Bangladesh Angels

Hailing from the picturesque landscapes of rural Alberta, Canada, Neil's journey has been varied. With a career spanning continents and industries, he initially honed his craft in various operational and leadership roles across four continents within the ever-evolving realm of oil and gas.
In a twist of fate, Neil took a leap of faith into the world of angel investing with Startup TNT in 2020. What started as a stroke of luck soon transformed into a passion project as he dedicated himself to leading the charge in the Calgary region for the next three years. From these beginnings as a volunteer to his current role as the Partnerships Lead, Neil's mission is clear: to build community by increasing the number of investors in the space, investing early, and investing locally.
Jesse is a multi-faceted entrepreneur, investor, and consultant with a broad skill set, wide knowledge base, and extensive network. Jesse enjoys helping others create a better future for themselves and for us all. In 2021, he formed WieGrow Capital and Consulting with his father, Doyle Wiebe, and joined Startup TNT as the Local Lead in Saskatchewan to achieve those goals. He also manages local creatives through WieManage: Creative Asset Management and works with his family to put on an annual festival called Art in the Garden. He loves creating synergistic connections and has helped prairie startups raise over 2 million dollars.

We learned about:

Hurley started Fox & Partners LLC to provide business owners with better business professional services. He enjoys helping small business owners get a better understanding of their finances and putting together reports and goals to assist the owners get to where they want to be. In addition to owning Fox & Partners Hurley is on the board of multiple non-profits and has an equity stake in other small businesses.

We learned about:

- Hurley's story and the story of F&P, overview of its main activities / programs across FP&A, M&A, and real estate
- Case studies Hurley is listed in
- What's the playbook for when Hurley onboards clients?
- Common levers Hurley can use to create incremental revenue, boost ROIC/ROE, turn working capital negative, and more
- Hurley's vision for where he wants to take F&P

Jessica Espinoza is CEO of 2X Global, a global industry body for gender lens investing - supported by United Nations ESCAP - convening the entire spectrum of capital providers. She is also Chair of the 2X Challenge which has raised more than US$ 27 billion of gender lens investments since its launch at the G7 Summit in 2018.

Jessica has a track record in originating, structuring, and executing debt, mezzanine, and equity deals in emerging and frontier markets with a strong focus on inclusive innovation. The latest innovation she is spearheading with 2X colleagues is 2X Ignite, a bold facility to unlock capital for gender-smart businesses at scale by backing female-led fund managers.

Prior to her current role, Jessica was Vice President for Private Equity & Venture Capital Investments at DEG/KfW. She was also a Member of the Management Board at ProCredit Bank Nicaragua responsible for the Business Clients Division and managed the Africa Regional Office of MicroFinance Transparency.

We heard Jessica on:

· Her origin story and path to gender-lens investing

· Overview of 2X Global's network

· Best practices for fostering gender diversity in startups

· How to pitch to gender-smart investors

· How to navigate the global investment landscape

· Success stories of startups that focused on GLI

Ricky Pearl loves problem-solving. From birthday treasure hunts with his family to complex business challenges, he has never been presented with a problem that he hasn't relished the opportunity to solve -the more creative the solution the better. So when he noticed that many business owners seemed to be encountering the same issues with hiring, training, and managing their sales teams - he knew there "was something there."

He drew on his extensive management, sales, and technical experience to create Pointer - an outsourced sales agency that uniquely provides "sales as a service" to businesses who don't have the time or resources to effectively manage their own internal sales department.

Since founding Pointer, South African-born Ricky has established himself as one of Australia's sales leaders, partnering with organisations like Start Up Vic, Pavilion, and RevGenius to bring sales knowledge, advice, and new ideas for getting each client’s solution or product in front of the business managers who need them most.

In this discussion, Ricky shared:

Javette Nixon is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, and investor. In addition to being the founder of Seaforth Holdings Limited, a boutique investment and holding firm specializing in impact investing and the nurturing of emerging businesses and social enterprises, Javette has three other companies under his business portfolio which include Point Global Marketing Limited, Esther Ventures Limited, and Esther Finance Limited. Moreover, he serves as a director at Vein Centers of Jamaica Ltd and the Social & Economic Alliance for Development.

