Hear how the founder of Zymeworks, one of Vancouver's few enduring public tech companies, made his choices in business and life. Ali is brilliant and driven to achieve but has strong core values that make him an integral part of our community. This is the third in our Deep Tech Series, following Glenn Bindley of Redlen and Geordie Rose of D'Wave.
Lisa Shield's life could be made into a movie, the 2008 film "21" dramatizing MIT's student blackjack card-counting team has got nothing on Lisa's actual life experiences. And only by her own genius did she put herself out of a job and accidentally fall into founding her first fintech company in 2000, Hyperwallet. Hear about how being a geek and Canadian put a chip on her shoulder and led her to a career that is rich in adventure. America's Cup? Yup!
Shahram Tafazoli does a great Colombo imitation - always questioning. He used this modest approach to revolutionize big rugged shovels in mining with Computer Vision & Artificial Intelligence while everyone else failed. Following his instincts, and with some help from influential friends including Ajay Agrawal , he revolutionized the mining industry with technology for diggers. So good, in fact, the Weir Group acquired Motion Metrics for $100M+ in 2021. Hear how Shahram's grit, light-heartedness, and ability to pivot strategies when it counts lends to his success.
Natalie's grit and determination to succeed in whatever she does shines through, especially in her latest passion in life — biking! Natalie is a marine biologist turned pharmaceutical start-up founder who has seen Vancouver's innovation ecosystem from every angle. Her unique perspective from founding a heath accelerator to helping translate research into new viable medicines has led her back to another start-up as CEO of A2O.
As multi-time deep tech entrepreneur Geordie Rose puts it, being a deep tech founder means a "balancing act between science fiction and pragmatic." From founding the first quantum start-up D-Wave, to starting AI and robotics companies Kindred AI and later Sanctuary AI, Geordie is a technology trend-setter. After decades building moonshots, Geordie chats with us on the responsibility founders wield in their work, the 'readiness' of the market for pioneer users of deep tech, thoughts on Sanctuary AI and how he's spending his time post-Sanctuary AI (spoiler: it might involve a Canada-wide trek).
Hear how Paul Lee’s unrelenting love of Vancouver and British Columbia has driven him to create enormous value for the city. Paul Lee is a venture capitalist and the founder of Vanedge Capital, and his story is a word to the wise for parents who think their kids game too much. His early career was in finance before joining his highschool buds to build a gaming company, Distinctive Software. It was later acquired by EA Games where Paul eventually ascended to the role of President of Worldwide Studios growing EA from 240 to 9,000 employees. Paul left EA to start Vanedge where he invests in early stage deep tech start-ups today. Paul's career took many turns, from working in his father's Chinese restaurant while he was at EA, to helping form the BC Tech Association.
Paul Geyer is a venture capitalist and the CEO of Discovery Parks and Nimbus Synergies, investing in early stage health technologies. After graduating with an undergrad in electrical engineering, Paul flipped houses as a side hustle while working in medical equipment companies. At 27, he founded Mitroflow which exited at $50M when he was 35 years old, and instead of retiring, founded Neovasc which later exited for $150M in 2023. But aside from his many entrepreneurial successes and investments in up-and-coming health founders, Paul has a real penchant for the greater good. He has given his time, expertise, and capital in thoughtful ways to the next generation, and intends to pass on his wealth to make the biggest impact possible one day.
Glenn Bindley is the CEO of Redlen Technologies, a company that creates high-resolution X-ray imaging technology that is 10x more accurate than CT scans. Glenn started out as a kid on Vancouver's east side, tinkering with tech, before his passion led him to PMC-Sierra. After PMC, he joined four guys in a garage to head up Redlen Technologies where he spent two decades, culminating in a six-figure exit to Canon in 2021. Glenn talks about his earlier days, creating controlled exothermic events (aka explosions), and how his drive to create good for the world kept him steady on his path at Redlen.
We sat down with Moe Kermani who is a venture capitalist at Vanedge Capital in Vancouver today, but got his start in the entrepreneurial world as the CEO of Bycast — building cloud storage technology before cloud was a thing back in the early 2000s. Moe’s life took a few unexpected turns from starting a new life in Vancouver at 15, to a PhD in physics, running Bycast, culminating into his career as a VC. He shares lessons learned on finding product-market fit, finding a partnership with better half at Vanedge, his philosophy on investing, and much more.
We caught up with Maria just after Copperleaf had completed its sale to IFS AB. It was a career defining moment for her and this normally very intentional speaker let her hair down, just a bit. Maria shared the incredible arc of her life, from fishing village to the validation of her VC chops.
Amar Singh is the CEO of Elevated Signals, a BC-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software for the cannabis industry and beyond. He's also the father of two kids, an MMA fighter, and grew up all over the world — from India, to Jamaica, to right here in Vancouver, BC. In this episode, Amar shares his personal inspiration for AgTech and his professional journey as an entrepreneur.
From meme Edtech, to talking about choosing a partner for Version One, to thinking about an high-risk high-reward investment portfolio. Boris chats about his journey as the co-founder of Abebooks (sold to Amazon) to becoming a VC and how his experiences has affected his investment thesis (or on the contrary — trying to remain unbiased).
What better way to introduce the podcast Tales from the Tiki Lounge than to answer a bunch of impromptu random questions to get to know the co-hosts Sam and Colin. The two share why this podcast got its start, a few personal stories, and throw around a joke or two.
