Front Row Ventures

Raphaël has always been an entrepreneur. As a teenager, he went from owning a car garage to a window-cleaning business. It’s only once he attended his first Startup Weekend that he grasped the power of tech entrepreneurship.

He is pursuing a bachelor in software engineering and is developing Volume7, a digital product agency for startups, for the past year and a half.

Front Row Ventures’ tech entrepreneur is actively involved in various events as speaker, coach and participant.

With a bachelor in accounting, Éléonore contemplated a career in corporate finance. Her summer studying tech entrepreneurship at Stanford made her choose a totally different path: venture capital.

She joined Pléiade Capital, a VC student club, and started a master in financial accounting. Her combined efforts paid off, Brightspark Ventures poaching her from EY less than a year later.

Helping out rising entrepreneurs, our VC brain is also dedicated to women in tech with Technovation Montreal.

Studying International Studies, Nicolas always seeks to empower communities here and abroad.

Responsible of business development at La Gare last year, he discovered Montreal’s dynamic startup community and its undeniable impact on the metropolis.

Front Row Ventures’ poet and community builder now dreams of helping Sub-Saharan African communities build their own ecosystems as a viable solution to current failing models of development.

Loic holds a bachelor in Entrepreneurship and Finance from HEC Montreal and has been through Stanford in Tech Entrepreneurship.

He is the founder of Younity, a matchmaking platform for roommates based on human factors, targeting private and universities residences. Prior to joining FRV, he also co-founded YEP, the largest student entrepreneurship club in Montreal and was a TEDx speaker at the latest edition in Montreal.

Highly involved in the community, he strongly believes in FRV's mission to empower student-entrepreneurs across Canada with both financial power and human capital.

Currently pursuing a bachelor in computer engineering at Polytechnique, Eva’s expertise lies in the technical world. Her various experiences as an intern and a student allowed her to explore and deepen her knowledge of robotics and embedded systems fields. Among other implications, she is the leader of a robotics student club developing an autonomous drone to participate in the International Aerial Robotics Competition every year.

It’s her desire to make a bigger impact that attracted her to the entrepreneurship and VC world. She hopes to help kickstart companies that will have a huge and positive impact on society.

Armed with the experience acquired at Stanford (Tech Innovation) and Microsoft UK (Retail Sales - W10, Xbox, Surface), Victor is considering a career in entrepreneurship.

Finishing his degrees in Finance and Applied Mathematics @HEC, this film music/martial arts maniac is passionate about meaningful technological disruption.

His other hobbyhorse is preparing student entrepreneur to face the real world. He initiated pitch sessions and coding workshops in his university to help and unite the entrepreneurial community in Montreal.

Loïc has always been passionate about technology which quickly brought him to entrepreneurship. In high school, he launched his web development company.

Two years ago, he started Sofia Tutors, as a co-founder. It is this startup that made him discover harsh reality of entrepreneurship. He also learned more about this fascinating world by doing an internship at Volume7, a digital product agency for startups.

He now likes to share his experience with other entrepreneurs and to work with teams to solve challenging problems that move humanity forward.

Lead by his experience acquired in microfinance and international trading in Asia, Africa, and Europe, Romain is finishing a degree in Finance, Economics, and Applied Mathematics HEC Montreal.

This finance specialist chose to join the startup journey while working on the issues of financial inclusion and discovering what Fintech and Big Data could bring to the economy and societies.

As a Front Row Ventures Associate, Romain aims to develop the right expertizes to take part in the development of tomorrow’s Healthcare and Fintech industries through Private Equity and Venture Capital investments, starting with Montreal’s best student-innovators.

Makoto studies in International Business at McGill, but he is passionate about growth marketing. He’s currently Director of Marketing at Seahub, a new cruise booking site part of the Momentum Travel group, which includes sites like Flighthub and Justfly and has over 700 employees.

Makoto was previously at Busbud, the bus OTA with the largest coverage in the world. He worked in a two-person team focused on paid acquisition, helping Busbud reach hundreds of thousands of travelers every month.

As Front Row Ventures’ Partner at McGill, his goal is to help develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem at McGill and solidify Montreal’s position as a tech hub.

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Dan is currently working on his master’s in computational and visual neuroscience at McGill, but is most passionate about applying technology to problems in healthcare. He’s currently a co-founder at InVivo AI, where he and his team are using machine-learning to streamline the pharmaceutical drug development process.

Previously, Dan worked as an analyst at Lumira Capital where he sourced, analyzed, and performed due-diligence on early-stage companies in the biotherapeutics, medical device, and digital health sectors.

At Front Row Ventures, Dan wants to help student entrepreneurs get their healthcare and life-science ventures off the ground. If you’re doing something exciting in the space, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Jack is currently pursuing a degree in McGill’s Joint Honors Economics and Finance program with a minor in Computer Science. He has worked for his parents’ small cattle business in California his whole life, which has given him direct insight into both the challenges and benefits of running a business.

