Building Canada's Next Flagships. Amiral Ventures Founding Partners

Nectar: [00:00:00] So welcome to the flagship podcast. We did this episode two years ago, and so thanks for being on again, guys. The episode two years ago we did was like, Hey, what is Admiral Ventures? Why we're doing this thing? And for those that are curious, you can go and check it out. And then, someone asked me recently oh, what does it take to launch a VC fund?

Nectar: And it's oh, you just have to be completely naive. So I think back to two years ago, it's yes, we're good to go. We're gonna launch soon. It's yeah, it's taken a long time, so I figured it'd be good to do this episode again and talk about. What we've learned And also, yeah, go back to some of those concepts of like, why we're doing this and a little bit of our background.

Nectar: So first question to you guys first off, I say it's been fun being in the trenches with you and fun doing this podcast to to dive in why we doing this, how do we meet? Curious to get the, or the genesis story.

Fred: Yeah, no, cool. And like very good idea to do this again post-launch and.

Fred: Like we have more scars. We already had scars before. I think starting on the journey, and we have a lot more right now, but I don't think founders really wanna hear about how hard it is to to raise a fund [00:01:00] when they are in the trenches and like building the future. And I think this is how Admiral started is basically we are super excited about the talent and the potential of the ecosystem.

Fred: And we thought. That there are gaps and let's try to have an impact. So I think the journey starts really there. It starts, what do founders need to succeed? And I guess, like from my part, if I get started first, is I have been in those shoes I've been a founder, bootstrap companies, fundraised, exited failed.

Fred: Succeeded. And along the way I had the great chance of meeting Dom in one of the fundraise in the series A of of nbo and then nectar in, in creating value with our customers and it all starts there, right? Trying to build a very complimentary team. That can have this kind of impact with with our portfolio companies.

Dom: It's funny because we both met when Fred was raising capital in this.

Dom: Very it's a very good [00:02:00] example because you were doing exactly what we want to support today as investors. But we connected really well at the time. It was in what, 2014? 2015?

Fred: 2014. Yeah.

Dom: And then reconnected in in 2022 to start discussing about the opportunity.

Dom: So it's, I think it's all about the opportunity that, that is, that in the market. That was in the market at the time. And to me that was in the market 20 years ago. The opportunity of supporting talented entrepreneurs and. Supporting them with with expertise, with capital, of course.

Dom: And you were the entrepreneur, the talented guy at the time, in 2014 and it's funny. Today we're launching a fund with you and Nectar.

Nectar: And Dom, you're a founder in your own right, like you, you started Expand Capital and now you started Emeral Ventures. So walk us through the journey maybe of starting a fund, like walk us through, expand the early days and what that fund was.

Dom: I guess I, I have to admit I'm the finance guy. I spent the last always need

Fred: one.

Dom: Hopefully I spent the last 25 years in [00:03:00] in finance. But the first 12 years working in investment banking, doing, m and a advisory between Montreal. I spent a few years in New York, a few years in Paris, but it was between 2000 and 2012.

Dom: It was a fantastic period to be working in m and a. I was mostly doing advisory business for in the. Technology sector. So I had the opportunity to look at so many different types of business models, if you remember those years where YouTube, Facebook were created.

Dom: It was fascinating to be working in the finance in the finance space with that type of of, major buzz. That was in the market at the time. And I came back in 20 2012 came back to Montreal to launch a new fund called x expand capital with my former partner, Alex.

Dom: Great guy. And we did I have to say, yeah, I think we, we did a few good things. We, we failed on many businesses, but most importantly we delivered [00:04:00] return to IPOs a few strategic exits. It was fun time. Yeah.

Nectar: Maybe I'll give my outside perspective. We didn't know each other back then, but I remember like being in the market and it's what is this fund?

Nectar: I came outta nowhere and then you guys invest in these iconic companies, right? So you guys had pretty good success, I wanna say with, some pretty well known brand names.

Fred: Not a lot of funds here and Quebec can say they brought two companies to IPO, right? Plus all of the other kind of transactions and other deals in your career.

Fred: But I think that kind of experience and what I was talking about. Getting the right team around the table. It's that it being a vc is not like uni dimensional, right? And because you deal with like maybe 12, 15, 20 companies in portfolio who have they're full businesses who have like financing problems, HR problems, product problems, sales problems.

