Nectarios Economakis — Inside a New $40M Fund Built to Fix Canada's Brain Drain |-Nectarios Economakis | PBN EP 05

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Nectar, welcome here from Canada and I I really do appreciate that.  For sure, happy to be here.  So, Nectar, um basically like you are you put it out there that you're changing the face of Canadian VC.  What does that mean to you?

And tell us a little bit about yourself.  Sure, sure.  Maybe I'll start with myself and uh before the big big mission of the fund, but you know, like I've been a tech geek for 20-ish years, started my started my career in digital marketing and uh you know, worked at Google for for a little while and did some angel investing before before starting my own company.  And uh now, yeah, I'm now having new adventures starting this fund called Amiral Ventures, uh which we just launched 5 months ago.

And uh it took it was a hell of a difficult time to to start a new VC fund in Canada.  It took us like 3 years to fundraise.  And And a lot of existential questions like, "Why the hell are we doing this?  Like, why are we spending all this time, you know, to to to start a fund?

" And we realized that there's just not enough uh VC capital in Canada, right?  So, it's like more of a question of not like changing it.  It's really just helping boost uh you know, the ecosystem here, having another fund that knows what it is to start a company, understands startups, and knows when to help, knows when to get out of the way.  And most importantly, for founders like, "Write the term sheet.

" Be able to lead a round.  Like, that's the biggest thing that's really missing in the country right now.  And And I kind of remember when this was happening on the timeline.  It was like around when Open Claw had come out and some of the the the uh models had start getting into where they were actually useful uh for for for day-to-day sort of automation and stuff.

And um that whole scene changed where uh businesses just that are different.  And now the founder CEOs were were becoming more on the scene.  Um but Canada itself being a Canadian myself and having grown up here having grown up in the Waterloo area in the in the I went to McMaster so the Hamilton area.  Um I a lot of engineers, a lot of tech people, a lot of talent goes down south.

So talk about that brain drain.  It's been happening since I was in high school um a long time ago.  So tell me uh what do you what do you know about that and how are you trying to change it?  Yeah, well it's it's an obvious thing, right?

You pointed it out Johan that you know like a lot of the best and brightest leave and um part of that is like in my role as I guess you founders I get term sheets from, you know, American investors and you know what?  Founders should get the best possible terms and best possible partner they can, right?  So I'm not uh it's not a knock on the founders.  It's a knock on there's just not enough capital locally.

So there's one thing and then two is, you know, like the reality of the matter is like all the tech's being built like a lot of the big generational companies are in the US, right?  So that attracts a lot of smart people that are not necessarily, you know, ready to be founders or not considering the entrepreneurship path and but want good safe jobs that pay well.  And that's much more present, you know, in in the US, right?  So but the joke is San Francisco's just a wrapper on Waterloo, right?

So it's it's normal that these things are happening.  It's just like the the state of the chessboard today.  So I think what we're trying to do and I'm one of the small part of the chain is like if we have more tech companies here we could probably get people that want to stick around, you know, that maybe ascribe more to the values of this country that hey if I don't need to leave, you know, to have a high-paying, you know, a salary somewhere else or hey I could actually start a company.  It is possible to do it, right?

It's like I said it's not a perfect environment.  There's still a lot of work to be done but uh small steps towards building, you know, more companies here I think it is a good thing.  You know, the end state of how I like to describe it is that we have one big tech company in Canada, right?  Like the you know, the the the the one big you know, 200 plus market cap company.

We probably need at least 10 or dozen more to just build a more vibrant ecosystem, right?  Because then below that you have a lot more obviously, you know, uh you know, like 50 billion and 10 billion and you know, you know, growing companies and like they'll just be more of uh a bigger tech industry as a whole, right?  Um I think I know which one it is.  It's Shopify.

I mean, it's it's the only one.  But like the the others are banks pretty much and and insurance institutions.  And uh that's the the state of business in Canada pretty much.  Um yes, and you're right.

