Team - Information Venture Partners

Coconut Software

Coconut Software is an Enterprise Appointment Solution that is strategically engineered for the appointment-driven business focused in financial and business services.

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Peter Carrescia

Venture Partner

Combining over 25 years as both a technology executive and a venture capitalist, Peter has funded and helped scale many high growth companies both as a VC and an operator.

Most recently, he led strategy, business development and corporate development at Wave Financial, a high growth financial technology company acquired by H&R Block in 2019 for $537 million. Peter’s involvement with Wave began in 2011 when he led the first venture round as Managing Director while at OMERS Ventures.

Prior to Wave, Peter was the president of NEXT Canada, a national accelerator focused on fast-tracking the development of Canada’s most talented young innovators and founders.

Peter’s deep knowledge of venture capital came through senior roles at large Canadian venture firms. At OMERS Ventures he was the founding Managing Director and the first member of the investment team. He was instrumental in the development of the initial investment sectors, thesis, strategy and processes. He also led and was instrumental in the recruiting of the initial investment team. Prior to OMERS Ventures, he was a General Partner at VenGrowth Capital Partners where he led investment activity in high growth technology companies.

Early in Peter’s career he held progressively senior roles at both IBM Software and Microsoft.

Peter holds a Joint Honours Bachelor of Mathematics (B.Math.) in Computer Science and Business Administration from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Schulich School of Business at York University.

LinkedIn

Sara Defina

Director of Finance

Sara joined Information Venture Partners in 2020 and works alongside the CFO, focusing on overseeing fund operations and reporting as well as the legal and financial related activities involved in due diligence and support of portfolio investments. In addition, she assists the partners with fund raising activities and helping to manage LP communications and relationships.

Prior to joining Information Venture Partners, Sara worked at SurePath Capital Partners, a boutique investment bank advising B2B SMB software companies. In this role, Sara was responsible for supporting clients through all technical aspects of mergers and acquisitions and growth equity financings, including the preparation of deal-related materials, the evaluation of different proposals, and the due diligence process. Prior to joining SurePath, Sara was a manager in the Valuations Deal Advisory group at KPMG where she provided valuation assistance and strategic recommendations for the purposes of financial reporting, taxation, mergers and acquisitions, and investment reviews for many private entities, public companies, and Canadian pension funds. Sara also has experience in performing financial statement audits and reviews for both public and private clients in the financial services industry.

Sara has also volunteered her time assisting early-stage technology companies seeking financing through MaRS Innovation. She obtained a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Toronto and is a Chartered Professional Accountant and Chartered Business Valuator.

LinkedIn

Hasan Basrai

Associate

Hasan joined Information Venture Partners in 2020 and is focused on investments in FinTech and enterprise software.

Prior to joining Information Venture Partners, Hasan was an Operations Manager at Ritual where he led the City Operations team, responsible for managing user and partner experience across 40+ cities globally. He also served as an operations lead on product and worked with stakeholders across Ritual to roll-out new product features. Prior to Ritual, Hasan was an Investment Banking Analyst at TD Securities in the Financial Sponsors Group, covering private equity clients. He worked on a variety of mandates across multiple products, including the IPOs of Roots and Canada Goose.

Hasan holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Jirav

Dave Unsworth

GENERAL PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER

Dave Unsworth co-founded Information Venture Partners in 2014. Dave has led investments in eSentire (exited, 2017), Verafin, Sensibill, Igloo Software (exited, 2017), Viigo (acquired by BlackBerry), Coconut Software, BigID, Knowtions and LendingFront. Dave is focused on FinTech and Enterprise software and is particularly interested in cybersecurity, mobile, enterprise 2.0 and ventures that create highly valuable data assets by being at the centre of large-scale financial transactions.

Prior to founding Information Venture Partners Dave worked as an investor with RBC Venture Partners from 2001. Prior to his career in venture capital Dave had a successful career in operating roles focused on e-commerce strategy development, technology enabled financial services product development, technology project management and retail/commercial financial services.

Dave is an active member in the start-up community in Toronto and Waterloo as a mentor to early stage CEOs and founding teams. Dave also serves as a mentor in the Kaufmann Fellows program and more recently with the Holt FinTech Accelerator and as an investment committee member for the Investment Accelerator Fund. Dave has been a frequent contributor to Private Capital Magazine. Dave is an original member and past Chair of the Financial Services Venture Capital Alliance.

