Real Ventures

WHO WE ARE

Founded in 2007. Real is an early-stage venture capital firm that backs entrepreneurs and builds the ecosystems in which they thrive. We are a leading source of capital for early-stage Canada-based tech companies. Real is a VC firm that believes in supporting founders from day one and helping them scale themselves as they scale their businesses.

$144,000,000

TARGET SIZE OF FUNDS

Sector

Fintech, Logistics, AI, Virtual Reality, Robotics, SaaS, Marketplace Apps

Stage

Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A

Region

North America

Countries

Canada

Founder(s)

Janet Bannister

Since her first entrepreneurial venture as a teenager, Janet has used her boundless energy and focus to build and shape companies. Part of the Real Ventures team since 2014, she has led investments in over a dozen companies and works actively to help them accelerate growth and create meaningful impact. Janet’s experience as a founder, and her work with industry leaders like Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Co. and eBay, have given her great insight and practical knowledge, which she passes on to the teams she mentors. Given her background transforming eBay from a Collectibles to a Mainstream marketplace and launching and growing Kijiji into one of the most visited websites in Canada, Janet primarily works with entrepreneurs in marketplaces, fintech, future of work, and AI in enterprise settings. A dynamic, high energy person, Janet has also competed internationally in triathlons and loves spending time in nature and with her family.

John Stokes

John is an investor who daily resists the urge to get back to being an entrepreneur — but rather chooses to live vicariously through the founders in whom he invests. After having played leading roles in two successful startups in Asia Pacific, but being underwhelmed with the venture capital model, John transitioned from entrepreneur to investor, determined to give others a more rewarding experience. After a number of years angel investing, he cofounded Real Ventures in 2007, where he works with passionate entrepreneurs looking to use technology to pre-empt the status quo. He knows that the path to success is uphill and it doesn’t have many signposts, but that an enquiring mind, an ability to inspire, a strong compass and dogged determination can enable entrepreneurs to find success in places others didn’t know existed.

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Beyond The Billion (The Billion Dollar Fund For Women) Copyright © 2018 - 2024

TBDF Ventures LLC (TBDFV), the organizer of Beyond The Billion (BTB), is a company serving the global consortium of investors pledged to invest beyond $1bn collectively into women-founded technology companies and funds and firms that invest in them. BTB builds on the success of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, the initial campaign co-founded by our founders. BTB is not a venture fund, an investment bank, a broker-dealer, investment clearinghouse, or an investment adviser, but rather a forum in which investors may be educated on aspects of investment and business, as well as introduced to companies for possible investment, in particular, those led by women. Each investor and allocator pledged to BTB’s mission is responsible for his or her own investment decisions, and neither TBDFV nor BTB recommends companies or financial products for investment. Participating funds may be highlighted to various institutional and other investors and managers, with the aim of catalyzing capital towards women-founded companies; but are not guaranteed allocations from any specific fund. The Founders of TBDFV and BTB may hold interests directly or indirectly in featured funds and associated companies. Information is obtained from participant funds, believed to be reliable, but is in no way guaranteed by TBDFV or BTB. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions are attempted.