A presentation that I gave in my home town to a social media conference called TweetStock in November 2011

1. Venture Capital 101 – From a
Brantford Perspective
Scott Pelton, GrowthWorks Capital
November 2011
Tweetstock 6

2. Who is Scott Pelton?
• Old-school geek (1980’s)
• BCI (1990) and Mac Computer
Engineering/Management
graduate (1995)
• Computer Programmer and
Consultant (1990’s)
Tweetstock 6

3. Who is Scott?
Venture Capitalist since July 2000
Tweetstock 6

4. What does a VC do?
Tweetstock 6

5. What does a VC do?
Tweetstock 6

6. What does a VC do?
Tweetstock 6

7. What does a VC really do?
• Be a proud shareholder
• Best practices, new ideas, introductions,
strategy, …
• Invest $$$
• Grow the management team
“Rinse and Repeat”
Tweetstock 6

8. What does a VC look for?
Tweetstock 6

9. Great Team
Tweetstock 6

10. Great Idea
Tweetstock 6

11. Good Timing
Tweetstock 6

12. Risk
• VC’s know that there is no such thing as
a free lunch. We are in the business of
taking risks to earn
our high returns.
• 30%+ internal cost
of capital.
Tweetstock 6

13. Alignment / Fit
Tweetstock 6

14. gShift Labs
Tweetstock 6

15. VC Kryptonite
• No NDAs
• Full disclosure
• Have a business
plan ready
• Know your numbers
• Be ready to get
married and find a
partner.
Tweetstock 6

16. Innovation Factory – Helpful folks
tammy.hwang@innovationfactory.ca Tel: 905-667-2607
Tweetstock 6

17. GrowthWorks Capital
• Early stage investors in life sciences and
information technology companies.
• 60+ years of experience on investment
team
• We’ve been at it since 1992
• Offices across Canada
Tweetstock 6

18. Getting in Touch
Twitter: @spelton Google Voice: 716-584-1485
Tweetstock 6