Front Row Ventures
Espace CDPQ Montreal, QC, Canada

Our Alumnae: Women Founders' Project 2020 Shlesha Van is an Engineering student at McGill University and the founder of Ora-3D - innovative everyday brushing with a simple bite and glide. Read more about her experience during the WFP. ____ WFP 2021: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/frvs-women-founders-project-... Apply here: https://frvvc.typeform.com/to/hBbE6UFP Apply by: May 14th, 2021, 11:59 PM ET See more

Laura Easton is an associate at Real Ventures and an instructor for The Venture Capital Blueprint! Read her thoughts as to why you should sign up for FRV’s new course! Click the link below and join our waitlist to receive a discount and an update when the course is released! https://vc-blueprint.frontrow.ventures/courses/waitlist

Applications for the third cohort of the Women Founders’ Project are open! Find out more about the weekly schedule and programming, as well as the topics we will be covering at each workshop. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days! ____ WFP 2021: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/frvs-women-founders-project-... Apply here: https://frvvc.typeform.com/to/hBbE6UFP Apply by: May 14th, 2021, 11:59 PM ET See more

Front Row Ventures’ mission has always been to inject the venture capital mindset into communities. To do this, we must grow the ambitions of student founders, as well as the scale at which they operate . For this reason, we’ve launched The Venture Capital Blueprint, a course to educate the next generation of tech leaders on the fundamentals of VC. Click the link below and join our waitlist to receive a discount and an update when the course is released! https://vc-blueprint.frontrow.ventures/courses/waitlist

We are excited to announce our latest investment in HookMotion, a Montreal-based startup developing computer-vision software that helps casinos catch fraud in table games and provides advanced game analytics. We are looking forward to seeing Matthieu Clas, Samy Zarour and Dominic Morin-Prouxl - HookMotion co-founders - continue to create value to customers by using industry-disruptive technologies. Check out our #BehindtheDeal where deal leads Thierry Kirouac-Marcassa and Emi...ly Stotland explain our investment thesis and why we believe HookMotion is the right team to solve the problem. Read more here: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/behind-the-deal-hookmotion-2

Are you a student or have recently graduated? Do you have your own startup? If you answered yes to both of those, then this is for you! Front Row Ventures is excited to announce the first Investor Office Hours of the 2020/21 academic year on December 3rd from 5PM to 6:30PM EST. At the Investor Office Hours, you will be able to meet with one of our Investment Associates one-on-one and have an in-depth discussion about your product idea. Book your 30-minutes here: https://frvvc.typeform.com/to/UlvZSJeZ

Last week, we launched Healthcare Venture Investing, a three-part series diving into how to invest in healthcare-orientated startups, written by Anish Kaushal from Amplitude Ventures. This week, we are excited to publish part 2 in the series, IP & Regulatory! "This is often an issue that gets brought up by non-healthcare people quite a bit. ‘Oh the regulatory process is too complicated, it doesn’t make sense,’ is something I’ve heard and although they’re not totally wrong, it’s not as difficult as it may seem." Check out the second edition of Healthcare Venture Investing here: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/healthcare-venture-investing

We are thrilled to announce the launch of a three-part series about healthcare venture investing written by one of our VC mentors, Anish Kaushal from Amplitude Ventures. "When I started my career in venture capital, I had no idea what I was doing. Venture capital to me was Silicon Valley and all these early investors in these mega-tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and Uber. However, I didn't realize that there was a whole other side to VC in the healthcare industry. I nev...er understood that new drugs and medical devices got funded the same way these tech companies did. I wrote this piece as a way to introduce what we do as a way to demystify how healthcare venture capitalists analyze companies." Click the following link to read the first edition of Healthcare Venture Investing: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/healthcare-venture-investing.

Today, we remember and honour those who have fought to protect our freedom. #lestweforget #remembranceday2020

Throughout the course of the summer, we have dived deep into rebuilding our website, and we are proud to share it with you all today. Click the following link to check out our new and improved site: https://frontrow.ventures/.