Fred: So you need to have. The capability to, to support and to understand all of these areas.

Nectar: Yeah, you mentioned the the, yeah, so as we're raising a funnel, we'll get to [00:05:00] fundraising of the challenges, but one thing is that, I think I know your bios by heart at this point. It's like we could probably do each other's bios and it never ceases to amaze me as when we're doing those like bios.

Nectar: Nah, nah. And it's and Fred in your point, and it's like. It always shocks me. It's if everyone takes their phone today and looks at it, there's these three letters called LTE, and I'm like, oh, Fred created lt. Yeah, all my team. Okay. Your t thanks for not, for sharing credit.

Nectar: But yeah, maybe give us a bit of a glimpse as to your early background as well. 'cause you started founded two companies before. And Yeah. And then, your background.

Fred: Yes. This, this. Journey that we're starting now is career number three or third phase of my career, right?

Fred: So my, so people I think know more of my, my, my startups, but I spent 10 years in wireless technology and seven outside of Canada. And so yeah, I was in Japan when 3G was not even deployed in Europe. And then I moved in Europe to start the UMTS product line with Nortel. And yeah, LTE is, LTE was a, was an interesting [00:06:00] project led mainly by Verizon in the us.

Fred: And our team was called Long-Term Evolution, right? So we were basically figuring out an evolution to. The 3G path at Verizon at picked and it became the standard. And that's why you see LTE on your on your phone, which means long-term evolution. So it's a stupid name.

Nectar: So yeah.

Nectar: And maybe in Mayan how we met. I had a small consulting company called p and r, which is still around, still doing super. And yeah, we were essentially helping a lot big institutional funds post investment and yeah, we developed this cool expertise of big company, big fund invests.

Nectar: Then we come in and and help the portfolio companies out. And I remember it was actually through the podcast is how we met, which is funny.

Fred: We, yeah. Yeah. We met the first time You invited me to the podcast. Yeah. And then I hire you firm.

Nectar: So that was

Fred: kind a, that was kind good Sales strategy.

Nectar: Yeah. My business dev trick. And it's I think you guys had just raised your series B, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. And and it's like after you're like, what does your company do? I kind, I give you the quick pitch and it's oh, that's interesting. And we work together, which was really fun. [00:07:00] And.

Nectar: Got to see the journey. And Dom, we almost worked together. 'cause one of our closest partners was like, yes. Yeah. And like with the ups and downs of Teo, we almost we almost did a small mandate together. So yeah, it was funny that, our paths didn't cross at that point, but it came very close.

Dom: Yeah, exactly.

Fred: But what was crazy is at least in our interaction back in 2018. Was like, what? But now people call value creation. But for us it was, okay, we're delivering a SaaS platform to this big Japanese customer. But they want more than just the subscription to a platform. They want basically they want some work and insights around the platform.

Fred: How do, how does the use of AI in their company transform their org, their processes? Where will they monetize it and. This is the stuff that as a kind of SaaS provider, you don't really want to spend time on that and you don't necessarily have the smarts to, to help them. And this was super interesting that you guys come in and help us win that customer [00:08:00] and build value around it.

Fred: Like this experience with you was what triggered us to get back in touch when we're starting ameral saying, okay, what p and r is doing with ES or other kind of institutional funds and what they're doing with startups post investment. Would like to be able to provide that to our portfolio companies and we got back in touch to, to hire p and r initially.

Nectar: Let's see. Yeah, so I'll share maybe some of the backstory and maybe I'll skip the psychological trauma part of it and Yeah. So at started p and r we're doing well, and in early 2020 we had an opportunity to transform our firm into a fund, one where these bigger institutional had approached us.

Nectar: And then obviously with a pandemic that didn't happen. It was like literally like a, like a month after that initial conversation. But I stayed in the back of my mind. And then two plus years later I was like, maybe I'm gonna do this fun thing. Naively. And I'd already started working on my departure and transitioning out.

Nectar: And that's where, I met with you guys. You're like, Hey, we're launching this thing called Admiral and we're gonna want to use PR for the fun. I'm like, that's great guys. Just [00:09:00] ffy. I. Slowly on the way out, it's what do you wanna do, nectar? It's I wanna launch a fund. It's that's what we're doing.

Fred: Why don't you join?

