Episode Description
In this episode, I sit down with Theresa Evanoff, Executive Director, Global Angel Investor Network (GAIN), and Tehmina Chaudhry, who founded and runs the Canada Startup Association, and is also a member of GAIN's board of directors.
The conversation around immigrant founders almost always focuses on who writes the first cheque and how difficult that can be. However, Theresa and Tehmina are looking to flip that and instead ask:
Who in the immigrant community could be writing those cheques, and what's stopping them?
We all agree that early-stage capital is relational, and immigrant founders (who are twice as likely to start a business than a Canadian-born resident) usually arrive without these relationships within the funding community. Theresa makes the point that the immigrant communities in Canada hold meaningful capital, but most of it sits in real estate, stocks, and bonds.
The angel investing seat is largely empty.
We also chat about:
Where most immigrant capital in Canada sits today, and why that's a missed opportunity
Why Tehmina says immigration in Canada is now an economic issue
The stats that flip the immigrant-as-burden narrative on its head
How every investment is a vote for the world you want your kids to grow up in
What the GAIN Angel Investing Academy will teach first-time investors
Dozie's Notes
A few things that struck me as I listened through this week's conversation:
The missing angel investor in the immigrant community is a gargantuan gap in Canadian venture. The capital, risk tolerance, and business understanding exists. What's missing is a process that turns a successful immigrant family into a first-time cheque writer. We've spent decades focused on getting newcomers housed and employed through newcomer support programs, which mattered, but the next era of the work has to figure out the wealth deployment layer.
Every dollar an immigrant family allocates is a vote in what kind of country they want their children to grow up in. That's a different motivation than maximum return, and a more honest one. The cultural diversity Canada is famous for can't be built only through arrival numbers. It can also be built through who gets to write the first cheque on the next generation's ideas.
The immigrant experience and narrative in Canada has been stuck in a help-and-support lens. 25 percent of net-new jobs in the last decade came from immigrant-owned businesses, and 40 percent of all Canadian entrepreneurs going forward will be immigrants. The settlement-and-support story has crowded out the contribution story for so long that it drives our public policy and narratives. We need to move the conversation on immigration to an economic one.
Official Links
✅ Connect with Theresa Evanoff on LinkedIn
✅ Connect with Tehmina Chaudhry on LinkedIn
✅ Learn more about GAIN
One Ask
If you found this story helpful, please consider sharing it with one Canadian immigrant you know.