Antoine Nivard is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Blank Ventures, a $65M inaugural fund, where he invests in seed-stage enterprise and fintech software.

Prior to founding Blank, he had the opportunity to help raise funds and establish Inovia Capital in Silicon Valley and was fortunate to partner with founders building companies like LightspeedCommerce (NYSE:LSPD), 1Password, Magical, BenchSci, Momentum, Vital Biosciences, Poka (acquired by IFS), DarwinAI (acquired by Apple), and many more.

Takeaways

-Early days joining Inovia.

-Launching and growing the Inovia office in SF.

-Discuss the power law and witnessing it firsthand.

-Talent arbitrage when it comes to American tech companies with significant amounts of Canadian employees (ex. Faire).

-Discuss Databricks that has two Canadian founders.

-Why there has been a lack of company formation in Canada.

-Canada needs to focus on building startup mafias, where successful entrepreneurs from companies like Shopify go on to start their own ventures.

-Launching and raising capital for Blank Ventures.

Chapters

00:00 Background and Joining Inovia

04:30 Experience at Inovia

11:02 Impact of Witnessing the Power Law

15:57 Talent Arbitrage in American Companies

18:38 Lack of Company Formation in Canada

25:30 Building a Startup Mafia in Canada

34:20 Focus on Blank Ventures

48:37 Favorite Book and Excitement for 2024

52:18 Dealing with Hard Times

54:16 Closing Remarks

Antoine Nivard from Blank Ventures