Plongez dans l’entrepreneuriat technologique en découvrant et encourageant les 10 projets qui ont été accompagnés lors du premier Parcours des stages entrepreneuriaux de Polytechnique Montréal. Pendant 4 mois, les jeunes entrepreneur(e)s ont appris comment donner vie à leur projet d’entreprise grâce à un coaching sur-mesure et à plus de 30 ateliers animés par des acteurs clés de l’écosystème. Join us! Front Row Ventures will be there!... Register now: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/billets-presentation-des-projet

Are you a student looking to learn more about entrepreneurship and opportunities to get involved in the startup ecosystem? Join us on September 16th for the Out of the Bubble: Kickoff Student Entrepreneurship Conference, proudly hosted by Montreal NewTech, TandemLaunch, Renno & Co., Startup Mosaic, and Front Row Ventures. For more details and to register for free: https://bit.ly/3iaS2B5

We are excited to announce our first investment in Ontario! Spectra's patent pending technology enables lab grade detection in the palm of a user's hand. Spectra is using their technology to help Public Health groups across Canada combat the growing opioid crisis with drug detection and monitoring. With COVID-19 amplifying the issues of the opioid epidemic, Spectra Plasmonic's technology arrives at a critical time to help vulnerable populations. We are looking forward to a su...ccessful future for Malcolm Eade, Christian Baldwin, and Tyler Whitney - Spectra Plasmonics' founders from Queen's University. Read our #BehindtheDeal on why we invested in Spectra Plasmonics here: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/introduction-677066bed879

Join us at The Forge Entrepreneur Demo Day (Online) led by The Forge McMaster on September 17th, 12- 2 PM. The Demo Day will showcase the top teams from The Forge Summer Startup Academy, who have launched and grown their startups over the summer. Register today for the opportunity to support the McMaster University startup community, speak to the founders at their virtual booths, get to know organizations supporting entrepreneurship, and network with other industry profess...ionals. Front Row Ventures will be there! For details, check out the event below. RSVP Required through Eventbrite: http://bit.ly/ForgeDD2020 (This is a FREE event and is open to the public.)

Matching active people and athletes with their ideal expert from our curated network of nutritionists. Meet Helen, a recently graduated Human Nutrition student from McGill University and the co-founder of MiNutrition. MiNutrition is a web-based platform that connects individuals with nutritionists in a way that is quick, accessible, and personalized. ... Helen was a part of this year’s Women Founders Project cohort and we asked her to tell us more about the reason she decided to build a platform dedicated to nutrition.

Thank you to The Finance Podcast for featuring Front Row Ventures in their episode on starting a career in #VC. In this episode, our Co-Founder and Managing Director, Raphael Christian-Roy, talks about his current experience in the ecosystem and how students can learn more about VC, and explore entrepreneurship while at university. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts:... https://apple.co/347tWTF https://spoti.fi/2FoKTOX See more

"We give hearing aid users control by giving them the ability to change their settings conveniently through an app." Meet Linnea, a Computer Science and Biology student at McGill University and the co-founder of Malyus. Malyus is an application that allows hearing aid users to control their hearing aids as well as offering other accessibility tools.... Linnea is part of this year’s Women Founders’ cohort and we asked her to tell us more about how her startup idea was born and how far along they are in the product development.

"Making transportation environmentally friendly. Meet Christina Maria Katsari, a PhD student in Materials Engineering at McGill University and the co-founder of Mygnesium Technologies. Their goal - design the lightest alloys for electric vehicles.... Christina is part of this year’s Women Founders’ cohort and we asked her to tell us more about magnesium alloys and how this material compares to current alternatives in the industry.

Diversity and Inclusion Survey - Summer 2020 The Black Lives Matter movement has brought the world to acknowledge systemic racism and how the system is failing BIPOC. As an organization that aspires to be diverse and inclusive, we are committed to taking action, starting by hosting a town hall meeting to identify FRV's shortfalls in terms of inclusion and diversity, brainstorm ideas to address these challenges, and establish a concrete action plan. To be explicit, we recogni...ze that we can’t address all inequalities at once and that building an inclusive organization is a never-ending process. Thus, our immediate actions will focus on building an anti-racist organization. That being said, we recognize that this process has to be intersectional. It’s also an opportunity to expand the conversation to other forms of discrimination. We might be able to identify low hanging fruits - injustices that can be addressed simultaneously within FRV. What you can count on is our commitment to action and uncomfortable conversations. We are releasing an ecosystem-wide survey that will inform the conversation as well as FRV's D&I strategy moving forward. If you wish to participate, please fill out this survey by July 28th, 5pm. Thank you. Link to survey: https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLSfu9AXOdgjbBczNfD/viewform The results of this survey will inform the discussion to be held during the Town Hall in August 2020. It will provide: 1. A partial diagnosis of how diverse and inclusive FRV is or isn’t. 2. An initial set of potential solutions on which we’ll seek feedback to inform the final Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) game plan for this year. * It is anonymous unless you decide otherwise, up to your discretion.

