Early-stage investing is fast becoming a point of interest for new investors, established accredited investors and institutional investors. 

Valhalla Private Capital’s ‘Vantage: Early Stage Investing in 2023’ is a one-day summit which brings together accredited investors, family offices, institutional investors and founders to begin an exciting risk-free exploration of the asset class as an investment strategy, from the comfort of Aspen Properties’ The Ampersand on 22 March.

With opening remarks from Teruel Carrasco alongside Valhalla Private Capital chairman Randy Thompson, the summit will serve as a day of panel discussions to introduce and address early stage investing to those who are interested but are concerned with the risk.

‘Vantage: Early Stage Investing in 2023’ comes to an end with a two-hour networking event, located at The Ampersand’s lounge. Tickets are available via Eventbrite.

Find out more about the panelists below:

Analucia Beltran

Founder and designer, Analucia Beltran Diamonds

Analucia Beltran is a jewellery designer, GIA certified diamond expert and TV host with  over 15 years of international experience in the luxury goods industry. Born in Lima, Peru now based out of Toronto Canada, Analucia spent 10 years at sea  working in the cruise industry where her career in the Diamond world started. She has served as Global Brand Ambassador for several Fine Jewelry Brands, hosting  events onboard cruise ships, the Caribbean, Alaska, Europe and appearing on  international Home Shopping television as a Guest Host for TV networks in Canada, US  and Australia. In 2020, she became the founder and CEO of Analucia Beltran Diamonds "Real Diamonds for Real Women® which is a celebration of all the hard work that women put  into their everyday lives. Her brand is one of the fastest growing lab grown diamond brands in the world, having  been featured in Her Majesty The Queen: Official Platinum Jubilee Commemorative Album this year in London. Her mission as a company/brand, is to make it possible to own diamonds for everyday glamour that are precious, sustainable and more attainable thanks to technology, with  Lab Grown Diamonds.

Brett Colvin

Co-founder and CEO, Goodlawyer

Brett has overseen Goodlawyer from inception to a 20+ person team named Calgary Chamber’s Small Business of the Year for 2022. Brett was a corporate lawyer for 4+ years and experienced firsthand that most business owners can't afford the legal help they need. So, he quit the big firm, teamed up with a developer and a designer, and got to work on building something better. Brett has a Juris Doctor (JD), Law, with Distinction from the University of Alberta (2015).

Bryan Slauko

Co-founder, Metiquity Ventures Fund

Bryan Slauko is a co-founder of Metiquity Ventures Fund I and manages the daily activities of the fund. He brings over 20 years of experience as an investment professional, advisor, entrepreneur and director. For the past 10 years Bryan has combined his expertise in investment analysis, market research, due diligence and early-stage growth equity with experience in business strategy, corporate governance and business building, to help unlock growth opportunities, create value and effectively manage risk for investors, early-stage companies and the communities he works in.

Outside of Metiquity Ventures, Bryan serves as the volunteer Board Chair of two not-for profit organizations, one providing an innovative approach to affordable housing and the other, a growing sports organization. Bryan is a CFA Charterholder and graduate of the Commerce program at Queen’s University.

Danielle Graham

Co-founder, The Firehood; general partner, Phoenix Fire

Danielle Graham is the Co-Founder of The Firehood and General Partner of Phoenix Fire, an angel stage fund and network focused on women in technology. She created Fierce Founders Programs — the first women-focused accelerator and bootcamp series in Canada. Previously, she managed Ontario Centres of Innovation's Market Readiness Fund, Principal at Sandpiper Ventures and Human Capital Consultant at Deloitte. Danielle supports underrepresented founders looking to scale their tech businesses as a member of the angel community network, investment officer and advisor to tech incubators. Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Wilfrid Laurier University, a Masters of Arts (M.A.) from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Trinity College, University of Toronto.

Eric Gordon

Founder and CEO, Entuitive Compliance

Eric Hartley Gordon is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, technologist, and early-stage investor. At the age of 18, Eric Started out developing business ventures in the retail fashion industry, then moved on to creating a successful franchising company within the grounds care industry at 30. There has always been one common thread through all Eric’s business ventures, the creation of intuitive software to address gaps in business processes. 