Dave was granted an MBA from Queen’s University, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also a graduate of the NVCA’s Venture Capital Institute and the Rotman SME Board Effectiveness Program.

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Brendan Foster

Analyst

Brendan joined Information Venture Partners in 2020 as an Analyst focused on investments in fintech, insurtech and enterprise software.

Prior to joining Information Venture Partners, Brendan worked at HarbourVest Partners where he was responsible for originating, assessing, monitoring, and reporting on direct co-investments and partnerships.

Brendan holds a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University

Knowtions Research

Cinchy

Procurify

LendingFront

Alex Tong

PRINCIPAL

Alex joined Information Venture Partners in 2016 focused on investments in FinTech and enterprise software startups, and works closely with the fund’s portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Information Venture Partners Alex worked at Hootsuite as its first team hire in corporate development. Alex worked cross-functionally with its leadership team, executing on numerous growth initiatives including corporate and team acquisitions, new mobile apps (content and social selling) and raising venture capital. Prior to Hootsuite, Alex worked at BMO Capital Markets in both Mergers and Acquisitions and the Financial Institutions Group, working on various mandates including a U.S. regional bank acquisition, financial technology M&A, large P&C insurance IPO, and other M&A assignments across energy, utilities, media and telecom. Alex also worked at CIBC in its Leveraged Finance Group, focusing on credit opportunities involving various private equity and mid-market companies.

Outside of the fund, Alex also serves as a mentor to various startups. Alex graduated with First Class Honours, holding a BBA from the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University.

Kerri Golden

Partner and Chief Financial Officer

Kerri Golden joined Information Venture Partners at inception in 2014 and works with the investment team to help select and support the fund’s investee companies and manage the financial operations of the fund. She has over 30 years of general management and finance experience in a variety of technology industries and she’s been active in securing financings of over $1 billion in equity and debt and in negotiations of a number of merger and acquisition transactions.

Kerri was a General Partner of Primaxis Technology Ventures for eight years where she led and managed several investments in early-stage companies in the IT, software and communications sectors and also served as CFO of the fund.

Kerri had a successful corporate career with high growth technology companies. She was a mobile pioneer at Rogers Wireless, joining prior to service launch and experiencing start-up challenges and opportunities as company grew from zero to $200M in revenue during her 2.5 year tenure. She was a public company CFO at Alliance Atlantis Communications and Lorus Therapeutics and ended her successful 7-year career at Bell Mobility as CEO, Paging Division after progressive leadership positions in Finance and IT.

Kerri is an experienced start-up executive. She co-owns a small business Urban Flats Toronto and served as COO at SeaWell Networks and CFO at Infobright. She serves the start-up community as an active mentor at MaRS, where she co-founded the JOLT Fund and continues to serve as a volunteer general partner.

Kerri obtained an HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and earned her CA designation while working with KPMG in Toronto.

Robert Antoniades

GENERAL PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER

Robert Antoniades co-founded Information Venture Partners in 2014 with Dave Unsworth to work with startups in the field he knows best: financial services. Robert is interested in finding the disruptive ideas and entrepreneurs that believe new or better information is foundational to businesses. He believes that financial institutions need technology to service their customers, reduce cost and compete. Some of his main areas of interest include SaaS, next generation analytics including artificial intelligence and machine learning, capital markets, banking, wealth management and insurance technology.

While at Information Venture Partners, Robert has led investments in and currently serves on the boards of Flybits, Postbeyond, Q4 and YayPay. Prior boards include Adaptive Insights (acquired by Workday, Inc.), Igloo Software (exited, 2017), Placemark Investments (acquired by Envestnet), Varicent (acquired by IBM), ITM Software (acquired by BMC) and Verafin Software.

Prior to co-founding Information Venture Partners, Robert was managing director of RBC Venture Partners where he led direct investments in a broad range of software and technology companies. Prior RBC, Robert was Vice President at BMO Nesbitt Burns Equity Partners and Executive Director of CIBC Capital Partners’ Silicon Valley office. Collectively in these roles he made investments in financial services software, internet service providers, enterprise an internet software, e-healthcare, wireless application development, security products, optical networking and semiconductor companies, among others.

