Tank Talks By Ripple Ventures

We welcome NBA superstar Baron Davis , who shares his insights into the transition from sports to business. Baron shares his journey growing up in South Central LA and how he leveraged the advice from mentors and fellow athletes to help build a lasting legacy beyond his NBA days. Baron's story is not just about sports, it's about leveraging his athletic career into a second act in business, and ho...

Sergey shares his evolution from a startup operator to venture capitalist and how his experience shaped him as an investor. Sergey grew up in Israel and we talk about why Israel’s startup ecosystem has been so successful for so many years even as it grapples with the current conflict. Sergey shares his thoughts around how startups should think about expansion to the U.S from overseas and how to kn...

The new year brings new news to discuss with John Ruffolo and Matt Cohen . In this episode, we discuss: (00:28) CEO and CRO Changes in Startups and Scale-ups(02:02) Exploration of 'founder flight' in startups, Canada vs. the US(02:39) Runway Shortage in Startups(04:00) AGF Private Capital's Acquisition of Kensington Capital(07:17) Dynamics of Asset Management and Private Equity(08:00) Venture Capi...

Today we're diving into the world of ProductLed growth and user onboarding strategies with our special guest, Adam Jarczyn , Senior Director of Product Digital Health at PC Health and a valued Venture Partner at Ripple. Adam brings a wealth of experience to the product and go-to-market strategies for early-stage startups and offers unique insights that help founders scale revenue and retention.  I...

With 2023 coming to a close, we thought it would be nice to reflect on the year’s trends with John Ruffolo . Doing the news breakdowns this year it’s been apparent that AI, ML, and ChatGPT have dominated. It’s been a little over a year since the chat interface was launched by OpenAI and we’ve seen a scramble in tech to catch up, a defeated coup at OpenAI itself, and many other developments in the...

The journey to Product Market Fit (PMF) and the common pitfalls for first-time founders are abundant, and finding a trusted guide to help you on your startup journey can be just as difficult. Our guest today is Pablo Srugo from Mistral VC . With his roots in co-founding Gymtrack and transitioning to venture capital, Pablo has seen or experienced many of the challenges of being a founder. In our di...

Capital formation, aka fundraising, is the unglamorous side of venture capital. Building a strategy and executing it is the reality for both emerging managers and established brands. Our guest today is Ashton Rosin , an Operating Partner and Head of Capital Formation at Lowercarbon Capital . Ashton shares her amazing journey working in the non-profit and NGO space in Washington DC before making a...

Once platforms for connection and communication, social media now often serves as a battleground for digital deception, with algorithms sometimes amplifying extremist content, including jihadi propaganda and anti-Semitism. This complex digital landscape calls for a sophisticated approach to separate the truth from manipulation. Our guest today, Benjamin Dubow , is an expert in navigating this chal...

John Ruffolo and Matt Cohen convene an emergency news rundown to discuss the recent OpenAI news. (00:22) OpenAI's Board’s su r prise ousting of CEO Sam Altman (01:07) Impact on investors like Microsoft and Silicon Valley figures (01:29) Perspectives on OpenAI's dramatic changes (03:21) Criticism of OpenAI's governance approach (04:46) Exploration of OpenAI’s corporate structure (06:28) Implication...

There’s a term of art in the business world—dogfooding. It means if you’re going to propose a solution, you should use that same solution to help better understand problems the end user may encounter. Our guest today is familiar with dogfooding, both as a business process and from literally making food for pets. Isaac Langleben made the leap from consulting to leading Open Farm , a sustainable pet...

On Today’s episode, we dive into the world of Family Office Investing with Ronald Shon from REDDS Capital. We talked about to him the beginnings of his family's real estate empire, the Shon Group, which flourished in Vancouver since 1954. Following his education at Stanford and Wharton, Ron took the helm of the business after his father's untimely passing, eventually diversifying into technology a...

As the Canadian Tech scene expands, we often are aided by Canadians abroad who have gained experience and expertise in various aspects of startup life and culture. Our guest today is Andre Charoo , Founder and GP of Maple Ventures , which invests in founders with Canadian roots. We spoke about the lack of early-stage Canadian investors on the cap tables of successful companies like Instacart and W...