At 35 things progressed with the dot.com boom, Eric Invested in several technology startups that developed and deployed online inventory management systems for the automotive retail groups, global recruiting sites, and online job boards. One startup focused solely on Associations that required food recipe sites and another startup that created custom solutions for telecom companies, utility groups, and aviation industries, these software companies awarded Eric 3 successful exits. 

In 2016 Eric sold 51% of his latest startup in Workforce Management and Risk Mitigation to Crawford & Company the world's largest publicly traded insurance adjusting company. (NYSE: CRD-A and CRD-B) https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/crd-a - Crawford Compliance Inc. was created. June 2020 Eric Successfully bought back Crawford Compliance and rebranded as Entuitive Compliance. 

Today Entuitive Compliance has over 30,000 Workers/Contractors and Companies within the Entuitive Community in Canada alone. Brands like Home Depot, Enercare and REITS trust Entuitive Compliance to background check, credential, and track certifications for all workers/contractors in Canada. Currently, Eric is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer for Entuitive Compliance Inc. www.entuitivecompliance.com and sits on several boards and consortiums in the technology and autonomous automotive sector.

In 2017 Entuitive ( formally ) Crawford Compliance Inc. was awarded the insurance innovator of the year award for Snow Tracker® and in 2018 was runner up for the Tracker Central Management Portal. Eric is an avid sports car enthusiast, pilot, world traveler, and animal lover.  He lives in a secluded piece of land north of Toronto that he shares with dogs, ducks, geese, deer and more.

Douglas Holt

Associate vice president of investments, Alberta Innovates

Doug has over 20 years of experience in the fields of financial services, technology and education, managing high functioning teams, designing and implementing corporate strategies. His financial services experience is both buy side and sell side with a focus on credit analysis and structured finance. On the sell side, Doug has helped companies raise over $130mm of equity investment. As a buy-side credit investor in the US high yield bond and loan markets, Doug was part of a small team running a publicly listed ETF on the NYSE which rose from $80mm USD in assets under management to over $1bn. In his current role as the Associate Vice President, Investments for Alberta Innovates, Doug oversees the corporation’s research and innovation investment into Alberta’s post secondary institutions, entrepreneurs and accelerators. Doug earned a B.A. and B.Ed. from the University of Lethbridge in 2000 and a M.B.A. from the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary in 2008.

Guillaume Bédard

President, GHB Ventures

Guillaume Bédard is an entrepreneur, investor and senior business development executive. Mr. Bedard has 25 years of experience in International Business Development in the field of environmental sciences, engineering and technologies. Guillaume Bédard is responsible for Strategic Growth at Tangent Design Engineering Ltd and Tangent Ventures Inc. He has successfully supported many organizations with the development and implementation of business growth initiatives both nationally and internationally. This includes work related to strategic market positioning, client relations with Fortune 500 companies, strategic acquisitions, innovation, start-up as well as successful exit completions. Guillaume Bédard has successfully supported business initiatives in Europe, Africa, Latin America, United States, Canada and China.

Guillaume Bédard is the Board Chair of the Alberta Economic Development Council and Executive Board Member (Chair of Governance committee / Chair Audit committee) of the National Economic Development and Employability Network. Guillaume Bédard served as an industry representative for Canada at the NATO Environmental Round Table. Guillaume Bédard has completed a bachelor’s in international business at Concordia University, attended the MBA program in International Management at Laval University and completed a certificate as part of the Executive MBA Program in Finance at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Jacques LaPointe

Co-founder and director, Metiquity Ventures Fund

Jacques LaPointe is a co-founder and Director of Metiquity Ventures Fund I and the former President and co-founder of Calgary-based ATTAbotics. He led ATTAbotics through its very first equity and grant funding and the significant investment and growth that followed during his three-year tenure. Jacques brings over 25 years of experience in the Alberta technology ecosystem including 13 years in operational roles in industry and 12 years as an investment portfolio manager, angel investor, director and advisor. As a technology entrepreneur, Jacques is experienced in company formation through growth including early-stage business and product development. Jacques has also led or co-led over $43 million of investments into early-stage technology companies.