"We aim to minimize the profit gap in the ethical luxury jewelry industry by cutting down on the multi-step process of mineral extraction, export, and production." Meet Ruth, an undergraduate student in Cognitive Science at McGill University and the founder of Idget. Idget is a jewelry brand of affordable, minimalistic pieces made from ethically sourced material. Through its practices, Idget aims to change the market standards in Ethiopia and work directly with gemstone min...ers. Ruth is part of this year’s Women Founders’ cohort and we asked her to tell us more about her interest in the luxury jewelry space as well as her experience as a first-time founder.

We optimize employee well-being by identifying burnout, and by providing the personalized support they need. Meet Natoya Abiola, a Master’s student in Business Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) at the University of Waterloo and the founder of ZenWork. ZenWork is an AI-powered software platform which improves workplace wellness by predicting and preventing employee burnout.... Natoya is part of this year’s Women Founders’ cohort and we asked her to tell us more about the motivation behind ZenWork, and why employee burnout is an important topic to address.

Bringing physics lab research to the real world. Meet Maria Zhuldybina, a PhD student in Electrical Engineering at ÉTS - École de technologie supérieure and the co-founder of TRAQC. TRAQC is a unique quality control platform for the next generation of customized electronic devices. Their system is faster, cheaper and the first-in-line solution for printed electronics companies to reduce production costs by up to 80%. ... Mariia is part of this year’s Women Founders’ cohort and we asked her to tell us more about her transition from research to tech entrepreneurship. Watch more here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CCL-TYfHFLo/

We are excited to launch our first IGTV series called "Meet the Founders" as part of the Women Founders Project this year! Meet Shlesha Van, an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering at McGill University and the founder of Ora-3D. Ora-3D is a unique brushing solution that aligns with dental recommendations while allowing people to stick their everyday routines. Their product offers a simple and fast 3D clean, leading to better oral hygiene in the comfort of your o...wn home. Shlesha is part of this year's Women Founders' cohort and we asked her to tell us more about how her startup idea was born, and what the student founder life is like. Watch the interview here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CCJz_FrHiEn/

Happy Canada Day! Bonne Fête du Canada!

Last Saturday, June 20th, marked the official launch of the 2nd Women Founders Project! Welcome to all our amazing founders!

Exactly 8 days until the Women Founders' relaunch on June 20th Thank you BetaKit for covering this!

As leaders in the ecosystem, VCs have to take action against systemic racism. Let’s start by educating ourselves. Here’s a list of books that we’re bringing to the top of our reading list. #blacklivesmatter Start by reading these posts: https://qz.com//how-to-build-an-actively-anti-racist-work/ https://hipcityreg.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-blackness-in- https://pitchbook.com//black-entrepreneurs-vc-institutiona ... cc. Real Ventures

Meet the 2020 Women Founders' cohort! With the first workshop on Business Planning & Design Thinking less than 10 days away, we want to officially introduce the second WFP cohort, and share the unique stories of each of our sixteen ladies. We asked them to tell us more about who they are, why they’re here, and what entrepreneurship means to them. Read more here: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/the-women-founders-project-i

Check out this event co-hosted by one of our portfolio companies, GRAD4! T-6 days Participez au Salon Bleu et assistez aux conférences inspirantes de différents entrepreneurs et dirigeants d'entreprises de votre industrie, qui ont vécu de grands changements lors des derniers mois. Profitez-en pour visiter les différents pavillons, chacun dédié à un sujet: technologies, services, manufacturiers, financement et associations. ... Pour s'inscrire : www.lesalonbleu.ca

Decency and care > Productivity The tech community, VCs and universities need to recognize the trauma and exhaustion that people of colour, especially Blacks and indigenous people following the unjust death of George Floyd (U.S.) and Regis Korchinski-Paquet (Canada), are going through. Let’s check on them, empathize with their pain, and help them cope with the emotional stress by giving them some slack. https://medium.com//maintaining-professionalism-in-the-age... And educate ourselves about anti-racism: https://blog.femalefoundersfund.com/anti-racist-resource-gu

Racism is never okay. #BlackLivesMatter If you can, donate to organizations like BLM (https://blacklivesmatter.com/), HBCUvc (https://www.hbcu.vc/donate) or Hoodstock (https://www.hoodstock.ca/) If you can’t, stream this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCgLa25fDHM) - the ad money goes to BLM funds

New month, exciting NEWS! We are happy to announce the re-launch of our Women Founders Project - a pre-accelerator program aimed at supporting female-identifying students in their path to founderhood. Although initially scheduled to take place during March, we have since re-designed the program to take place virtually, and are excited to see it come back to life! Stay tuned as we announce the new 2020 cohort - T-2 days!... Read more about the re-designed program on our blog: https://blog.frontrow.ventures/the-women-founders-project-i