Tank Talks By Ripple Ventures

This episode is a milestone, Episode 100! And for that special occasion, we have a very special guest filled with unique insights from his time in the Canadian Special Forces. On today’s show, we welcome Glenn Cowan , Founder of ONE9 . ONE9’s Special Mission Fund is Canada’s first and only national security and critical infrastructure security fund. The fund focuses on dual-use technologies valida...

Retaining talent is a superpower for successful companies and creating environments that support employees is often the foundation of retention. Our guest today is Cameron Yarbrough , Co-Founder and CEO of Torch , a platform that helps companies build professional growth through the power of trusted relationships. We are big believers in coaching and mentorship and Torch has really caught our eye...

Finding new and more efficient ways to reward creators for their efforts is one of the biggest challenges of the digital economy. Our guest today, Jared Nusinoff , is working to bring value to creators with Mash , a crpyto/web3 platform that helps get creators paid with a new “Pay-As-You-Enjoy” model. Mash recently received a $6M seed-round co-led by Castle Island Ventures & Whitecap Venture Partn...

Hiring is one of the toughest challenges startups face in today’s global economy. They are competing for talent not only against “name brand” companies, but also the incredibly rich and robust startups from around the world. Our guest today has seen that struggle both as an operator and now as an investor, Michele Delcambre , is the operations partner at Felicis Ventures , one of the greatest vent...

How we organize our companies used to be a straightforward affair, pick a place, like a humble garage, have everyone show up at that place and build your widget, and grow from there. Even before the rise of the pandemic, that equation was being disrupted, and the question of do we even need a physical place to build together has been questioned. Our guest today, Eyal Lasker , Co-Founder and CEO of...

Startups love to tackle big problems in entrenched industries, but when it comes to the biggest problems, like say the Global Climate Crisis, sometimes it can be hard to find a new way to solve the problem. Our guest today, Devon Wright , Founder and CEO of Lumo , a smart irrigation system that helps growers save water, improve crop quality, and reduce costs. We talk to Devon about what Lumo is do...

Startups and small businesses have a lot of advantages over their entrenched competitors, but one thing that big businesses have access to is forecasting and business intelligence. Our guest today is working to level that playing field, Spencer Dent is Co-Founder of Clozd , a platform that provides world-class consulting and technology for win-loss analysis. We help our clients design and execute...

With the ascendance of gig work platforms like Uber, Fiverr, and DoorDash, it could be easy to be lulled into thinking that the space is fully matured. But there’s a new wave of gig working platforms that promise to add in Web3 Technology and the ability to accomplish more complex work. Our guest today, Matthew Spoke, is the Founder and CEO of Moves Financial , a fintech platform designed to enabl...

FinTech is both an undeniable tech movement, as well as, an ambiguous buzzword that founders can use for caché. So what is it and how can startups truly utilize tools from the FinTech world to give their own companies superpowers. Our guest today, Joe Keeley , is the Co-Founder and CEO of JustiFi , a platform that allows Vertical SaaS companies to add sophisticated FinTech to their service offerin...

With the recent market pullback, growth-stage startups have to figure out how to best navigate today’s markets. In this episode, we welcome Margaret Wu, Partner and Lead Investor at Georgian Partners, a Canadian fund that invests in high-growth tech companies. Recently they have focused on the growth of applied AI, investing in Vention, a digital manufacturing automation platform in its $95M Serie...

Being an outsider these days has a lot of advantages. It can allow ideas to crystallize in ways that someone who is too close to an industry may avoid. Today we welcome Nate Pierotti, Principal of New Stack Ventures , an early-stage fund whose mission is to invest in outsiders and founders that don’t come from the same educational pedigrees or locations we typically see in the venture world. New S...

It’s been a year since Boris Wertz was a guest on Tank Talks, and oh what a year it’s been. We’ve seen NFTs and Crypto rise, fall, rise, and crash. And that’s just the last few weeks. We thought it would be fun to listen with new ears to this thought-provoking conservation with someone who has helped build the crypto space into what it is today. Through his position as an early investor in Dapper...