As a proud Canadian, Robert believes in giving back to the community in which he lives and works. In 2013 Robert helped co-found the Upside Foundation, a platform that helps Canadian startups and high growth companies give back to their favourite charity when they have a liquidity event. In 2018, Robert was awarded the CVCA Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award for his work with the Upside Foundation. In addition to his work with the Upside Foundation, Robert is the past Chair of the Distress Centers of Toronto and past Chair of Flemingdon Neighbourhood Services. In his spare time, Robert is also a youth basketball coach, has visited over 50 countries and has enjoyed many wines in his journey.

Robert has a BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute and a Certified Investment Manager.

Toan Huynh

VENTURE PARTNER

Toan is seasoned cloud and digital leader with over eighteen years working with financial services firms to design and implement digitally-focused transformation programs. Her focus has always been the development of technology and business assets for financial services companies seeking to do business in a new, innovative way leveraging cloud-based and digital tools. She has advised multiple Fortune 1000 firms looking to transform their business, culture, and process in a pragmatic way.

Toan was a founder of Cloud Sherpas, a boutique cloud advisory and brokerage firm of 1300, which was acquired by Accenture in 2015. As a Managing Director at Accenture, Toan oversaw key innovation programs including the Steven’s Alliance for Research and Analytics and the Fintech Innovation Lab, which is run in collaboration with the Partnership Fund for New York. She also launched the New York “Liquid Studio (for Innovation)” and serves as a Fintech and Cloud SME on several innovation advisory boards for large G1000 firms.

Toan also serves as a Director on the Board for the Bankers Financial Group, a mid-sized holding company with assets north of $500 million. She also invests in, advises, and help mentor start-ups looking to leverage new technologies to do help us all live, work, play and do more.

Currently, Toan serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence for a global corporate venture arm helping to scale internal innovation programs.

Recently, Toan was recognized as a trailblazer for women in tech and featured on Glass Hammer – the Voice of Experience as well as an up and coming angel investor to watch in Tech Alley. She is an active angel investor, having been a part of the inaugural class of 37 Angels, a women-only investor network and frequent speaker around enterprise, digital, and cloud-based technologies and startup. She has spoken at the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Tech, Dreamforce, Funding Post Food and Tech Investing Conference, the Banking Insurance Securities Association Conference, and Ascend panels to name a few. She was recently featured in an Innovation Salon with Adam Grant of “The Originals” and Eric Reiss of “The Start-up Way.”

In her personal life, Toan and her husband support non-profits that leverage the arts and to build communities and enable the exchange of ideas, including the Words without Borders and Opening Acting.

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Cristin Gray

Executive Assistant and Office Manager

Cristin Gray joined Information Venture Partners in 2019 as the Executive Assistant and Office Manager.

Prior to joining Information Venture Partners, Cristin worked as the Executive Assistant to the CEO of Karmic Labs; a leader in the convergence of payment cards and mobile software (acquired by Prepaid Technologies). Prior to her career supporting C-level executives, Cristin was a Social Worker in the mental health and addictions field.

Cristin holds multiple diplomas in Social Work and Emergency Services Communications, with a deep-rooted passion for improving the lives of others.

Thoughtexchange

Sensibill

Flybits

PostBeyond

YayPay

YayPay is an accounts receivables automation solution that makes collecting money fast, easy and highly predictable. Using modern workflow tools, automated communications outreach, and machine learning algorithms that analyze transactional and behavioural patterns, YayPay helps modern credit and collections teams hit their goals faster.

yaypay.com

BigID

Verafin

Q4

EXPERIENCED, PROVEN AND COMMITTED

Meet the Team

Your partners, from early traction to exit.

WHO WE ARE

The Team

Dave Unsworth

Kerri Golden

Robert Antoniades

Alex Tong

Hasan Basrai

Brendan Foster

Sara Defina

Peter Carrescia

Cristin Gray

INFORMATION VENTURE PARTNERS

LINKS

Peter Carrescia

Venture Partner

Sara Defina

Director of Finance

Hasan Basrai

Associate

Dave Unsworth

GENERAL PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER

Brendan Foster

Analyst

Alex Tong

PRINCIPAL

Kerri Golden

Partner and Chief Financial Officer

Robert Antoniades

GENERAL PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER

Toan Huynh

VENTURE PARTNER

Cristin Gray

Executive Assistant and Office Manager

yaypay.com