NACO Academy Podcast National Angel Capital Organization

Benjamin Bergen is Executive Director of the Council of Canadian Innovators, a national business council led by the CEOs of Canada’s fastest growing technology firms.
It’s easy to be a pessimist these days. We have now been slogging through the turmoil, strain and heartache of a global pandemic for more than a year — long enough to grind anybody down. But by their very nature, innovators are optimists. We don’t accept the world as it is today. We insist that it can be better, and when we see problems, we work to make it better by building the solutions.
Innovators have helped carry us through COVID-19. E-commerce, cloud computing and an array of other technologies have saved countless lives by allowing us to continue working in our socially distanced reality. What’s more, innovative, cutting-edge techniques allowed us to develop vaccines at breakneck speed. As we look toward putting COVID-19 behind us, our world will only be more data-driven and technology-infused, and when the post-pandemic recovery comes, we can be sure that it will be led by innovative companies. There’s no guarantee, though, that Canada will enjoy the full benefit of this economic boom. If we aren’t engaged and proactive, Canada can’t expect to claim its share of the global knowledge economy. If we don’t put the right policies in place to support homegrown Canadian innovators, there is a very real possibility that Canada will be left buying technologies and services from the countries that get it right, and we will all be poorer for it.
A thriving innovation economy is an ecosystem, and everything is interconnected — high-growth scale-ups, emerging startups, established players, research institutions, venture capitalists, angel investors and public policy experts. A growing, prosperous ecosystem creates wealth in terms of equity and intangible assets, which get invested back into the ecosystem, driving the next generation of growth. This growth also creates public wealth in the form of taxes, which help pay for the social services we all value as Canadians.

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Season 2 is packed with actionable content and intimate conversations.
 
For pure concentrated knowledge on mobilizing capital and scaling the next massive global success story, we will be interweaving content from a Practical Guide to Angel Investing and you will hear from over 100 prominent thought leaders at the intersection of entrepreneurship, capital and innovation, including: 
Arlene Dickinson from CBC’s Dragon’s Den to help you descipher between good and bad angels, We have The Untold Story of SkipTheDishes with co-founder Chris Simair who's also building Harvest Builders and connected to NEO Financial which raised $50 million in financing from prominent angel investors across North AmericaWe have Charles Plant, founder of The Narwhal Project on how $27 billion was created by made in Vancouver success story Slack. Raine Maida, lead singer of Our Lady Peace, will be talking NFTs (non-fungible tokens), the new craze that's eclipsing bitcoin. John Ruffolo, Founder and Managing Partner of Maverix Private Equity shares his insights on raising a $500 million fund; and Raising Canada's Largest Venture Fund for BIPOC Founders is Sheldon James, CEO and managing partner at Bay Mills Investment Group after making headlines and being featured in Forbes on the amazing work underway.  And many more, entrepreneurs, innovation leaders, angel investors, and venture capital fund managers 

Built by Angels is a new podcast series that will guide you on the road to venture capital scale and growth. Interested in funding the next big thing? Are you an entrepreneur searching for capital, to fund and scale your company? Are you on the sidelines, wondering how to jump in, while everyone else is building, backing, and supporting the next generation of entrepreneurial companies?

Stay tuned, subscribe and join us on this exciting journey, as we transform ordinary listeners into extraordinary investors. 

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is based on the book "A Practical Guide to Angel Investing, 2nd Edition" authored by Steven Gedeon PhD and published by the National Angel Capital Organization. Content discussed is for general guidance on matters of interest and should not be taken as professional, legal, business or investment advice.

Most angels have enjoyed a successful business career and want to share their expertise and experience with younger entrepreneurs. Of course. They want and expect to gain above market rates of return on their investments. That's what makes this form of investing sustainable, but often they also want to pay it forward to help others and give back to their communities.

Angels are often retired executives or other professionals, or in many cases, they are former entrepreneurs who ran and sold their own companies. Business angels invest because of their love for entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial journey. Angels invest for many reasons, including the excitement of being involved in an interesting company or industry. The desire to mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs, the desire to pay it forward by sharing their expertise with those who need it, contributing to the economic growth of their region, community, or country.

This podcast will help distill the wisdom of hundreds of angel investors who came before you.

What will you do with the next 20+ years of your life? For most angels, the answer is:

"I want to contribute to the good of my community"
"I want to continue to do what I love."
"I want to be involved in strategy, important deals and major decisions."
"I want to lend my expertise."

The value of angel groups is that they essentially help mitigate your risk. Angel groups help you attract the highest quality deals and help you go through a due diligence process that vets out the deals that have a disproportionately high chance of failure, or a very low probability of success.

Angel groups provide discipline, additional due diligence, and deal flow resources that will mitigate your risk and increase the probability of return. 

More on this topic in future episodes.

We are here with Senator Doug Black, Chair of the Senate Banking, Finance, and Trade Committee. 

The innovation ecosystem in Alberta has a tremendous potential. We see an opportunity to transition the risk capital, that has historically been in more traditional industries, to the high growth industries that can contribute so much to the economy. From your perspective, what can we do as a national organization and what can angel investors do to contribute to Alberta's renaissance? 

We need to find bridges. Build those bridges and make sure folks cross them. Specifically, in respect of Alberta. I spent a fair bit of time as an elected Alberta Senator moving through the province, understanding what I would call "Alberta 2.0" needs to look like. We have historically relied upon the oil and gas industry, and this is a very powerful, important industry. But, we recognize that we need to focus on a transition.

Alberta 2.0 will take time. A large part of that is going to be technology. Whether it's specifically in the oil and gas industry, the renewables industry, the banking industry, or the agriculture industry. There are huge opportunities throughout the Alberta economy.