OUR TEAM
A fund built by successful entrepreneurs, who have a track record for growing business
Owen Matthews
Managing Partner
- Founded $110M market cap public company while in University
- Founding investor in companies with financing and exit values in excess of $500M
- Founding investor at CERTN
- Created the Alacrity Foundation Model, which expanded globally as a center for entrepreneurs
Richard Egli
Managing Partner
- Built and managed Alacrity programs that have created more than $500M of value for the Canadian tech ecosystem
- Co-founder of the CINdicates community venture fund – Serves on the investment committee, approves term sheets, completes due diligence on various early- stage companies
Todd Tessier
CFO and Finance Partner
- CFO at Vanedge Capital (7 years) with investor responsibilities for $408M and 47 portfolio companies. Led deal structuring involving SpaceX, GoTo, Rigado and Raxium
- CFO at Recon Instruments (3 years) that was acquired by intel in 2015
- VP of Investments of the BC Renaissance Capital Fund (6 years) and implemented the BC Angel Investor Tax Credit programin 2001
Owen Matthews
Managing Partner
- Founded $110M market cap public company while in University
- Founding investor in companies with financing and exit values in excess of $500M
- Founding investor at CERTN
- Created the Alacrity Foundation Model, wich expanded globally as a center for entrepreneurs
Richard Egli
Managing Partner
- Built and managed Alacrity programs that have created more than $500M of value for the Canadian tech ecosystem Co-founder of the CINdicates community venture fund – Serves on the investment committee, approves term sheets, completes due diligence on various early- stage companies
Todd Tessier
CDO and Finance Partner
- CFO at Vanedge Capital (7 years) with investor responsibilities for $408M and 47 portfolio companies. Led deal structuring involving SpaceX, GoTo, Rigado and Raxium
- CFO at Recon Instruments (3 years) that was acquired by intel in 2015
- VP of Investments of the BC Renaissance Capital Fund (6 years) and implemented the BC Angel Investor Tax Credit programin 2001
Burak Evren
Venture Partner
Burak works with Alacrity’s Cleantech portfolio companies to address challenges in target markets (Mexico, Singapore, India and Northern Europe), and facilitates their marketing and business development efforts.
A past senior manager and C-suite executive at Fox, Motorola, McCann Erickson, Turkish Telecom and multiple large retail operations.
Joanna Buczkowska-McCumber
Senior Impact Advisor
Corporate Sustainability Strategist and Founder, Ideas for Impact Sustainability Agency; EIR Coast Capital Innovation Centre, University of Victoria; Chair Scale Institute for Social Finance and Social Enterprise Solutions; Previous Executive Director League of Innovators;
Previous Managing Director Centre for Social Innovation and Impact Investing at UBC. Impact startup advisor to many. Joanna brings over 15 years of experience working at the nexus of entrepreneurship, strategic growth, and impact.
Her holistic approach considers every aspect of ESG and Impact as it aligns company values with desired growth outcomes.
Peter van der Gracht
Venture Partner
Peter Van der Gracht is a senior mentor for Alacrity Canada’s Cleantech program, supporting portfolio companies with market penetration, business model development, and alternative financing solutions.
Based in Canada, Peter also works closely with in-market advisors and cleantech companies pursuing opportunities in the India and Northern Europe markets.
Diya Courty-Stephens
Jr Impact Analyst
Diya is currently completing her BA in Environmental Analysis, Economics, and Politics. While working at her university’s environmental research center, she has consulted for a number of investment firms and startups. In high school she started a non-profit to diminish food waste and increase food availability in underserved communities. She has a passion for sustainability and helping companies increase their impact.
Lauren Camp
Community Manager
Lauren leads Strategic Initiatives and Marketing for Alacrity Canada, and brokers/leverages partnerships to support our community of founders. She also facilitates Account Management for Maplegro, a financing POC for early stage companies as a Strategist and Account Manager.
Lauren helped launch F-Cancer as their Chief Strategist, supported Kit and Ace’s initial brand boom running their campaigns on the Content Team before working on their charity’s strategy. Before Alacrity, she was a Creative Director for Architectural Competitions at DIALOG, an international design firm.
Owen Matthews
Venture Partner
Golriz Fattahi
Fund Operation
Peter van der Graht
Venture Partner
Sophie Campbell
Fund Operations
Lisa Ricci
Venture Partner
We are part of a global ecosystem
A fund built by successful entrepreneurs, who have a track record for growing business. Our formula is simple, take a markets-first approach which means assess the market need and the viability of a successful outcome.
It takes great knowledge and experience to build the ecosystem needed to assess the viability of a technology. This is even more so with clean and climate tech given the complexity and interdependency with infrastructure and policy frameworks.