One of the trickiest problems in the startup world is how to properly compensate your employees. It’s a delicate balance between providing competitive offers, retaining employees, and being wise with your funding. Our guest today is looking to help founders navigate these decisions, Thanh Nguyen , CEO and Co-Founder of OpenComp is building a platform that allows companies to evaluate how their org...

Retail investing, meme stocks, and finding new ways to bring underrepresented and non-traditional demographics into the investor class will be a lasting impact of the last two years. Our guest today, Ali Moiz , Founder and CEO of Stonks.com is at the center of that movement. We talk with him about what led him to create the platform, which allows accelerators and investors to Livestream demo days...

Fundraising can be one of the most daunting tasks as a founder or even for a fund manager like me. If you just google how to fundraise, you get millions of results, a lot of conflicting information and it can all be overwhelming. Our guests today, Leslie Fine and Jonathan Lowenhar are looking to help solve that for founders by being a trusted source of coaching and advice with their startup adviso...

Onboarding is a pain point in hiring, but also when bringing new customers up to speed. Not only can it be difficult to navigate as a consumer, but it can be difficult to produce the materials and tutorials in the first place. Our guest today is aiming to fix all of that, Jennifer Smith is the Co-Founder and CEO of Scribe , a platform that makes manuals a thing of the past. She talks to us about h...

There’s a lot of hype around AI—both its capabilities and the extreme predictions of its utility and potential harm to society. Our guest today is using AI to help reduce harm by detecting fraud at scale in the financial sector. Ronan Burke is Co-Founder and CEO of Inscribe, a platform that has a mission to save billions of dollars lost to fraud by onboarding trusted customers faster and finding b...

The rise of influencer to VC is starting to hit its stride. This has been an evolution from celebrities like Ashton Kutcher to newsletter writers like Packy McCormick. Our guest today is a part of that trend, moving from Division I college football player at the University of Michigan to sales at IBM and Okta, and now Marell Evans , Founder and Managing Partner of Exceptional Capital , is a rising...

We hear a lot about building a community and creating startup ecosystems, but what does that really look like? Our guest today, Brendan King , Co-Founder and CEO of Vendasta has built both a community-focused platform and has helped build the startup ecosystem in Western Canada. Vendasta helps small and medium businesses create SaaS offerings by combining best-of-breed software vendors and the exp...

Finding new ways for e-commerce to connect with consumers is driving today’s guest, Kelly Nyland , Co-Founder and CEO of Whym , to help brands and retailers sell more products via SMS and messaging. Whym has raised $4.3M to build a conversational marketing platform that allows a direct relationship between buyers and sellers using messaging as the medium. About Kelly Nyland: Over the past 15 years...

We may be leaving a golden age of digital marketing, with the rise of Facebook ads, e-commerce and other small businesses were able to find their niche audiences at a fairly reasonable price. But changes to iOS have had broad impacts across many industries. Our guest today, Shanif Dhanani , Co-Founder and CEO of Apteo is hoping to throw a lifeline to marketers of all sizes with his AI-powered plat...

We know that one of the most valuable skills that a founder can have is grit. That determination to succeed and take their idea from a dream into reality. Our guest today has a ton of grit and we dive deep into his storied journey from being amongst the early companies at YC to becoming a member of a recent YCW21 class. Richard White is the founder and CEO of Fathom Video , an app for Zoom that al...

One of the most misunderstood calculations a founding team can make is when to exchange equity for capital and when you should turn to Venture Debt. We are a Venture Fund, but we are also partners with our founders, and we know that sometimes the better option is Venture Debt. Today’s guests, Tony Barkett , Managing Director of RBCx and Rebecca Skvorc , CFO and Head of Talent at Nudge , talk throu...

With the disaggregation of traditional media, the popularity of influencers, and the unraveling of ad platforms like Facebook, creating a community through content has never been more important. Our guest today knows about the power of content and how it can grow into something world-changing. Austin Rief , is the CEO and Co-Founder of Morning Brew , an online media powerhouse that was founded as...

A clear trend is these days is the Ops movement. DevOps, AdOps are the most well-known, but more and more support functions are having dedicated systems and platforms created to help support their roles. Our guest today, Josh Sharkey , Founder and CEO of meez , is pioneering the Food Tech space and creating a Google-Drive for restaurants and chefs. He talks about being a non-technical founder and...