With a wealth of experience spanning over two decades in diverse industries across the United States and Jamaica, Javette demonstrates a fervent commitment to volunteerism and philanthropy, coupled with expertise in areas such as web development and design, economics, commerce, media, e-commerce, banking, and Internet marketing.

In this session, Javette shared:

Mr. Thompson has been active in the start-up venture space for over 25 years as a builder of companies, angel investor, angel group leader and fund manager. In 2017, Mr. Thompson integrated all these roles into Valhalla Private Capital. In his capacity as Chairman and CEO of Valhalla Private Capital & Managing Partner of Old Kent Road Financial, Mr. Thompson has personally invested in 110 start-up companies and funds. Mr. Thompson oversees direct investing for 125 angel members and 5 funds under management for a total of over $225 million (CDN) in deployed capital.

Valhalla Angels has led its 125+ members to collectively fund over 250 companies for over $70 million dollars since 2003. While most of these investments are in Canada, several of the investments including the funds have been placed globally in 8 additional countries to date. For these efforts, Mr. Thompson was named the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) 2018 Canadian Angel of the Year and was awarded Startup Canada’s investor of the year for 2015. In addition, he has been asked to share his knowledge and first-hand experience of the startup ecosystem through formal speaking and instruction engagements in 28 countries over the last 3 years. 

Mr. Thompson spends a lot of time in the European ecosystem because of his ownership in an English Football League (EFL) club. Since 2018, Mr. Thompson has been a 25% owner of Peterborough United Football Club (PUFC).

We will hear from him on:

On this episode, Naushad UzZaman discussed cybersecurity, distortion of public opinion, and the use of artificial intelligence and data analysis to combat them. Naushad holds a PhD along has over two decades of experience in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, and has applied expertise in both academic research and social enterprise that comes from time spent at leading firms such as Nuance, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Bosch - and now at Blackbird.AI.

Naushad is responsible for the development of Blackbird’s Narrative & Risk Intelligence Platform, and along with his team, has built a unique series of scalable AI and network analysis modules that detect rare risk signals of threats. The real-time AI-powered narrative detection and risk intelligence platform is used by leading enterprises, Fortune 500’s, and large government organizations, globally.

In this session, we learned about:

Craig D’Cruze is a multifaceted entrepreneur with a passion for investing. In his 25+ years in equities markets, Craig has developed his outlook that emerging technologies will alleviate the largest hurdles facing the human race.

Prior to joining Inverted Ventures Craig lead teams of between 22 and 70 people as an award-winning Executive Chef for companies like Marriott Hotels International, Delta Hotels, and The University of Calgary. Cost control, budgeting, creativity but most importantly team building, mentoring and growth.

Craig has always been fascinated with numbers, finance, P&L, and cost effectiveness. His attention to detail gives him the ability to read between the lines when analyzing innovative investment ideas.

These factors have led Craig to take on the role of Chief Operating Officer for Inverted Ventures and is responsible for leading the research team on early-stage venture capital investments and cryptocurrency portfolio development.

We heard from him on:

Mainul Mondal is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Member of the Board of Directors of Ellipsis Health. As a skilled healthcare IT business leader, Mondal has deep experience in the technology, healthcare, pharmaceutical, retail and defense sectors. In 2020, he was selected as a Milestone Maker by the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center and he serves as a member of the World Economic Forum – working to improve the state of the world by engaging leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas. Previously, Mondal helped launch the ClearStreme initiative with the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Prior to founding Ellipsis Health, Mondal was a Rockefeller Fellow at the Public Health Institute. He has presented lectures, ran workshops, and has been a guest speaker at leading universities including Stanford University, the University of California, and the Indian Institutes of Technology.

Tahasin Alam is a VC-backed CTO and Co-Founder of Belong Health. He also has two major startup exits under his belt: one of the largest health insurance companies in the United States acquired his first startup, and his next startup went public in just 3.5 years - a testament to his strategic prowess and dedication to innovation.