Nectar: Yeah, that's it. Yeah, the rest is history, as they say. And yeah, it's been a long journey. Thinking back, maybe a good segue to what we've learned over these, like close to three years now like I think you guys started talking about it in like September, October 22.

Nectar: Yeah. Joined early 23 and yeah, it's been a long journey maybe to talk about. From the founder perspective, any founders listening? What's been our experience like raising, but also because we've been spoken to hundreds of founders, like if not more, throughout this journey. Like any perspectives to share?

Dom: Yeah. I think the my, my biggest learn learning is was really the the importance of building trust and building the right relationships. Because that's how, that's our business, right? When you're a VC fund, you're building trust with series of investors. You're raising capital creating the right conditions.

Dom: To be raising capital, you need to build a story and build. Convictions. And you're doing the, you are doing the same thing with entrepreneurs. Building [00:10:00] trust with them. Having access to the best entrepreneurs. It's we're, you're not just putting capital. You need to be putting expertise.

Dom: But we are fundamentally building partnerships. I think that's that, to me, that's really the big point. We knew that. But the importance. Of that is, is was really surprising to me.

Fred: Yeah. Totally. It's a people business.

Dom: Yeah.

Fred: We've learned things on the fundraising of a fund as well, in the sense that you are. I fundraise for companies where you have a shiny product and you have customers and you can build a story around that. Fundraising for a fund is basically a slide deck and us, right? So I don't think we had an like, planned. It would be so hard. But this we're, now that we're there, along the way.

Fred: We never stopped our work with the founders, right? So I think every week we have been helping founders. We knew that what's missing in the ecosystem is not talent. [00:11:00] It's not ambition, it's not smarts, what's missing. And even not, it's not capital because there is a lot of capital in Canada. For startups.

Fred: What's missing is conviction, right? It's leadership, it's people being able to say, you know what? I will put money into this. Even if there are always gaps into a due diligence process. Always. There's always unknowns. We know things will pivot, things will change. So it's building conviction on these founders.

Fred: And when you can show that you are willing to do this and you're capable of doing this, founders wanna work with you. And that's what we've witnessed in the last two years.

Dom: I think the other point I would add is really the quality of the businesses that we have here.

Dom: Yeah. It's, it is amazing. Unfortunately, we, we're saying no we had to say no to many opportunities. Which, which really interesting. But wow. I gotta say we have beautiful companies. We have talented people. Talented entrepreneurs. So it's I [00:12:00] don't want to say it was a surprise, but that's was, that was really reassuring to see the quality of the pipeline that that we're facing.

Fred: Yeah. And along the way, as you guys know we did two investments before having Think a fund, which is talking about conviction and commitment. Yeah, some deals are just too good to to say no to, and we figure out a way to do them without having a closed fund. So really exciting. I think the other thing we've learned is that the gap we believed existed in terms of leadership of rounds and capital gap and all of that.

Fred: Is there but has moved in. These two has, it has actually moved from, when late 22 we were talking about a series A gap. There was a lot of capital. We had been seeing super inflated valuation coming out of the 20, 21, 22 period. I think the last two years we've seen that gap move.

Fred: South to seed and seed extensions and pre as. We've all seen the stats on the graduation rate from C to a, like [00:13:00] going down the time it takes is now 36 months instead of 18. But what this means is in that period, entrepreneurs are. Are learning new reflexes. They're more cash efficient.

Fred: They're basically, we see a lot of good things happening but the leadership gap is there. And that's how we kinda refocus Emerald to say, okay, this is the inflection point where we're gonna add the most value.

Dom: Yeah. The inflection point is it is a crucial we can see the inflection point at the series A, but but that's what we do Series A or late seed, the inflection point.

Dom: Can be there. And that's what we are financing. We're excited about something happening with the company. Clearly the growth is there. The metrics are really different. And they are human transformations as well. That's really interesting because.

Dom: Basically a startup is very often the story of a guy or a girl building a product. That person is an expert in building a new technology, and that person needs to transform into. [00:14:00] A CEO of a company, a manager. And that's a major transformation. You've faced it Fred in the past, and that's really super interesting and there's no finance there.

Dom: There's no, it's not a question of finance, of business or technology. It's a, it's people a human question. And that's really interesting to be working with the, yeah. And the, and these conditions.

