There’s one angel group in Atlantic Canada that is not shutting down, and Gerry Pond wants everyone to know it has a management team that can take it into the future.
It’s East Valley Ventures, the wing of Saint John-based Mariner that invests in startups, providing both capital and mentorship to young entrepreneurs. While the First Angel Network of Halifax announced late last week it will be ceasing operation, Pond said in an interview that East Valley is still going strong.
“We’re pretty much where we’ve been,” said Pond, the group’s chair and spokesman. “We started in early 2012, and we’re still chugging along. We didn’t want to be the biggest angel network anywhere. We wanted to have the capital to deliver some money to the market. More importantly, we wanted to provide some mentorship to entrepreneurs.”
East Valley is a unique organization – so unique it’s difficult to describe. First, it’s a division of a corporation, Mariner, whose prime business is providing IP network software solutions for telecom and cable companies, but East Valley is also a loose collection of individual New Brunswickers who want to invest in young high-growth companies.
East Valley now has a portfolio of 27 startups, and the investment group varies with each investment. Sometimes Mariner itself invests in these companies, but usually the investors are the individual members of the group.
For several years, the faces of the organization have been Pond and former CFO Jeff White. Pond turns 75 this year, and White last year left the organization to become the CEO of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. Pond’s age and the loss of White have raised questions in the startup community about the future of East Valley.
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Pond says he will be an investor and mentor for the rest of his days, and stresses that there is a younger generation of seasoned managers already in place in the investing group.
The management team includes: Bob Neal, the former Vice-President of Business Development at Aliant Telecom and a 25-year veteran of the ICT sector; and Head of Business Development Rick MacPhee, who has 24 years experience in ICT.
“People say, ‘There’s that old Gerry Pond’, but I’m not the only one here,” said Pond. “It’s a pretty strong and experienced group. We’ve been In ICT for 30 or 40 years, most of us.”
Angel groups tend to do their work quietly, said Pond, and many in the startup community may be unaware of how active East Valley has been. Perhaps, he added, people are expecting the group to continue to roll out a succession of exits like Radian6, Q1 Labs and Brovada, which collectively sold out for more than $1 billion.
East Valley now has investments in the three Maritime Provinces, and will continue to look at opportunities in these provinces. However, Pond has long expressed his frustration that Nova Scotia’s equity tax credit is not extended to investors in Nova Scotian companies who do not reside in the province. After a decade of fruitless discussions, said Pond, he said he personally won’t invest in any more Nova Scotian companies unless New Brunswick investors receive the credit.
Pond has looked at companies in Newfoundland and Labrador but never found a good fit, though he says there are some fine companies on the Rock. Given that East Valley places a high value on mentorship, Pond has never found a situation in which he could meet regularly with St. John’s founders given the distances involved.
Pond also serves as the Chair of Mariner and admitted in the interview that the company has had a “pause in revenue growth.” He said IPTV (Internet Protocol television) was a growth market when Mariner began in 2003 but the market has changed with other forms of video transmission entering the market.
“We weren’t quick enough” in responding,” said Pond. “But we have new products that we’re bringing out and they’re looking good.”