We do need to change that.  And tell me about like what what do you see as the biggest challenges ahead for for making inroads into into that?  Um well, you know, like in my role like obviously, you know, everything I see is you know, like a you know, what's the expression?  If you're a hammer, everything's a nail, right?

So, I think part of it is like hey, more money like more money pouring into like funds like myself.  Like that's obviously super biased.  Uh but part of it is also just um building the ecosystem here, right?  So, showing people that it is possible.

Like I've met a bunch of very successful founders that have built companies here that have made it and you know, like you know, built here, but are on the global stage.  So, [snorts] part of it is like just showcasing that it's it's possible, right?  So, I think a little bit of you know, one of the arrows in our quiver is trying to do some marketing, trying to do some media and events to to help promote the ecosystem.  We're not the only ones.

You know, it's it takes a village as they say.  Uh so, part of it is just like the positive Canadian propaganda.  It's like showing people you can do it here.  And if you follow, you know, like I spend too much time on Twitter and like um it's like a lot of the vibes end up being negative.

I was like, but why?  It's like quality of life in Canada is great.  We're you know, there are no bombs falling.  You can do it here.

Like there's no there's you know, like writing software is done at your you know, like in the office.  Like there's no other reason.  And uh there's a lot of like mis- misconceptions.  Oh, you have to be a Delaware corp in order to get funding from the US VC.

It's not true.  It's like I don't know where that's written, but that's not 100% not true.  Uh so, I think part of it is demystifying it for the founders as well that are building.  And like I said, if they want to move and like go there, like of course like it's a it's a very vibrant ecosystem, but my job is like how can we help make it more attractive for people to stay?

[snorts]

Yeah, and um are you seeing any sort of uh narrative for people high net worth and bigger investing in Canada?  Like what what are they what are their reservations?  Um [sighs] the way I like to approach this question is that we're not we're not the Valley.  Let's not pretend we are, right?

Like there's just way more capital available and and it's like you know, it's the analogy is like French wine.  Like who has the best best wine in the world?  It's the French, right?  And the reason is cuz they've been doing it for multiple multiple generations, right?

So, it's same thing in the Valley.  Like it's literally since the '50s and '60s that this whole, you know, tech tech industry started there.  We are on like they're maybe generation 12, 13 of building, exiting, and reinvesting in in in tech.  We're at like 1.

5, 2, right?  So, we're just we're less mature, right?  We're an emerging ecosystem compared to Canada, right?  So, it's normal that there's the pockets of money that we have aren't used to investing in tech, right?

So, I think it's starting to change.  Like we started with our fund, you know, like more than a third of our capital base came from founders, from tech founders that had exited, that had success, that believe in our mission, what we're trying to do.  We have like 51 private LPs and majority are are tech founders, like the operators.  Um you know, but but there's still, you know, there's a little bit of a misconception is that there's not enough money and capital.

It's like it's not true.  It's like there's we're a rich country here.  It's just the chunk of the money isn't going into tech for a large extent.  So, I think part of, you know, a lot of the government a lot of the money does come from government, which is a good and a bad thing.

I could I could I could probably talk about that.  But we need to attract more private capital for sure, right?  So I think that's a that's a key thing that needs to happen.  So the narrative is like, yeah, there's French wine down in San Francisco, but there's a some great sweet Niagara region dessert wine up here in Canada, right?

Totally.  Totally, yeah, that's it.  And you know, and and to be clear, it's like I think we we punch above our weight, right?  If you look at um if you look at a lot of the innovations that powered today's tech, like it all started here, right?

So smartphones is one.  Like we have two of the three, you know, godfathers of the AI like literally AI, the modern AI, the transformer came from here, came from Montreal.  Um but we haven't been as good, obviously, you know, the the common trope is Canada's not good at commercializing and it's kind of true, right?  Like we're good at the, you know, uh R&D science stuff, but we're not good at building companies as a result, right?

So I think, you know, there's groups like Vector Institute and Mila that are really trying to change that with their their venture programs and get a lot of the people that were that would be sucked down south to stay here and start companies.  And we're seeing some some of those successes emerge.  Uh but like I said, it takes time.  So it's not it's going to be an overnight thing.