James Freeman

SVP digital strategy, Westgen Technologies

James is presently SVP Digital Strategy at Westgen Technologies of Calgary. In this role, James oversees the evolution of Westgen’s internal digital assets as well as an IoT strategy to enable Westgen products and services.  His career spans 33 years in the Telecommunications, Electric Utility, Oil & Gas and Agrifood industries, and he was previously CTO of Zedi Solutions, an Industrial IoT platform company serving the upstream Oil & Gas industry and sold to Emerson in 2019.  James has private company Board experience, is an active angel investor, is a Venture Partner at Weave VC, and is business coach to early-stage companies through the Alberta IoT Association and Foresight Cleantech Accelerator.  James holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering and a MBA both from the University of Alberta.

Jefferson Roc

Founder and CEO, eimhe

Jefferson Roc was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and immigrated to Canada at an early age. He grew up in Montreal, Canada and pursued accounting education before being organically pulled into entrepreneurship. He previously ran a distribution company, where he learned the fundamentals of sales and business. During his 15 years of enterprise sales experience, Jefferson was repeatedly recognized with overachievement awards. He combines tribal knowledge and sales-focused methodology to create customer value and is trained to achieve business objectives. His latest venture, EIMHE, is born from his lived experience with mental health challenges that inspired him to imagine a collective way to experience wellness, supercharged by cutting-edge technology such as machine learning. EIMHE is a peer support solution creating its own category, and recognized by many mental health stakeholders. EIMHE is set to become a de facto in corporate wellness. As he’s building EIMHE, Jefferson is also an ambassador for Groupe3737; Canada’s largest Startup incubator focusing on ethnocultural diversity, and he recently became a Startup mentor for BIPOC Foundation and the Alchemist X. He believes in creating contagious success and being part of the solution to the existing funding gap for under-represented groups. Jefferson’s recipe for success is resumed in passion, purpose and profit.

Peter Lafontaine

Community builder, innovator, technology leader, entrepreneur.

Peter (Pete) is Board Chairman of Rainforest Energy Corporation, focused on building a new multi- billion-dollar clean fuels business.  The proven process takes waste from forestry and agriculture (not crops) and produces green (no benzene or sulfur) gasoline. The facilities will be built in rural areas in partnership with indigenous communities.

He works with or volunteers to help entrepreneurs grow and expand their businesses or organizations. He is a partner in Peer Guidance a business mentoring team, Business Advisor with Intergen and is a 6 year champion of Rainforest Alberta a movement focused on building a diversified economy by building a strong technical innovation ecosystem in Alberta.

Peter moved to Alberta in 1977 as a fur buyer with the Hudson Bay Company.  He took a personal interest in early computers, took programming at UofA and has been bringing technology and business solutions to market ever since.  Peter has worked with industry leaders like Apple and Microsoft. He was a Founder, CEO of Zymeta Media Systems. Currently Peter is a strong community contributor using technology and business skills to improve people’s lives.

Think of Peter as a business geek using technology and innovation to create jobs, improve the economy and improve quality of life. His personal moto is: Happy, Healthy, Wealthy in that exact order, that happens to be core to one if his favorite words, prosperity. He believes the journey is the reward. His mission is to build organizations that combine purpose and profitability with strong effective teams.

He is an active member of Data for Good, ECL Choppers for Charity. and an existing UCP Board Member of Calgary-Bow. And a supporter of the Branchout Foundation.

Peter is an active snowboarder, Mountain Biker and Teaches families how to fish and enjoy the outdoors. He is married to his lifelong partner Leila with two amazing daughters, Brandi the Economist and Amber the Architect.

Robert Wesson

CEO, Axiom International Financial Services

Robert Wesson is the chief executive officer of Axiom International Financial Services. Formerly a director at Meridian Currency Ltd, the London-based Axiom CEO has held roles at Global Reach Partners Ltd, Moneycorp and Associated Foreign Exchange.

Terry Rock

President and CEO, Platform Calgary

Terry Rock is President & CEO of Platform Calgary. He is a passionate promoter of Calgary’s potential as one of the world’s most dynamic cities, and has been fortunate to be involved in numerous community building initiatives in his hometown. 

Do you have a question about angel investing? Get in touch with Valhalla Private Capital via our contact page.