The grass is always greener, as the saying goes, and when our guest today saw the opportunity to build his lawncare empire and launch GreenPal , a lawncare marketplace he jumped in with both feet and never looked back. Bryan Clayton is the Co-Founder and CEO of GreenPal, and has lived the lawn care life before. He also knew what lawn care professionals needed and what lawn care customers wanted, b...

There are moments that can make your day-to-day life come to a halt. What happened in Israel on 10/7 is the sort of public tragedy that stops the normal course of life, it also creates an impact of devastation that will go on for years to come. These events have struck a chord with us personally as members of the Jewish community. Many of our investors and partners share this connection, whether d...

Fintech regulations around the world can vary wildly, but here in Canada, they can be particularly onerous. Today someone who is no stranger to redefining and working through the complexing of Canadian regulations. Our guest is the Founder and CEO of KOHO Financial , Daniel Eberhard . Dan grew up in a tiny town in British Columbia and now runs a company with over 250 employees and $275m in financi...

We welcome Prashant Matta , General Partner at Panache Ventures . We look back at Prashant's time at OMERS Ventures, how his approach to investing and working with founders has evolved, and the lessons he learned working with some amazing investors and founders during his time there. We dig into the changes in the Canadian venture scene since Prashant entered the industry, how recent market downtu...

This week we have a titan of Private Equity and Real Estate in Canada, Jon Love the Founder and CEO of KingSett Capital . Jon shares some incredible stories from his early years of running Oxford Properties, the lessons he learned from helping the firm navigate two real estate market downturns, and how the eventual sale to OMERS came to be. Jon discusses the reasons he decided to launch KingSett C...

We are big fans of coaching as a way to make career (and life) progress. Having a seasoned third party helping guide you through big decisions and day-to-day processes can be an invaluable edge in business. Our guest today is Joe Dunn , Principal at Cloudbreak - Executive and Founder Leadership Coaching. We dig into some of Joe’s coaching strategies when dealing with young leaders, how his coachin...

Building a career is a series of choices, outcomes of those choices, and then reacting to those outcomes. Sometimes a small choice can have an outsized return, sometimes the reaction to an outcome can lead you down a new path. In investing we are looking for power-law returns, the small bets that we can return exponential value. Our guest today is an investor who has seen some amazing choices turn...

Liquidity for investing in Venture Capital has been a recurring topic lately. Outsized rewards from investing in early-stage companies come when you hold until an IPO or other liquidity event. But life happens and that sometimes requires LPs to sell early and as more retail investors look into becoming Venture Investors, new ways to find liquidity will become the norm. Our guest today is an expert...

John is back! And here’s the news that he and Matt discussed: (00:21) The loss of Damien Steel at OMERS(03:38) Who will fill the void left by OMERS(05:06) Tiger Global’s mysterious liquidity memo(09:08) The importance of a long-term view of relationships with LPs(10:49) ChatGPT Enterprise(13:57) With Kleenex leaving Canada, why is it so hard for US-companies to service us? Follow Matt Cohen and Ta...

Want to be featured on our Tank Talks Partner Showcase Episode - Apply Here ! A word from our sponsor: The team at Ripple is always focused on helping our founders and portfolio companies find the best partners to work with within the tech and venture capital ecosystem. And that is why we are so excited to announce our partnership with the incredible team at Torys LLP . When it comes to legal supp...

There’s a lot of talk about supporting underrepresented emerging managers and founders in the startup space, and it’s refreshing to speak with someone that’s moving beyond talk into action. Our guest today is Courtney McCrea , Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Recast Capital, a platform supporting and investing in emerging managers in VC. Recast is investing that emerging managers, particularly t...

Sales and RevOps are the lifeblood of successful startups (and companies in general), and because of that high-stakes nature, there is a lot of fear and confusion on how to set up and run a sales process in the best way. Our guest today is an expert on the RevOps experience, Tutt Mrasek of Fiat RevOps , who has a nearly two-decade career building and guiding companies through creating sales pipeli...

Finding the pulse of what’s now and what’s next is a vital part of any VC’s life. You need to see what is both practical as a business, but also what is coming up that might be worth investing time and energy to help grow. Our guest today Diana Kimball Berlin , Partner at Matrix , has only been an investor for a short stint, but she has a long track record of both product management as well as cre...