Episode 12: Marianne Bulger (Golden Ventures)

In this episode, our CEO sits down with Marianne Bulger (People and Platform at Golden Ventures - a tech focused, industry-agnostic seed stage venture capital fund based in Toronto that invests across North America.) The conversation touches on our local VC landscape, the rapid growth we are experiencing in Toronto's tech sector, diversity and wait for it.... Burning Man! Links: Golden Ventures - https://golden.ventures Prospect.FYI - https://www.prospect.fyi/ [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virjee 0:49 All right, welcome back to another installment of the start well Podcast. I'm Qasim Virjee, the founder and CEO of start well, which is a company that essentially brings people together to create magic it technology and related fields here in Toronto, Canada. This is the 12th episode. If you're a avid listener of our podcast, you'll have heard from Kareem Haji in the last episode, if you're new to us, please do check that one out. He's a lecturer at Oxford University that does really cool stuff with impact investing, and I highly recommend listening to that episode. Today I'm in studio on King Street with Marianne Belcher. And I pronounced your name correctly. Yeah, Marianne Bulger 1:34 yeah, you did. It's like the criminal. Whitey Whitey vulture. I think he actually just met his peril in prison. Qasim Virjee 1:42 Did he become a criminal because of his first name or his last name? Marianne Bulger 1:46 Hmm. I think he became a criminal because he was. Well, I actually don't know the answer to that. Who wants Qasim Virjee 1:53 to be called YT? Can you imagine? Marianne Bulger 1:56 I will. It was William Bolger. And that was actually my grandfather's name. So he ran into quite a bit of trouble at the border of Qasim Virjee 2:02 getting confused with the criminal and they said, Hey, Whitey, he's like, I'm not white. And then it just got very confusing. Marianne Bulger 2:10 Yeah, perhaps. Qasim Virjee 2:11 So if I have this correct, Maryanne, I you lead people and culture at Golden ventures, people in platform actually people in platform. Yeah. And why don't we just jump into it? What does that entail? And who is gold ventures? Marianne Bulger 2:27 So golden ventures, I'll start there. It's a seed stage venture capital fund based here in Toronto, but investing across North America. We're currently in our third fund. We're sector agnostic, which is fun, because it means we can invest across the board in any industry. As long as the company is leveraging technology. It also allows us to divorce ourselves from being experts of everything, and allowing founders to really step up and say, This is why I want to build this. This is why I want to change the world. And I'm the one to do it. Qasim Virjee 3:02 Yeah, no, this, it must be thrilling to have the freedom to be able to work with brilliant people doing awesome stuff, and passion, without the limitations of focusing on like mobile apps Marianne Bulger 3:15 or whatever. Well, that's where golden ventures got its start, okay? Matt Goldin has a lot of wealth or a wealth of knowledge and a lot of experience in the mobile sector. And the same with one of our other partners, Amit Shah, they both came from that industry. And they both realized very quickly that their expertise in mobile was not as important as the expertise of any founder that they were investing in. And it opened up the doors in our second fund. And now in our third fund for us to invest in everything from quantum computing, to aerospace to temporary tattoos to marketplaces for restaurants and chefs, it seems endless. The possibilities, and it makes every partner meeting each week. Quite fun. Qasim Virjee 4:05 So the team comprises of you mentioned that too early, I guess. Are they both co founders or Marianne Bulger 4:12 no, so Max, the founder of the fun