I think we could probably accelerate that faster than having to wait, you know, multiple generations uh because we already have all the, you know, raw ingredients are are in place.  Yeah, so um let's continue.  The there's a a meetup place in Waterloo and I'm part of it.  It's like a a co-work space.

And uh I go there and there's just a cool culture up there, you know, a builder culture.  Um very cool things happening when people get together and they they meet with other like founders.  Um just uh an interesting place to be, especially around that region.  Um so we do have a good culture here.

It just takes that growing up or it just takes that uh initiative for people to see the vision in it.  So, I'm glad people like you, Nectar, are are are leading this charge.  Talk about like some of the ideas that that really that you've seen that you're like, "No, this is not going to work. " Like to help some of the founders that are are developing right now.

I'm not going to have a very good answer to this question, right?  Because I think the one thing I've realized is no one knows.  Like everyone's pretending.  Everyone's trying to fight for status.

Uh so, there's not like, "Oh, if you're doing idea X, it's stupid. " Because it's like the history of venture is littered with successes of like people that said like, "This is a dumb idea.  Don't do it. " Right?

So, who am I to say especially you know like sitting on the sidelines of um you know like a lot of people told you know the the founders of Airbnb is like, "This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard.  No one's going to sleep on a stranger's mattress. " The smartest investors in the world, right?  So, I'm not I'm not one to criticize and say, "Hey, you shouldn't try X.

" Right?  So, I think the path is you have to follow the reality in front of you, right?  So, you have to know it's like are people you know demanding your product or not?  Right?

So, like that's really the one thing that matters.  Like are the customers you use the solution that you know that that that that you're coming up with, right?  So, if you have some kind of unique insight into a new behavior, new emergent behavior, uh that you think you can capitalize on and build a company around.  So, I think that's really the core of it.

So, I would say it's like startups as you know it's like a lot of experimentation starting with A and then you end up with B.  You know, look at the guys from that started Slack like Stewart Butterfield.  It's like it's like we're going to oh, we're doing a video game.  And it's like, "Oh, we need an in-chat interface for the video game.

" And that became Slack.  Right?  So, like if you told me at the beginning it's like, "Oh, this video game pitch is so stupid. " It's like right?

So, you ultimately what it boils down to is like it's the quality of the founder and like do they have some kind of idea, some kind of area they're working on that's unique, that's insightful that that that they could build something.  And uh yeah, I'm not going to be the one that says like don't do this, you And and I just being part of startups as well, too.  It's it's it's about the the character of the founder and how they can pivot, how they listen, how they're coached, um their sense of urgency, things like that.  And that's probably something that you see as well, maybe?

Yeah, totally.  And there's no one architect, you know, like some founders are headstrong, I'm not coachable, I'll do my thing.  Other people are very open to feedback and will adjust and it's the the color of the skin, the age, the gender, all these things are irrelevant, right?  It's really the the quality of that person's ideas and their their their grit, their resilience in working through working through challenges.

That's really the the the ultimate stress test.  Um what have you learned to walk away from, what type of founder archetype?  Uh [gasps] like it's very it's a very personal thing and I'm new to VC, so I'm like, oh, the grizzled veteran that's done this, right?  So we have a style of investing that we like and that we're trying to going to put forth.

And different funds have different styles and you know, like for the founders that are looking at founders, it's like you kind of have to know like the stage, the sector, all these things, like who do you want to work with long-term?  And so the founders I like to work with are ones that want to partner with people for the long-term that are not necessarily focused on just transactional side.  It's like we like to be in the the trenches, be there for your important strategic decisions and help out.  And for people that are like, that's great, just give me come me a check and go away, it's like that's not exciting, you know, like for me.

It's like I'm also a founder of this fund, so I like to like to be involved and help startups as much as I can and also have the presence of mind to get out of the way if I need to.  But I also don't want to get out of the way entirely.  Like that's not that's not why I started this thing.  I started to to be involved and help and use my network, use our the fund's connections to to to be as you know, it's a small reflection, but like the founders are doing 99.

