Antoine Nivard is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Blank Ventures, a $65M inaugural fund, where he invests in seed-stage enterprise and fintech software.
Prior to founding Blank, he had the opportunity to help raise funds and establish Inovia Capital in Silicon Valley and was fortunate to partner with founders building companies like LightspeedCommerce (NYSE:LSPD), 1Password, Magical, BenchSci, Momentum, Vital Biosciences, Poka (acquired by IFS), DarwinAI (acquired by Apple), and many more.
Takeaways
-Early days joining Inovia.
-Launching and growing the Inovia office in SF.
-Discuss the power law and witnessing it firsthand.
-Talent arbitrage when it comes to American tech companies with significant amounts of Canadian employees (ex. Faire).
-Discuss Databricks that has two Canadian founders.
-Why there has been a lack of company formation in Canada.
-Canada needs to focus on building startup mafias, where successful entrepreneurs from companies like Shopify go on to start their own ventures.
-Launching and raising capital for Blank Ventures.
Chapters
00:00 Background and Joining Inovia
04:30 Experience at Inovia
11:02 Impact of Witnessing the Power Law
15:57 Talent Arbitrage in American Companies
18:38 Lack of Company Formation in Canada
25:30 Building a Startup Mafia in Canada
34:20 Focus on Blank Ventures
48:37 Favorite Book and Excitement for 2024
52:18 Dealing with Hard Times
54:16 Closing Remarks
