Hunger Strike – Day 10

It was kind of David Crow (via Startup North) to look for some definition from our backwater blog regarding the E200 million early stage fund news out of OMERS and ABP. This is not the first anyone’s heard of OMERS getting into the direct early stage VC business. CEO Michael Nobrega spoke about it last Spring at the CVCA conference, OMERS Worldwide chief Jacques Demers mentioned in during a panel last September in Boston, and OMERS PE boss Paul Renaud was equally detailed during a CVCA panel in May in Ottawa. I feel as though I have a good sense of what they are planning, and would be happy to share. E100 million over 15 years for Canadian startups is welcome and needed capital, even if it represents one tenth of the money that the Government of Ontario wiped away (for Ontario-based firms) when they announced the end of the LSIF program five years ago.

But, the Blogging Hunger Strike must be respected (see prior post “Hunger Strike – Day One” June 16-10), failing as it may be to get anyone at the Globe and Mail to ask forgiveness for their tresspasses. Although we have their attention, along with a bunch of other sympathetic media outlets, let’s not confuse that with action.

My friends at 444 Front Street appear to be stuck in the first of the seven stages of Grief: shock and denial.

MRM
(disclosure – I took a course in professional photography at Ryerson in 1979)