9% of the work.  If you can help maybe just a bit at the right time, that can have an outsized impact.  That's what we're trying to do.  Um so we're not trying to get in their shoes.

You know.  Um What did you learn from building up that business in Montreal with with Google that that's helped you today?  Um yeah, it was a sales job.  So but that was before I started my my my first company.

So uh I learned how to do sales.  So it was like, you know, like and within a big structure organization and you know what it takes and you meet a lot of people and make friends and I also saw what world-class engineering culture looks like, you know, like and uh you know, the geeks that that you know, that uh you know, the the the geeky culture that you know, has made Google such a success, right?  So there's a there's a ton of lessons and also maybe I've learned more on the personal side of like what it what I don't want for me.  It's like maybe I don't I don't think I'm I'd be a good future employee anymore, you know, having start company you know, starting a company kind of Like never say never, but for you know, like being a a small cog in a big machine wasn't for me, you know, so I learned that like even if Google had like the most insane kind of compensation, all the you know, the external vanity of oh wow, you work for Google and like a little you know, like in your social circle it brings you this outside validation, but realize that like doesn't it's not a long-term motivator for me, you know.

I I resonate with that.  I used to be an employee of JP Morgan Chase and it's like I felt so small within that company and I totally get that.  Um Yeah, so so I wanted to hit on a point that you said about sales.  How important is it for a founder to know how to sell?

Uh Well Okay, so again goes back to maybe I'm too like the one thing I learned like I I used to run a strategy company before and like doing you know, like helping companies figure out what to do and I've learned one thing is that there's no there's no right answer for anything, right?  So the example I said before, you know, like some founders are just like insanely technical and like build something.  It's like how good were the founders of Google in sales?  Like zero on 10, right?

Like literally they were not like but they had this like insane skill of building the future, you know, like that came like I know that's a very obvious example.  Uh so it I think it it depends on what are you building.  If you're building something that's like product led, the product's the core innovation uh it's maybe not as important.  Then maybe hire someone, you know, like have a co-founder that's good in sales or head of sales, etc.

But if you're like building something that's enterprise like the founder needs to sell and like it's an enterprise led motion or sales led motion, then yeah, you probably you should be there, you know, from zero to X million, right?  In in ARR to do able to know it well before you transition to other skills.  So I want to say that's probably the most simple the simplest distinction I can make.  And I guess knowing what the customer would pay for definitely changes the product, but sometimes there's strong visions on what the product should be um in despite of the customer.

So have you seen different kind of like battles between companies or smaller companies about this?  And do you have any opinion on that?  Well, it's I think there's another key distinction of is it a customer or is it a user, right?  So um you know, the one of the tenants at Google back in the day was like know the user and all else will follow.

And the you you know, users of the search engine or Gmail and I or whatever, it's like they're not most of the time they're not paying for the product, right?  So but they're the linchpin that makes the whole business model work, right?  Uh so being able to satisfy users is is a key component to it.  And then obviously customer's different, right?

So having the person that pays the bills, like often times it could be the user as well, right?  Like depending on on what the you know, what the startup is building.  Uh I think in both the cases those are the you know, like sometimes in the single persona, sometimes two different.  They're very very critical, right?

So understanding uh you know, the difference between the two.  Sometimes you can have like a sales led motion, but the user's not the person that's paying.  It's like it could be let's say like a developer and engineer, but the person that's paying is like the CFO or whatever.  That's the customer cuz they're the ones that they're signing off on on the purchase order.

So, I'm just just to make a very simple kind of like you know statement of how you build a company right?  Yeah, I mean so when it does get up to the CFO level, he's mostly probably just a rubber stamp and in my opinion anyways, like they the product people drive that recommendation like let's pay for this.  Um but yeah, I totally get that get that part of things.  Um What what are you excited about in the next 6 months here in Canada?

Uh there's a lot man.  Like I just like my job.  Like you know, I'm looking at it my perspective like I really like what I do.  Like it's like meet with founders and you know, like have brilliant people line up at the door and try and see hey, do I want to work with this person and their team?