Growing up near the heart of Silicon Valley instilled in him a passion for innovative businesses addressing significant problems. Outside of his parents’ business, he has worked for law firms, political organizations, and is part of Canada’s first student-run venture capital firm.

Wyn is currently finishing his degree in Economics with minors in Political Science and International Development at McGill University. His interest in entrepreneurship stemmed from an internship in Thailand with the women’s fashion startup Pomelo Fashion. He also worked at Sonder, a startup founded in Montreal, as a revenue management analyst.

As a Front Row Ventures’ Associate, Wyn not only looks to bridge the gap between students and startups but to also develop and strengthen the startup ecosystem at McGill.

Jazna has completed her double major, in Finance and International Business, at the John Molson School of Business. Having worked as Startup Journey Coordinator at District 3 Innovation Center for the past year, she has a deep understanding on the Startup’s Journey allowing her to develop and implement solutions to solve any problem that startups, coaches, and/or experts may have.

At FRV, Jazna is looking to connect people together and help make an impact in the community.

Back in Montreal after spending the past few years abroad, Tim has launched his own startup out of Southeast Asia, spent a year studying in the Bay Area, and interned both as a product manager at Google and developer at Shopify. He is currently completing up his Computer Science degree, with a focus on Machine Learning.

He is interested in the intersection of AI research and product, blockchain and cryptocurrency, and entrepreneurship. At FRV, he serves as a venture partner, where he advises partners on specific deals, and works on internal processes.

Zack holds a bachelor degree in accounting and is currently pursuing his CPA designation at Concordia University. He is currently an Analyst at Ferst Capital Partners, a VC firm that invests in early-stage FinTech companies. Zack first entered the startup community as an employee at Sonder (previously Flatbook) on the Sales and Accounting teams.

As a Front Row Ventures’ Associate at Concordia, his goal is to help develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem and help student entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

As a student in Finance and Economics at John Molson School of Business, Lucas has been able to touch many essential subjects in the entrepreneurial field. Having a great interest in venture capital, he wants to continue his career towards this area.

Being passionate about FinTech, and new technologies Lucas wants to get more involved in the startup ecosystem of Montreal. He believes Front Row Ventures is a great and practical way to enter the startup ecosystem and to gain skills in venture capital.

Therence recently started his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular medicine at Université de Montréal. This life-sciences geek is passionate about disruptive technologies in the healthcare space and is currently developing an AI-powered drug development platform in his spare time.

Whether helping to bring the lean startup methodology to the MT Lab or volunteering at FounderFuel Demo Day, Therence is always happy to get involved with the startup community.

As the Partner of UQAM-ESG-ÉTS cluster, he hopes to help develop the startup culture on campus while building bridges throughout the entire Montreal ecosystem.

Sherif Abulwafa has started his career journey with a Master’s degree in Embedded Systems Design from ALaRI, USI, Switzerland. Afterwards, he worked as a research and development engineer in collaboration with a dynamic and highly experienced team of a Swiss emerging award-winning startup. Then, Sherif landed in Germany where he worked as a software engineer, developing industrial image processing algorithms.

Since September 2014, Sherif has been with ÉTS (University of Quebec) as a Ph.D. candidate in machine learning and computer vision. He deeply believes in the vital role that AI has to play in making people's lives easier, and how social entrepreneurship should be at the heart of it!

During his spare time, Sherif is a tennis player, art enthusiast and an amateur photographer.

As a student majoring in International Business at ESG UQAM, Arthur is versatile in many subjects. With his pronounced interest towards entrepreneurship, he wants to pursue a master's degree in Entrepreneurial Finance in Europe.

Always passionate about new technologies and tech companies, he wants to get more involved in the startup ecosystem of Montreal. He wants to become an entrepreneur, and he is motivated to help founders when the opportunity arises. Front Row Ventures is a concrete way to achieve his goal of being part of the startup ecosystem, improving his skills in venture capital, and providing help and advice to student-entrepreneurs.

Campus UdeM-HEC-Polytechnique

Loic Souetre

Eva Terriault

Victor Gardrinier

Loïc Bellemare-Alford

Romain Florentin

Campus McGill

Makoto Rheault-Kihara

Kat Svikhnushin

Daniel Cohen

Jack Morris

Wyn Sutuntivorakoon

Campus Concordia

Jazna Rossi

Tim Beiko

Zack Campbell

Lucas Sekkat

Campus UQAM-ETS-ESG

Therence Bois

Sherif Abuelwafa

Arthur de Vaublanc

Co-Founders

Raphael Christian-Roy

Éléonore Jarry Ferron

Nicolas Synnott

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