Alex Tong

PRINCIPAL

Alex joined Information VP in 2016 as an Associate and was promoted to Principal in 2019. Alex is on the investment team, sourcing and executing new deals.
 
Alex is on the board of LendingFront and Strike Graph, in addition to working closely with portfolio companies Lydia.ai, Procurify, Cinchy, and Jirav. Alex possesses a variety of relevant experiences in financial services and in a prominent VC-backed startup that sold to financial services organizations as a key vertical.
 
Prior to joining Information VP, Alex worked at Hootsuite as its first team hire in corporate development. Hootsuite, headquartered in Vancouver, and a VC-backed enterprise SaaS leader (backed by Accel Partners and Insight Venture Partners), is a widely used social media management platform that is trusted by more than 80% of the Fortune 1000. Alex worked cross-functionally with its leadership team on numerous growth initiatives, including formulating partnerships that drove increased product adoption and revenue from both its small and medium-sized business customers and customers across its four key enterprise verticals (including financial services). Alex maintains a strong connection to the Western Canadian tech ecosystem by regularly supporting, as an angel investor, to a select number of high-potential startups born out of the Hootsuite ecosystem startups built by ex-Hootsuite entrepreneurs.
 
Prior to Hootsuite, Alex worked at CIBC in its leveraged finance group. Alex began his career at BMO Capital Markets, in Toronto, with the mergers and acquisitions and the financial institutions group.
 
Outside of the fund, Alex serves as a mentor at various accelerators across North America including the Holt FinTech Accelerator. Alex graduated with First Class Honours and holds a BBA from Simon Fraser University.

Sara Defina

Vice President, Finance

Sara joined Information VP in 2020 as Director, Finance and was recently promoted to Vice President, Finance. Her focus includes all legal and financial related activities involved in due diligence and post investment support of portfolio investments. She also oversees fund operations, fund raising activities and helping the Co-founders manage LP relationships.

Before joining Information VP, Sara worked at SurePath Capital Partners, an investment bank advising growth-stage B2B software companies. In this role, Sara was responsible for supporting clients through all technical aspects of mergers and acquisitions and growth equity financings. Prior to joining SurePath, Sara worked at KPMG in the Valuations Deal Advisory group focusing on providing valuation assistance and strategic recommendations for the purposes of financial reporting, taxation, and mergers and acquisitions, for various private and public entities. Sara started off her career in the KPMG Audit and Assurance Practice, performing financial statement audits and reviews for both public and private clients in the financial services industry, including the Bank of Nova Scotia and TMX Group.

Sara is also an active member of the CVCA’s Diversity and Inclusion committee. She obtained a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Toronto and is a Chartered Professional Accountant and Chartered Business Valuator.

Jane Podbelskaya

Principal

Jane is a Principal on the investment team. She is responsible for sourcing and executing new investments, and serves on the board of Helcim. She also provides board-level and operational support to portfolio companies Empyrean Solutions, Coconut Software, Thoughtexchange, and Flybits. Jane has considerable experience working with scaling SaaS companies as a consultant and investor and has led many post-investment value-add platform projects, including running Information VP’s portfolio community group focused on customer success.

Before joining Information VP, she most recently worked at Georgian Partners, a North American fund investing in growth-stage SaaS companies, where she held a number of roles over her six-year tenure. Focusing both on new investments and portfolio support, Jane was instrumental in designing the fund’s portfolio acceleration program; she optimized investment and due diligence processes, successfully closed numerous investments, and led projects within the portfolio.

Prior to Georgian Partners, Jane was a Consultant for Bain & Company, where she worked on several projects in the financial services industry, including strategy work for an international life insurance and wealth management company.

Earlier in her career, Jane was a Consultant and Solutions Architect for Xerox in both Toronto and Moscow. She was a chief architect for a major business process outsourcing engagement for CIBC, where she designed and implemented a document imaging and records management solution streamlining the bank’s lending processes.

Jane holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto as well as an M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Lomonosov Moscow State University.

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.

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

Kerri Golden

Venture Partner

Kerri Golden has over 30 years of diverse experience in the technology space, with time spent as an operator, technology executive and as a VC. She joined Information Venture Partners in 2014 and through 2021, served as the firm’s CFO and a Partner in Funds I through Fund III. She is currently a part-time Venture Partner, continuing to support the team and business.

Kerri is a member of the Investment Committee of StandUp Ventures, a seed-stage firm dedicated to backing women-led ventures. She serves on the Nicola Venture Capital Advisory Committee and acts as a volunteer General Partner at JOLT Fund, a micro investment fund, she co-founded at MaRS. Kerri received the inaugural Barry Gekiere Lifetime Legacy Award from the Canadian Venture Capital Association in 2021, as recognition for her community efforts.
Prior to her work with InformationVP, Kerri was a General Partner at Primaxis Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the IT, software and communications sectors. She had a successful corporate career with high growth technology companies like Rogers Wireless where she worked in finance at launch of the business and Bell Mobility where she held progressive leadership positions in Finance, IT and general management, as CEO, Paging Division. Kerri also served as a public company CFO at entertainment industry leader Alliance Atlantis Communications and biotech firm, Lorus Therapeutics.
She co-owns a women-led small business Urban Flats Toronto and was an active member of the CVCA’s diversity and inclusion committee from inception through 2021.

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

Dave Unsworth

General Partner and Co-Founder

David is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Information Venture Partners. Over the past 20 years David has led direct investments in a broad range of successful enterprise, FinTech, security and mobile ventures.

David currently serves on the boards of Cinchy, Coconut Software, Lydia.ai, and Sensibill, and is an observer at BigID Inc. , Empyrean and Lendingfront. David managed the investment and served as Chair of the Board for Verafin (acquired by Nasdaq), eSentire (acquired by PE firm Warburg Pincus), Igloo Software Inc. (acquired by private equity firm Frontier Capital), Viigo Inc. (acquired by Blackberry).

Prior to his career in venture capital David had a career in operational roles at Royal Bank of Canada (“RBC”) focused on e-commerce strategy development, technology enabled financial services product development, technology project management and retail/commercial financial services. David also was an investor with RBC Venture Partners from 2001 through 2014 before forming Information Venture Partners.

David is active in the start-up communities in Toronto and Waterloo and has served as a mentor to participants in the Kauffman Fellowship, JOLT and Holt accelerator programs, and serves on the Board of the CVCA.

David earned an MBA from Queen’s University, holds a Bachelor of Arts 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. David is a graduate of Business Development Bank’s GP Academy program, affiliated with kauffmann.org.

Aislinn Shoveller

Marketing & Community Manager

Aislinn joined Information Venture Partners in 2021 as Marketing & Community Manager in order to continue building the strengths of the fund. She works with the team to help develop new and existing relationships, manage Information VP’s growth and brand, and maintain the fund’s presence in the innovation and investment communities.

Prior to joining Information Venture Partners, Aislinn worked as an Associate for Archangel Network of Funds, where she managed LPs, worked with Angels from across Canada, and helped establish the foundations for a new angel network fund. While working with Archangel and for years prior, Aislinn worked on her own company, Overture Donor Forum. Overture was a non-profit SaaS company that brought donors closer to the causes that they support. In 2018, Aislinn went to the University of Waterloo to earn a Master of Business, Entrepreneurship, and Technology degree and became active in the KW startup community.

Before launching her own startup, Aislinn worked in the marketing departments of two digital agencies in both Canada and the UK. Within both companies, Aislinn managed editing and copywriting, brand and website redesigns, event planning, and online marketing. Both companies were later acquired.

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.