And there's a lot of cool sectors that are you know, like you know, yes, the two-letter buzzword everyone's talking about today.  But it's it's just like really came bringing explosion of all different types of companies like in biotech and defense tech, obviously AI, you know, space industries.  There's so much happening.  So, I find them like just drinking from the higher fire holes all day.

It's like meet smart people and like explaining explaining to me what they're doing and try and help if I if I can.  Uh so that would say that's probably the thing I'm most excited about.  And the second thing is also just building a fund.  It's like we just had our first you know, employee start.

We think about our own process.  How do you build a VC fund in 2026 today with all with all these new agentic tools?  Uh it's really exciting because there's the you know, like you know, what's the expression work on the business or in the business?  So, there's the working on the business part two that I find fun.

It's like hey, like we have to build a team and build a culture and build all these tools and things that that help us.  I think that's pretty fun, too.  It feels like AI is more of an enablement technology just like the internet was when it first came out and AI is going to enable other industries to do well.  What other industries outside tech are you interested in?

Well, I mean tech is like another enablement type of word, but what industry overall are you interested in?  Like is space Yeah, um well, I spoke about some of it before.  Space is one that I'm interested in just because it's like we see it with the, you know, forthcoming IPO of SpaceX.  It's unlocking this whole new economy because the cost per kilogram has dropped.

So, cost of launch has gone down significantly.  So, it's enabling a bunch of like new cool new technologies.  And in this case is launch is kind of the enabling technology and we're seeing a lot of stuff being able to happen and and a lot of cool stuff that in lower orbit and orbit that are really unlocking you know new types of companies to emerge.  I I think that's really one area that that I'm interested in.

And then yeah, of course, just AI as a whole I think is one that the pace of change is so rapid.  Um and it's We could talk about this SAS apocalypse and everything, but there's a whole segment and slew of opportunities that it opens in terms of like surface area for for founders to build on.  And I think that's really cool.  So, it's enabling a bunch of cool companies to emerge.

And what it takes to build a company today and the way you build a team, the way you hire, the way you staff, what you give agents to do, all this playbook does not exist.  Like I know it's kind of being written a lot of cool blog posts, but like that get outdated quickly.  Really exciting time because it's like the way you kind of like build a company is is changing.  And we we have, you know, four portfolio companies today and all of them are thinking about this question, right?

So, how do we build today?  How do we hire?  How do we be more efficient using these new tools?  I I'm recalling a tweet that you put out recently about um the Kardashev type two sort of and I I Googled this uh or I asked an AI about this maybe about a few months ago.

And I what is it?  There's like something around the sun that that's the end goal, right?  Like to have this energy generator around the sun?  Um yeah, I think you know, Musk probably talks about this quite often, but it's it's where it comes from is from a Russian astronaut called Kardashev I think in like 40s or 50s I forget.

You know, like it basically, you know, civilizational scales.  So, type one, type two, type three.  And I probably going to get this wrong, but like type one is being able to harness harness, you know, energy of the sun for your your own planet.  Type two is being able to to capture it using like a Dyson sphere and like try to you know, the the the solar system.

And then type three is being able to use it across multiple stars.  And again, I'm probably butchering it, but I still like this for me it's the general notion of harnessing energy from the sun to just build like epic cool stuff, you know, so we're seeing it in terms of like you know, solar power, right?  The like it since 1970 the cost of a solar panels dropped by 99. 7% right?

Like it's and it's trending asymptotically down to zero because like you know, like power of the sun is like literally free all day.  Right?  So, just our ability to harness it from for startup land, I know this is like you know, kind of hyperbolic.  I I gave it as a hyperbolic example on Twitter, but I like this idea of like how do we just build more stuff?

That's kind of the future, right?  So, mention space like we're talking to companies building like just like science fiction stuff, you know, and we're seeing it in like you know, biotech and health space as well.  There's so many different areas like hey, let's cure cancer, right?  Like the founder of DeepMind just raised like two billion for his company Isomorphic Labs that is really you know, trying to use AI to to help solve some you know, like you know, health care in essence.

