Restless Maverick with John Ruffolo, Founder & Managing Partner Maverix
Release Date: 11/13/2023
Surviving and thriving with Andrew Lockhead, co-founder & CEO @ Stay22
Flagship Podcast
Andrew Lockhead is a rockstar founder building the next Canadian flagship. The start-up launched in 2016 made its mark in the affiliate field of accommodations. They have built a global platform for travel content creators with $500M GMV and a $36M ARR run-rate on the path to $100M. We spoke about The genesis story of Stay22 Surviving the pandemic and now thriving on a remarkable trajectory How they’ve incorporated LLMs into their business model Leadership lessons and the operating model How Andrew thinks about the future of travel in the world of AI agents ...
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Strong opinions loosely held with Philippe Beaudoin, Co-founder & CEO @ Waverly
Flagship Podcast
Philippe Beaudoin is a gritty founder and one of the world’s foremost experts on AI. He’s relentlessly focused on his startup Waverly and shared some very candid and inspiring insights. We spoke about: Waverly 3.0 - pivoting and hard lessons Building personalized experiences for enterprises Provocative idea that Data is Dead Why the GPT wrapper challenge is flawed Getting to default alive as a bootstrapped founder His thoughts on the AI landscape
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Live Podcast @ Espace CDPQ: The State of Early Stage in Canada
Flagship Podcast
(00:00:00) Intro (00:01:39) Research spotlight by Réseau Capital (00:23:08) Investor panel (00:54:26) Founder panel (01:22:28) Fireside chat with Tom Birch
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From Medicine to AI Powered Businesses with Nicholas Nadeau, CTO @ SmartOne
Flagship Podcast
Dr. Nicholas Nadeau is the Chief Technology Officer at SmartOne, a leader in ethical AI and data solutions. Nicholas has become a pivotal figure in tech innovation with a Ph.D. in AI and engineering and a career dedicated to emerging technologies. Before joining SmartOne, he founded Nadeau Innovations, propelling startups to success as a fractional CTO. We spoke about The evolving role of the CTO Pitfalls for Startup CTOs Maintaining a Startup Mentality at Scale SmartOne's Value Proposition
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Scaling and operating lessons with Julie Lacasse, co-founder @ Tracktik and Venture Partner @ Amiral Ventures
Flagship Podcast
I’m lucky that I get to work alongside Julie Lacasse and learn from her every day. If you don’t know her, Julie is a serial entrepreneur and current venture capital partner at Amiral Ventures. She’s the cofounder of Tracktik, an innovative company specialized in optimizing the management of security agencies, she led the company to international success and exit. Julie now brings her expertise to Amiral Ventures, where she focuses on venture capital investment. Her inspiring career path and strategic vision make her an influential figure in the entrepreneurial and investment...
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Building successful tech startups with Richard Chénier, General Manager @ Québec Tech
Flagship Podcast
Startup Montréal, the non-profit organization that has supported early-stage Montréal startups is now known as Québec Tech. The rebranded organization has also adopted a new mandate to grow the international footprint of Québec tech companies with high export potential. To talk about the important mission of Québec Tech, I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Chenier on the podcast to learn more about their plans and how they plan on addressing a key challenge for Quebec based startups. On the episode, we spoke about: The reason to expand the mission of Quebec Tech to the...
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Making meetings better with Aydin Mirzaee, Co-Founder & CEO @ Fellow
Flagship Podcast
I had a great conversation with Aydin Mirzaee, CEO & Co-Founder @ Fellow. Aydin is a tech loving entrepreneur with a passion for building great products, leadership and people. Fellow solves a huge problem for companies, help people spend less time in meetings and make them more productive. Previously , he was the co-founder and co-CEO of Fluidware which was acquired by SurveyMonkey. On the episode, we spoke about: Why he decided to start Fellow after having sold his previous startup How meetings have grown significantly since the pandemic Their product...
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Building an electric future with Marc Bédard, Cofounder & CEO @ Lion Electric
Flagship Podcast
Sur cet épisode du Flagship podcast, j’ai eu le plaisir d’échanger avec Marc Bédard, cofondateur et PDG @ Lion Électrique. Marc Bédard a toujours été passionné par la technologie, l'innovation et la finance. En 2008, il a fondé Lion Electric et a peu après mis l'entreprise sur la voie du zéro émission en s'engageant dans un portefeuille de produits de véhicules lourds et moyens entièrement électriques. Sur l’émission, nous avons parlé de: Comment le Karaté l'a aidé à devenir un meilleur leader Acceptation sociale des véhicules...
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Backing AI founders at pre-seed with Jordan Steiner and Max McCrea, Co-Founders @ Dev/Cap
Flagship Podcast
There is a cool new fund called DevCap based in Montreal founded by Max McCrea and Jordan Steiner. is a pre-seed and seed-stage investment corporation. They strive to provide what other investors promise: real support for our investments in the form of actionable technical and operational support via its partnership with Monadical. Jordan and Max are not building your typical VC firm which is structured as an evergreen investment corp. They bring solid technical expertise for their founders. We spoke about: Building a strong culture as a new VC fund How they built a...
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Changing an industry with Simon Leblond, Co-founder & CEO @ SmartD Technologies
Flagship Podcast
J’ai eu le plaisir de discuter avec Simon Leblond, co-fondateur et PDG @ SmartD Technologies. Simon est un entrepreneur avec 20 ans d'expérience entrepreneuriale dans la mise sur le marché de technologies disruptives dans tous les secteurs. SmartD Technologies développe des variateurs de fréquence (VFD) pour le contrôle de moteurs. Leur variateur de fréquence Clean Power VFD peut augmenter l'efficacité des moteurs, réduire l'usure des équipements, économiser de l'énergie et réduire les coûts pour les entreprises de nombreux secteurs, notamment les infrastructures, les...
info_outlineJohn is the Founder and Managing Partner of Maverix Private Equity, a private equity firm focused on technology-enabled growth and disruption investment strategies. As a firm run by entrepreneurs, funded by entrepreneurs, and for entrepreneurs, Maverix invests in health and wellness, financial services, transportation and logistics, live, work, play and learn, and retail. John chairs the Investment Committee, guides the strategy of the firm, is deeply involved with fundraising and sourcing and leading investment opportunities, particularly within the technology industry. He led Maverix’s first investment in Viral Nation and sits on their board.
John is also the Founder of OMERS Ventures and Co-Founder and Vice Chair of the Council of Canadian Innovators. Over the course of his leadership as the CEO of OMERS Ventures, they invested over USD$500 million in over 40 disruptive technology companies across North America, including growth investments in Shopify, Xanadu, Wattpad, Wave, Hootsuite, Rover, Desire 2 Learn, Hopper, DuckDuckGo, TouchBistro and League. During his tenure at OMERS, John also formed OMERS Platform Investments, and as its Executive Managing Director, he formed OMERS Growth Equity and led investments in Purpose Financial, PointNorth Capital, District Ventures, OneEleven and ArcTern Ventures. John co-founded the Council of Canadian Innovators with Jim Balsillie, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping high-growth Canadian technology firms scale globally.