Adrenaline Fund

The Adrenaline Fund is designed to open access to the broadest possible group of accredited investors and to deliver a highly diversified portfolio of 40 to 50 companies over a 5-year period. Adrenaline passively co-invests with experienced angel investors in a diverse cross-section of portfolio companies.

Rather than actively seeking investments, Adrenaline follows internal rules to participate in investments made by angel investors when certain triggering criteria are met, with the highly qualified lead investors we require a key driver of long-term performance.

Financial Return with a Purpose

In addition to seeking a superior return through the unique passive Adrenaline model, the fund allows angel investors to “give back” through our Purpose, which includes:

  • Helping to build future prosperity for Canada by helping to build more Scale Up companies that bring jobs and prosperity to our country
  • Helping founders to fill the huge funding gap at the angel and seed stage compared to other countries.
  • Help angel deal leads to fill such early-stage rounds to enable them to provide mentoring and oversight to early stage company founders, and
  • Give back a portion of the Carried Interest income from investment success to support and grow our Angel and start up ecosystem.

Our Focus

Adrenaline focuses on seed-stage start-ups with strong, research and data-driven IP in:

Technology
Sustainability
Health Tech
Industry 4.0

Portfolio

The Adrenaline Team

Amber French
Principal

Amber is a Managing Partner at Catalyst Capital, focusing on innovative investments in the Waterloo Region. She is the co-founder of Catalyst Commons, a 70,000 sqft coworking space in Waterloo, and most recently co-founded Catalyst Entertainment Technology, a VR gaming company. Amber is the former Director of Capital Services at Communitech and is an active GTAN member who mentors early-stage technology companies.

Amber holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Waterloo.

Randall Howard
General Partner

Randall has had a distinguished career  building and funding global firms based on innovation. A prolific technology visionary, CEO, investor and philanthropist, Randall has worn many hats in both investment and operation including as a Manager Partner of Verdexus, Co-founder and Partner of Cognition Fund, and co-founder of CEO MKS Inc. a software company that was taken public and acquired.

In the Waterloo-Toronto Tech Corridor, Randall is well known as a co-founder of Communitech and a major driver of GTAN, the local angel organization.

Randall graduated from the University of Waterloo with an honours degree in computer science and mathematics.

Mike Janzen
Venture Partner

Mike is the technical founder of companies in the cyber security, video analytics, ag tech, and fintech spaces. Of the six companies he has founded, three have had notable exits. Mike was an early investor and builder in cryptocurrency who enjoys giving back to the community through mentorship, investment and philanthropy.

Mike holds a B.Math from the University of Waterloo.

Benton Leong
General Partner

In his career, Benton has served as a teacher and researcher in computer science at Penn State University and the University of Waterloo. He is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, coach to many startups, innovation ecosystem builder and community activist.  Some of Benton’s roles include: Communitech’s Executive-in-Residence; Canada’s National Angel Capital Organization (NACO)’s Angel-in-Residence; Co-founder of MapleSoft – MapleSoft was acquired by Cybernet Systems Group in 2009.

A business developer at heart, Benton identifies opportunities that are not obvious at first glance; he puts together teams with complementary expertise to capitalize on those opportunities.  As well as serving on the board for tech ventures, Benton also helps in the general community as a board member and volunteer for organizations that serve people under stress, recent immigrants, and those without shelter.

Althea Wishloff
Venture Partner

Althea Wishloff is a General Partner at Raven Capital, a fund investing in early-stage Indigenous and Native American businesses. Prior to Raven, Althea was the co-CEO of a health tech startup and a venture investor with Panache Ventures.

Outside of her core work, Althea is an Instructor at York University, where she teaches entrepreneurship classes and is a Board Member of OCAD U CO. She is a member of the Gitxsan Nation (Fireweed Clan).

Althea has earned the CFA level I & II and holds a Bachelor of Commerce and B.Sc from the University of British Columbia.