Nectar: Yeah, that's exactly right. Like I think at the point you brought up before dumb too about the quality people.

Nectar: I think my learning, doing this this new job is, yeah, it's not, there's not lack of founders. If anything, the main challenge I've see in the industry is that all the good founders are getting sucked down to the us and you could talk about that if we want to, but it's like a, I think a lot of reasons.

Nectar: And, I think what we're trying to do at is put a little bit of stake in the ground and say, hey we're proudly Canadian based in Quebec, but we think we can do a good job. And the only way we can do that really is providing something of substance. Like the money itself is a commodity.

Nectar: Yeah. So it's the conviction, the expertise, knowing when to help, knowing when to get out of the way. And I think we've done a good job so far with, there are two or two, the two [00:15:00] companies we've invested in so far. But yeah, that's been the biggest lesson is there's a business opportunity, but at the same time, it's not oh, the greatest moment in Canadian tech.

Nectar: It feels like we're back on the upswing, but there's still a lot of work to do.

Fred: Yeah, I think the another thing we learned things that we had not planned or not expected in the last two years is how much. The I guess the more advanced founder, the founder community, the fo folks who have had success at exited in our tech ecosystem, how much they want to contribute.

Fred: And I'm still pinching myself, like I'm amazed at the list of LPs of investors we got into into Amaral and. Pretty much everyone who's had an exit or success in, in, in town has put some money in the fund. And not only do they put some money, but they say, Hey, and I want to help your portfolio companies.

Fred: That's amazing.

Nectar: Yeah. So if there are any founders, this thing that have had exits, it's not too late. Yeah, we have a second close. But yeah, I think that's part, I think that's you're talking about pitching yourself, right? It is it's like the list of founders that are back is really cool.

Nectar: And I think that goes back to maybe [00:16:00] our, our motto of trying to help founders and our approach. Yeah. Maybe for people that aren't as familiar with what we're trying to do can we give the quick sales pitch? What is that, Miguel? And like, why should you take our money?

Fred: Yeah. Obviously, and you want, maybe we can start with the thesis, right?

Fred: Is we believe that the Canadian economy can be more prosperous. So we have a whole thesis about around what we now call prosperity decoded, and it's around how technology helps enterprises be more productive, resilient, and sustainable. So those are the three pillars. And basically what, if you deal with Admiral, what you're gonna get is you're gonna get a rapid yes or no and we are not followers.

Fred: So basically, if your round is led by someone and. You are missing the last 500 KI mean, good for you. This is not the role we want to play. We really are here to lead or co-lead. Take half of the kind of seed plus pre A rounds with checks between one and 2 million [00:17:00] and and obviously.

Fred: We are gonna do 15 companies so basically rolling up our sleeves and be very available and present to support.

Dom: Again we're building partnerships, so we. We, we're not just putting capital or we're not just investing with specific conditions. We're building a partnership, partnering with entrepreneurs and su supporting them building their companies.

Dom: So we provide expertise. We have networks. We have 40 those 40 plus investors coming from the technology world. So we. We might be only three today, but we have so many people working with us that we can put to con contribution with with our portfolio companies.

Nectar: Yeah, no, obviously like our thesis, and maybe the book, click on it. I'll give my perspective on you mentioned prosperity, decoded, the way we think about creating economic prosperity and the three pillars that we've based it on, like productivity, sustainability, resilience I find it matches the today, the famous [00:18:00] cringey expression of where the puck is going.

Nectar: It's overused a bit, but it's still true. It rings true today of productivity. It's like Canada faces a challenge, but every. Every country's gonna have the same thing, every enterprise elsewhere. Sustainability is like, how do you create businesses that have this, this notion of double bottom line and then resilience, which again, today is very apropos, the, we're moving into a multipolar world how companies and nations think about their own sovereignty is evolving.

Nectar: Yeah, I like how, how we've develop this thesis in worldview, so I'll let you guys respond, but maybe in a segue after will be is, okay, how do we plan to help? We mentioned, yes, we'll be involved and we have the expertise, but maybe the second level of that, what does that look like?

Fred: Yeah. Yeah, obviously there's the three of us and our mentors and finding investors obviously are available to help. But I think when it comes down to. Helping the companies in day to day. We have expertise in building AI companies and data driven companies. We have expertise in, in hiring execs and hiring leadership.

