A US-based venture capital firm with a studio in Toronto has announced it will tap into Canada’s “huge pool of artificial intelligence talent” to help build the next generation of AI companies.
Forum Ventures plans to launch a Toronto studio in 2023 and hire Canadian talent to help launch 18 companies over the next two years, managing partner Jonah Midnaik said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg. So far, he has launched 17 companies.
“So we’ve raised about $25 million on this, and you know, we’re going to be back on the streets hoping to increase that amount,” Midnaik said.
“The goal is to develop more international champions from here in Toronto.”
Midnaik said some of the cutting edge technology in AI has come out of Toronto.
“Open AI’s CTO had left Toronto,” Midnaik said. “Jeffrey Hinton famously invented neural nets here in Toronto, so we’re betting on a huge pool of artificial intelligence talent.”
Although Canada has had success in the past in producing AI talent, there are challenges as many founders migrate to the U.S. due to lack of funding and support, he said. He said this trend is accelerating.
“Just $2.1 billion was raised in venture funds in Canada last year, the lowest number in years,” Midnaik said. “And the number of venture-backed companies in the U.S. is 25 times higher than in 2015, up from 11 times.”
Midnaik said he is working to convince founders that by surrounding themselves with best-in-class talent, they can build winning companies like Shopify in Canada.
“We hope we can show them that they can stay here, build a global winner here and create more jobs for Canadians here,” Midnaik said.
He said the response has been great, with downstream investors investing in Canadian companies.
“We’ve had some of the world’s largest venture capital firms invest in these businesses, some of the Canadian founders and some of our builds, and we expect that trend to continue,” Midnaik said.
