Entrepreneurs and Investors
We combine the activity of our five fund managers with the input of our twenty Advisory Board members to provide finance, knowledge and operational experience to investee companies.
John Stokes
John has more than 10 years of experience, both as a founder and an investor, in start-up, early stage and growth companies. A start-up specialist, John has established regional operations for global corporations in the Wireless Industry such as Aethos Systems (India, Taiwan, China, SEA) and Brighpoint Inc. (Philippines, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia) and is recognized for his success in growing sales and profits. In June 2000 he founded Piermont Ventures; a Hong Kong based boutique investment and advisory business with a focus on media, technology and financial services. John’s track record of business and investment success is based on his philosophy of strong research, strong leadership and focused execution. He is known for his ability to quickly identify and diagnose sales and growth impediments that go far beyond marketing, working with companies to refine their organizational structure and market position, as well as there distribution channels and strategic partnerships.
John received his BSc. (Hons) from MMU (Manchester, UK) and commenced his career within the sales and marketing departments of organizations such as Fuji Xerox and BellSouth New Zealand (now Vodafone New Zealand). He is a citizen of the UK and New Zealand and lives in Montreal, Canada. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Piermont Ventures Ltd, Vogue Planet KK, and Football 360 KK.
Daniel Drouet
A telecom engineer by training, Daniel spent several years providing consulting and training services to operators, regulators and large corporations across North America, Africa and the Middle East. In addition to his technical skills, his expertise includes assessing impacts of new technology on existing business models. More recently his focus has been on software for Internet and mobile applications.
He is a co-founder of Montreal Start Up, a Venture Investor that provides funding and support to innovative Montreal tech start-ups. He has also been with île sans fil, one of the most successful community wireless groups, since its beginning and currently serves as its president.
Daniel has a bachelor degree in Economics and another in Electrical Engineering, both from McGill University in Montreal.
Alan MacIntosh
In addition to his role at Montreal Start Up, Alan is Managing Partner of Acta Wireless, a Montreal based provider of Advisory Services and Venture Capital to the Wireless industry. He has over 20 years of international business experience, working for Schlumberger and Hewlett-Packard before joining Canada’s Telesystem group in 1990. At Telesystem he established TIW’s mobile operations in eight countries including the UK, where he managed operations for three years. In 1997, he moved to sister company Microcell and co-founded GSM Capital, the first global wireless fund, backed by nine of the world’s leading operators. Alan currently sits on the boards of WaveMetrix, Millennial Media, Cellfish Media and OZ. A native of Scotland, he holds a BSc (Hons) in Offshore Engineering from Heriot-Watt University and MBA from INSEAD.
Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer
JS Cournoyer has been in high technology since the mid nineties both as an entrepreneur and an investor. As well as his role with Montreal start Up, JS is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Vantage Point Venture Partners (VPVP), a diversified technology venture capital fund based in San Bruno, CA where he focuses on investments in ITC. Before VPVP, JS was responsible for the venture capital investment activities of la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDP), leading numerous investments in the areas of Internet, wireless, semiconductors and networking and also investing in numerous venture funds in Canada and the USA. Prior to CDP, JS was an early investor, CFO and Vice President, business development at Terrascale Technologies Inc., a storage software company that was sold to Rackable Systems (NASDAQ: RACK). Before Terrascale, JS was with Innovatech, an early-stage venture fund where he lead numerous investments in digital media, Internet, wireless, networking and software infrastructure.
JS has also co-founded two Internet companies in the Boston area and was a management consultant with Arthur D. Little, Inc., focusing on the telecommunications and energy industries. In addition to MSU and VPVP, JS is active in the Canadian high-tech community, both as an angel investor in and advisor to technology companies. He is a also a director of Techno Montreal. JS received a B.A. in Physics cum laude from Middlebury College. He is married with 5 wonderful children.
Austin Hill
Austin Hill is a Canadian entrepreneur who has been creating technology start-ups for 15 years. He is co-founder of Montreal technology startups Akoha and Standout Jobs, where he currently serves as CEO (Akoha) and Chairman (Standout Jobs). Austin was a founder of Zero-Knowledge Systems (renamed Radialpoint in 2002) and as its President helped the company raise $75 million between 1997 and 2001. He also served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Zero-Knowledge Systems, CEO of Synomos Inc. (a Zero-Knowledge Systems subsidiary), and Executive-Vice President of Research for Radialpoint. Radialpoint was honoured by Deloitte & Touche as one of Canada’s fastest-growing technology firms in their 2006 Technology Fast 50 award.
A serial entrepreneur, Austin was a founder of the Internet provider Total.Net in 1994 and built its Canadian network as its Chief Technology Officer. In 1990, while still a teenager, he founded security consulting firm Cyberspace Data Security. In 2001 Austin was awarded the 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Emerging Entrepreneur in Quebec. In 2002 Austin was named a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Austin is an advisory board member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and a past Board member of the Information Technology Association of Canada. He serves on the advisory board of the Atwater Library Digital Literacy project, is a research fellow for Coburn Ventures, and through his angel investment firm Brudder Ventures advises a number of Canadian start-ups and entrepreneurs. He is a Board Member of Anges Quebec and a Venture Partner at iNovia Capital.