Fred: We have expertise in, in financing these [00:19:00] companies. D has seen any type of transactions that can exist. So obviously we're not there to be in the way, but we're definitely. Available when things go well and when the shit is the fan as well. And then it's gonna happen. That's the thing, right?

Dom: Yeah, I think we, yeah, I think we can say that. The three of us put together, I think we can say we, we have faced any type of business problem that you can face as an entrepreneur. So the combination of war three. Expertise is experiences. I think is super valuable.

Nectar: Yeah, totally.

Nectar: And my read of the market is that there's not that many funds. One, there's not enough capital period. I think that's one thing. And it's and then there's just not enough funds that are led by, by founders that have done this. So I think that so far we seem to be resonating in the market and yeah, like I said, legal co lead, we wanna.

Nectar: With the people here, right? And then maybe my perspective on this whole notion of like how we help, right? So we mentioned already the [00:20:00] our participation, our involvement, our mentors, this double opt in, right? We're not trying to create transactional interface, but also just people will hire eventually, right?

Nectar: So people that'll be at our at our on the payroll that will be at our disposal of our startups, and, we mentioned those two first two investments, so like maybe the spotlight, little bit of a spotlight on, on maquette and Maxa. I think we're all a little bias on these two.

Fred: Yeah. We're gonna have to find companies that don't start with ma.

Nectar: That's it. Yeah. It's the joke that's oh we named our fund A so then we show up on top of the yellow pages. Yeah. So what, what do those companies do? Maybe I'll throw it to you, Fred. Give us the quick pitch for those two and why we like those founders?

Fred: Yeah. They're good examples of, of our productivity thesis and in some way our sustainability thesis as well. But if you think about these two companies, they both leverage AI and some AR architecture to solve very specific vertical problems in the industry. One addresses. So Maxa addresses the finance function inside of a large company.

Fred: What's often [00:21:00] called FP and a National Planning Analysis. So if you think any large enterprise has data in 4, 10, 12, 20 ERPs and system of records and LLMs work really badly on, on those type, this type of data. So they built an architecture so that. Even the CFO and the fp and a can have an agent that helps reasoning instead of just moving around CSVs from one from one file to the other, from one database to the other.

Fred: So that's AI for CFOs is the first. Is the first investment we've made. And then market is bringing everything that gene, AI and agent has to offer to the architecture process. Again, what we like about it is it's not something that. If you just web scrape all the data and you train the next version of IGPT, you can do, right?

Fred: It's, you have to produce AutoCAD plans. And so there's a need for very proprietary data. There's a need for very proprietary models as [00:22:00] well. So Maquette is bringing that level of AI and simplicity to the residential home building and designing process.

Nectar: And maybe d dom on your end those two companies, but also I know we were talking about the whole, AI buzzword.

Nectar: How do you see that, our future companies using ai? We're talking about data, et cetera, security, since it is the Lemo la mud today.

Dom: It might be the le but those two companies are actually fantastic examples of what we want to be doing innovation companies led by talented people.

Dom: But what's interesting is that the, the innovation with Mac and Macai is not necessarily the AI itself, it's the platform that they have built to use to be using ai. And that's what we want to see in our companies. We will not be investing in LLMs or foundational models.

Dom: We will be investing in. Innovative companies that are using ai, [00:23:00] but where the innovation is in the collection of of exclusive data, for instance. And really this is what we want to see because yeah, AI is a, it's a big buzz word. It's a really powerful tool.

Dom: But today it is super democratic. We all have access to Goodis and all the companies in the world have access to good ai. So it cannot be the innovation itself. That's what that's,

Nectar: yeah. It's, yeah, it's have to say super excited about, like us getting going and launching.

Nectar: And while I got you guys here, maybe we'll ask questions that I don't typically ask. Yeah, what's been the most surprising since we decided to do this thing and yeah. What surprised you the most, like positive or negative?

Dom: I think that the numbers in Canada are tough difficult to watch.

Dom: We're seeing too many. Startup companies going south of the border to get their, to get their financing. And it's it's, of course, it's disappointing and it's one of the reasons why we built Al to [00:24:00] provide a strong, very strong financing alternative to those startups. But looking at the numbers it's tough because as a country, when you don't take the lead or.

