The Ins and Outs of Raising Capital

A Fireside Chat with Chris Neumann

Want to know the ins and outs of raising capital as an early-stage startup (and when not to raise)? Is it your first time raising, or have you already gone through the friends and family round and are venturing into your first seed round, then join SFU Chang Institute’s mentor-in-residence & former CEO Rachel Chase and Chris Neumann, General Partner at Panache Ventures–as they share their experiences through this critical time in a startup’s journey. These experienced founders will guide you through the fundraising landscape, the fundraising process, strategies, and how to get the most out of each investor meeting; including common mistakes founders make.

Rachel Chase is a healthcare founder and innovator. She is a co-founder and former CEO of Zennea Technologies, a medical device company that developed a treatment and management system for mild obstructive sleep apnea using novel neuromodulation and sleep-tracking technology. She has a background in hardware and financial product sales. Rachel loves diving into problems, and through that passion, she was a teaching assistant for introductory entrepreneurship classes at SFU.

She learned how to build a business and scale a startup from world-renowned accelerator programs such as SOSV’s HAX, Google’s Inaugural StartUp Accelerator for Women, Johnson and Johnson’s JLABS, Creative Destructions Labs, and got her early start with SFU’s Coast Capital Venture Connection Incubator, eCoop, TechE and won Coast Capital Venture Prize in 2018. Rachel really enjoys working with companies interested in understanding the pain point to not only create a customer-centric product/service but to create informed marketing decisions.

Chris Neumann is a General Partner at Panache Ventures, Canada’s leading early-stage fund. He invests in Pre-Seed and Seed stage startups, with a particular focus on enterprise software, developer tools and AI.

Prior to joining Panache, Chris founded Commonwealth Ventures, a San Francisco-based accelerator for Canadian and UK startups. Before that, he was a Venture Partner at 500 Startups, the CEO and Cofounder of DataHero (acquired by Cloudability) and the first employee of Aster Data (acquired by Teradata).

In addition to his work as an investor, Chris teaches Entrepreneurship at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, is an Associate of the Creative Destruction Lab and an Advisor to The Data Lab.

Today, Chris focuses on helping the most ambitious founders in Canada and around the world as an investor and through his blog, chrisneumann.com.

Venture Connection offers SFU startups the place to grow their business in an interdisciplinary community of experts, mentors and alumni. We help SFU’s most talented and ambitious entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into successful and sustainable businesses.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

SFU VentureLabs, 555 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, Canada