New startup fund for Montreal

Both Jevon at Startup North and Rob at TechVibes have covered the launch of Montreal Start Up, a fund specifically targeted at very early stage startups. It’s “only” a $3M fund, so the ideals are very much in line with what we are planning here at Bootup: find great people and ideas, and help them succeed with both some level of monetary support, but also use networks and mentoring to help those startups succeed.

Of the partners / investors listed, I only know Austin Hill, and him only be reputation and a few email introductions. Montreal is on my list to make some cross pollination happen with Vancouver, so I hope to either visit there (but only when it stops snowing!) or have some folks come out west for an event.

It’s interesting to see that this group is, indeed, a fund. One of our current principles with Bootup is that we are not a fund. This will give us a bit more flexibility in the types of activities we pursue. But as Jevon points out, “Montreal Startup will be one of a new type of VCs in Canada who are far more engaged with local startup communities than ever before”. And that’s a very good thing.