someone else’s platform. In 2016, they launched Tabarnapp to enable automatic discounting in Shopify. Their metrics by 2022: • Over $1 million in annual revenue • 80% net margin • 60,000 downloads of their flagship app, Automatic Discount • 2,500 recurring clients paying $10 to $1,000 monthly But they recognized the risk. “We realized that at any point, because we were platform-dependent, we could go bankrupt or we could be disrupted by Shopify,” Morin said. Changes to the platform — plus an increased competitive landscape — sparked the idea to sell the company. They sold Tabarnapp to software company Staytuned in November 2022 in a mid-7 figure deal. All the details in our story... https://lnkd.in/eUGEB9K5

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Should I or shouldn’t I? Did I really want to admit my age to the whole LinkedIn world? But when one of Canada’s top broadcasters for the CBC – who now runs a Podcast called “The Art 2 Aging” – invites you to be interviewed, I had to say yes. So, aside from letting a few million people know that I am 69 years old, being interviewed by Chris Henry (who is a skilled and award-winning broadcaster) was an incredible gift. In this 30-minute Podcast session, we covered everything from: • how I overcame my fear of starting my own business and manifesting what I wanted • why spirituality is an important cornerstone of my life • how hiring for diversity across gender, age, experiences and skillset has made us a better agency • how to harness the power of GenAI for “good” • how Gina Livy changed my attitude toward food and my body and set me off on a path of wellness that I am happily following today I usually don’t like listening to myself being interviewed but, Chris, damn you’re good. Thank you for this experience. For those of you who listen to the podcast, let me know if anything stood out for you and what was YOUR greatest teacher in your career and life so far. The link to the Podcast is in the first comment. https://ow.ly/3MIP50TE5Ve #BusinessSuccess #Entrepreneurship #Resilience

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For millions of years, humans have joined tribes, be they religious, ethnic, political, musical (Deadheads) or sports (Think of Collingwood supporters) ... it’s in our nature. In his book Tribes, Seth Godin talks about how a tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. There are many in the Australian Startup scene with passion, insights, and connections few however have the leadership qualities of Mark "Z" Zmarzly 🦄. Mr.Nebraska and his Amazon Web Services (AWS) Founder Fellowship Program make a difference, giving Founders the tools, resources and guidance to succeed at scale. Mark and the Founder Fellowship Program help solve a lot challenges and make you think (really think) about the opportunities for leading your fellow founders, staff, employees, investors, customers. It's not easy, but Mark, aka Mr. Basketball; helps Founders, their staff and startup become a better version of themselves, everyday. Keep doing what you're doing Mark ... we at QuantPS appreciate you. #AWS #Amazon #FounderFellowship #StartupDevelopment #VentureCapital #CloudComputing #AWSStartups #TechInnovation #Entrepreneurship #AWSCommunity #BusinessDevelopment #AWSAccelerator #TechLeadership #AWSPrograms #StartupSuccess #AWSImpact #FounderSupport #AWSFellowship #TechStartups

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This is a really good post by Ghassan Halazon. It's easy for armchair quarterbacks to say "Canadians sell our companies out too early", or "we don't think big and therefore sell out early", but it's never that simple. I don't agree with Ghassan that first-time founders should always take the offer (eg. Google could have sold to Yahoo in 1998, and I'm sure Shopify had multiple interested suitors on their path to an IPO), but he's probably right in most situations. The first exit I had as a VC was a 5x return over about 4 years. I recall the negative comments I received from people in the ecosystem that we sold out too early to the Americans (Microsoft was the acquirer), and that we weren't thinking big enough. But none of those critics saw the slowing sales pipeline, or the increasingly competitive sales cycles, or the churn rates, or the difficult fundraising. No matter how good things are, there are always risks to the business. Most companies plateau long before they achieve a market dominating position, and distinguishing between approaching that final plateau vs. just a slowing blip before the next growth wave is difficult for entrepreneurs that are usually 'half-glass-full' people. And, on a related point, despite what many say, it is never that companies sell out early because they lack the access to capital needed to scale. They may lack capital at a valuation they desire, but that's different, and in fact a datapoint on where a business is on its path to plateauing or market domination.

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🚀 𝐌𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐀𝐈 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭 – 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐰 M𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 🚀 Exciting news! We’ve launched MutualMarkets AI Chat at mutualmarkets.ai/ai-chat to revolutionize the way brands explore marketing partnerships and campaign possibilities. 💡 With MutualMarkets AI Chat, you can: - Learn more about MutualMarkets and how our platform empowers brands to grow. Simply ask our AI any questions you have. - Create product-specific creative briefs with ease, using the latest in AI. - Discover potential co-marketing partners who align with your brand’s vision and goals. This tool leverages cutting-edge AI models on a proprietary framework to provide personalized insights and recommendations, helping brands of all sizes make the most out of every marketing opportunity. Curious about how AI can fuel your next big campaign? Start the conversation today with MutualMarkets AI Chat! Visit: https:// mutualmarkets.ai/ai-chat #AI #Marketing #BrandPartnerships #MutualMarkets #CoMarketing

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