Dom: When you don't take ownership of your best startup companies there will be a very big impact on the long run. So we cannot be building or economy without financing the, or best startups at the critical moment in their life. I think that's the, to me it's, it's a bit sad, but we really want to contribute. We really want to provide a solution with the, with,

Fred: I, I don't know if it's, I would call qualify that as a surprise, but in the post pandemic years, the, a lot of grassroots initiatives have slowed down, if not disappeared in Canada.

Fred: And so yeah, maybe it's not surprising, but it's, it, to me it's like [00:25:00] successful ecosystems in innovation and tech must have grassroot movements, right? So obviously. We still have no no, with that has opened and started festival doing its thing. And by the way, thank you. We're in their office right now, so that's great.

Fred: But as a whole, like the disappearance of Notman House and there, there were a lot of things that I felt the grassroots movements were disappearing. You will not resuscitate a, an ecosystem top down by a big policy or something like that. It really needs to be the builders.

Fred: Who are building and less talking less and building more will be the ones who will revive this ecosystem. And now we're excited 'cause we see it and we're trying to play our like very small part into this. The stuff you're doing with North Star as an example Nectar is absolutely insane.

Fred: But yeah. I think if we if we. If we want this this country [00:26:00] to get back on track, on tech and innovation. It needs to look down at the grassroots movements and not try to build one other big government policy.

Nectar: Yeah, totally. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Dom: And one way to do it was actually, is actually to have builders on or own cap table part of AL financing.

Dom: Yeah. Al guys like you of course, but we have some. Of the best entrepreneurs and Quebec now part of al as investors and as mentors. So I think it's really 1, 1, 1 part of the, a part of the solution.

Nectar: Yeah, maybe mine, since I'll answer my own question what surprise us the most?

Nectar: Maybe I'll double, double click on your part about community and yeah. So it's been a very active part of our strategy, right? Yeah. Really like this notion of rising tides lifts all boats. We named our content section after it. But I feel like we've all had these conversations.

Nectar: It's. Part of our job. Yes, we need to invest. And that's the, the main job. But we're a less mature ecosystem here, right? We're not in the valley, so we're trying to give back. So we're trying to work with all the investors, all the [00:27:00] founders. So it's a, and yes, selfishly it's gonna, we're benefiting from it, right?

Nectar: Say yes, pipeline, but people that get inspired, it's the long run.

Fred: It always pays.

Nectar: That's it. Yeah. This notion of paid forward. So it's been surprising the positive reaction and the, I often joke of I'm looking forward to transitioning from event coordinator to investor. But that it seems to have happened.

Nectar: The other thing is that, maybe on the firm building side, I think the things that's been fun not surprising, but it's, yeah, like the quality of our partnership, I find it's been, we've been super tight and despite a lot of punches. Some sometimes very tough conversations. Fuck did we keep doing this?

Nectar: Yeah. It's not, it's, it was never a straight lie to closing this fund,

Fred: yeah. Again, not a surprise for me because we sat down in early 23 and all align, made sure that we shared the same values and same objectives. So not a surprise, but I'm totally resonate with you. If we had close this fund in eight months it would be very different than now with three years later.

Fred: W like if we haven't abandoned [00:28:00] and killed each other after three years in this fundraise process, I think we're there for the long run.

Nectar: No to, the other expression is you only know the quality of the sailor during, rough seeds. Yeah. So I find you have

Fred: to stop with the boat analogies here.

Nectar: I'll repeat the story since you brought it up. I'll repeat the story. You guys have heard it. But yeah I find each of us had this motto of there is there's no plan B, like we weren't doing any like side gigs, and my previous company when I left, I was working at Google for a few years and they offered me to stick around.

Nectar: He offered me like a six month sabbatical and before I went to start p and r and it's obviously I refuse that. 'Cause I kinda have that on the head of my, my, my former co-founders. But also six months wasn't enough. So I sent them the story of burning the boats, the story of the Conta door that came into modern day like Mexico and told the soldiers burn the ships and the end of the story is they ended up winning. So now it's okay, the name of my fund is like a boat. So I feel like there's always this boat analogy. But I find it, it does ring true of yeah, we, we did this all in. And we've made it, other learnings too.

Nectar: You mentioned them, it's man, there's so many good people. It's been tough. To say no, and it's part of the [00:29:00] job we have we have to say no a lot. And in trying to do it in a very open, providing a lot of transparent feedback and not like brushing off people, right? So I think that's part of our strategy is like, okay, how do we even for the, the, all the people who say no, how do we create value for them?

