MaRS Capital Program

Liam has supported venture deals as a startup lawyer and has experience as both a founder and an angel investor. This background has allowed him to assess the venture capital industry from a range of vantage points and offers a unique understanding of the incentives and dynamics that drive both founders and investors, ensuring that he can help startups navigate the fundraising process with clarity, confidence and a strategic advantage.

Ziyad is the former acting CEO and COO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada. With nearly a decade of experience at SDTC, Ziyad has a deep understanding of non-dilutive funding opportunities in Canada.

Shayne is currently the managing partner of CAЯBON. He was previously a vice president at JPMorgan, global head of venture pipeline at DLA Piper, director at Perkins Coie and managing director at Orrick. Over his career, he has amassed a network of more than 1,500 investors while raising and deploying hundreds of millions in the venture space.

Harry is a venture partner at 1517 and Amplify Capital. He previously founded and exited Voyage Labs where he built smart contact lenses for glucose monitoring. He is a former recipient of the Thiel Fellowship and has extensive networks in Toronto, Kitchener/Waterloo and Silicon Valley.

Jon is an experienced founder, executive, and board member of private and public entities in energy, mobility, and alternative fuels. He was formerly the Senior Vice President of Venture Services at MaRS. Prior to leading the Venture Services Team, he was the Managing Director of the Cleantech Practice. He is also the founder of the MaRS Advanced Energy Centre.

Prior to joining MaRS, he led business development for Hydrogenics Corporation (now Cummins) through the launch of the company’s fuel cell and hydrogen generation divisions. He also co-founded Sustainable Energy Technologies (now Eguana Technologies), a leading Canadian provider of power electronics for the solar power industry. He has also served on the Energy Transformation Network of Ontario, on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Clean Water Agency, and on the investment committee for Arctern Ventures fund 2.

Scale-up experience: CEO of Argus Software

• Scaled to $60M ARR/$15M EBIT
• >80,000 customers in nine countries with 40,000 SMB users
• Transitioned company to SaaS model

• Company in turn-around; stabilized and refocused business to supporting 2.4M daily travelers
• Launched an innovative customer experience

• Ranked Wall Street analyst, Managing Director RBC Capital Markets. Covered B2B, B2B2C and other tech companies
• President, Rogers New Media
• BS/MS Engineering MIT; MBA from Harvard
• Creative Destruction Lab Mentor

• Optimizing your value proposition, demand generation and product value pricing strategies
• Positioning your company for success in public markets and late-stage financing, including understanding and managing investor and board stakeholder perspectives

As Director of Venture Growth at MaRS, Matt leads a team delivering programming and advisory services across the MaRS portfolio — supporting ventures from early stage through to those scaling toward $100M in ARR. He brings diverse experience across financial services and technology, having worked as an insurance underwriter, corporate development analyst, investment banker, senior operator at a tech startup, and most recently, head of capital services at Communitech. Matt holds a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Western University’s Ivey School of Business.