Um, so yeah, I think it's like we're getting to the point of like the future is going to look way weirder than we we can imagine imagine today and we're just at the start of it.  Yeah, and it's it's one of the reasons why I created this podcast and named it after Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Nexus so how he saw the the Earth from from space.  I I'm very interested in space tech and I saw like Nvidia is putting out uh, chips out in on on uh What did it look like?  It looked like um some kind of spacecraft out there and they're putting chips out there and they're harnessing energy from the sun to run the GPUs.

I it's it's really interesting how people are just kind of thinking about things these days.  Yeah, well, like it's been announced by SpaceX and Google.  Like it was an article in Wall Street Journal yesterday of like their plans to you know put computer in space, right?  And uh Um so I won't give away which companies we're talking to, but there's some that are trying to do something similar, maybe different angle uh to that specifically.

So Nvidia GPUs are already in space.  Like it's already a thing.  They're already on certain satellites.  So um we're seeing more launch companies come out.

Like there's one in the I had the I had the the founder of uh Reaction Engines on my podcast recently and he's building a launch company here out of Montreal.  Like really really cool company.  Um so yeah, the whole that whole sector right now is like set really to kind of grow off.  Uh and there's a lot of use People are like, "Oh, why'd you invest in space?

" No, but it's going to help things here on Earth.  Like I think just people don't realize it yet.  Yeah, even from a commodities perspective, I it's far out there, but there's asteroid mining.  Like there's definitely gold isn't the most rarest resource in the world if you consider like you can mine an asteroid for it and um you know, maybe trees are the more rare than and gold.

So the wood.  Like you know, there's just certain things that that once you go out out of this pale blue planet that we're on and you step out there, it just becomes an entire new new world.  Pardon the the pun, but like um space is the is the next frontier in my opinion.  Yeah, I don't want to get too much into like the abundance porn, right?

Like you know, you can follow the abundance podcast if you know, like if you want to get into like all the you know, all these amazing things.  It's like the future's not written, right?  So can still go sideways, you know?  Like we still have to like it's up to humans to you know, like people and societal choices that we do things in the right way.

So I'm not trying to say it's all going to be this utopia.  Right.  I much believe the utopian outcome than dystopian one, but it's not a sure thing, so there's a lot of work still left to be done, right?  So, I think it's up to us how how we we decide to do it, right?

So, I'm not trying to like gloss over the real, you know, like humanitarian problems that we still have.  Right.  But, I see obviously the reason I'm in this space sector is because I believe this stuff's going to help, right?  So, um that's kind of my my uh my viewpoint.

Yeah, I might have a a naive outlook because I've watched too much Star Trek over the years and I feel like uh you know, SpaceX is probably going to be like the Federation or something like that, but uh yeah, I I agree with you and and a very pragmatic outlook there, Nectar.  Um yeah, thank you for coming on today.  Um appreciate the time.  Tell us about your podcast before you go and and and the type of guests that you're having on.

Sure, sure.  It's like this neat little podcast I've been doing for like 10 years and for me it's like a selfish reason to just like meet founders and meet smart people and learn from them.  It's called it's called Flagship.  I didn't have an original name.

It's just the name of my fund in in English.  My name is the name of my fund is Amiral in in in English that means Flagship and got to get the idea of what we're trying to do with the fund is like build the next big Canadian flagships.  So, uh if you're, you know, like trying to you know, highlight Canadian founders, Canadian investors on the pod and trying to build like an equivalent media ecosystem to, you know, the US.  Like, you know, I obviously follow a lot of the US ones, but they have their whole star ecosystem.

Just trying to build something here like that, right?  So, like if you're Canadian founder, you can listen to like, hey, what are the people building here and the and the ecosystem has them on and learn about what they're doing here.  That's awesome.  And and where can we catch up with you on I think you're active on X, right?

I am, yeah.  Just my first name on X or or on the LinkedIn, so I tend to be more unfiltered on on X.  Yeah, um well, thanks, Nectar.  Um appreciate you coming on, like I said, and we'll talk again soon.

My pleasure.  Thanks for having me on.