Nectar: And in any way we can,

Dom: I think that we realized that transparency was was of course, extremely important with with entrepreneur, entrepreneurs and the people we're dealing with. But it is even today, part of our values transparency. Because providing the real constructive feedback.

Dom: Even if it's a no to entrepreneurs it is highly valuable to them. And in those few cases where we said no with a very complete explanation of why we said no, my God, that it was a wow moment for. And those entrepreneurs because it's, we were probably the first ones to give that type of feedback.

Dom: And that, that's, I think that's really important.

Nectar: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And their value of [00:30:00] good is not good enough, which I like a lot. The respect for the founder journey, radical transparency and, good is not good enough. It's we're fledgling startup ourselves and we have a lot to prove yet, yes, we're trying to make our mark.

Nectar: We've worked with two good companies so far, but it's, we're just at the beginning.

Fred: Yeah. And we can complain about fundraising and fund, but there's nothing harder than building a company from the ground up. And so we gotta respect that. When the story, when I was raising series B at nobo, we pitched a hundred VCs, right?

Fred: And if two, like two, three of them like actually gave feedback on why they were saying no. It's nice. So we were basically going back at them and asking, no, I want more details on why you say no. And we created the book of No which was a PowerPoint deck with all the reasons. Until we finally got a term sheet in San Francisco.

Fred: But it's, that's the kind of thing that I think is part of our values. We want to give always feedback, right?

Nectar: Yeah, totally. And yeah, like I've, we chat about these ideas, right? How do we create an operational way of having candid feedback and providing more structured responses.[00:31:00]

Nectar: Yeah. Yeah I know I, we could talk about talk a about other subjects,

Fred: But just before, like you're talk, talking about giving back and lifting, lifting all boats with with the community, but. What I'm also super happy when I see what we've done in the last two years is it's, we don't limit that to the tech ecosystem, right?

Fred: Obviously it's center of our lives and what we think about when we wake up in the morning. But like the work you're doing with Tech aid, we just went singing from Marvin on the Rock. I'm involved with the DPG Foundation. This stuff is also about giving back and it's also part of the al Val values.

Fred: It's not necessarily necessarily always in the tech ecosystem, but I think it's important.

Nectar: Yeah, that thing. Yeah. It goes back to, you live once and try and leave this world a little bit better than you know when you found it.

Fred: But we're better investors and singers.

Nectar: That's it. We might have closed one lp.

Nectar: We'll see. Sing, I'm teasing. Yeah. But that was really cool. For people that Dunno, like the two of us went on stage and sang in front of [00:32:00] six, 700 people and did not very well, but it was fun.

Dom: Oh, yeah that's the idea of the event. Challenging. We. We challenged about 10 business leaders to sing.

Dom: On a stage in the real ta there with a real band. And it was a fantastic experience.

Nectar: Yeah. Yeah. A little stressed out, but I think we did well. So guys, last question. Where are we going? What are we excited about next five, 10 years? I looked at our term sheet, it's oh shit.

Nectar: Like we, it's a TED Year. It's a Ted so yeah, what are we excited about?

Dom: I think back back to the name Al. I don't think that we've explained what is in French, it means flagship. And we found, we really believe that the next Canadian flagship companies will be technology companies.

Dom: And if we're to succeed in doing that, that's where I'm really excited to be building. Some of the future great companies of the country. That's that To me, it's really exciting.

Fred: Yeah. 10 years, it's actually more than that, right? But [00:33:00] yeah, in the next four years we we're on a mission to find those 15, 16 future flagships.

Fred: And, that it's, to me, it all, it's part of. A journey of the ecosystem as well, right? So you can't compare yourself to Silicon Valley who are at generation like, 10, 10 generations of exits. So we're like at two, three generations of exit year. So we need to be part of that movement and start that flywheel, yeah. So yeah, I think this is super exciting, but there's gonna be a fund two and a fund three, and

Nectar: let's not talk about for a race. Guys, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for being on the podcast. It is like looking for the next 10, 10 plus 20, 20, 30 years, depending on how many funds we raised. But it's been fun.

Fred: Yeah, absolutely. We'll do another one at fun too.