SENSATIONAL

The average age might be 30; male is the gender bestrepresented. The place is packed. A DJ spins vinyl. Theair doesn’t move. Still in his blazer, Barr is one of the fewattendees sporting semiformal.“I thought you were a VC!” Roy Pereira tells him.The Toronto-based CEO and founder of Shiny Ads, acompany dealing in online advertising, means venturecapitalist, or potential funder. He masks disappointmentwith a smile. “Only VCs wear jackets,” he persists.“Come on. This is California.”Barr moves on. He’s blessed with a personality thatallows him to wade into conversations like they’re openwater, but he’s still relieved by the casual atmosphere.“It’s a little more chill than I expected,” he says. “Insteadof it being, ‘Let’s talk about your business,’ it’s, ‘Let’s talkabout surfing.’ I’m good with that.”C100 member Debbie Landa is also making therounds and, as CEO of Dealmaker Media, connector ofstartups and leading business executives, the Saskatoonnative sees the event differently. “If you have the luxuryof being here, use it to the full potential,” she says. “Bedirect. Let go of that Canadian chitchat and get downto business.”But lengthy commiseration remains a popularactivity. Sandy Gibson, co-founder of ConnectedN,focuses on the fundamental challenge of how toraise capital, specifically for his business-to-businessmarketing platform.“Dude, if we all knew that, we wouldn’t be in thisroom right now,” Barr tells him.Nevertheless, Barr will leave the event upbeat. “A lotof this is about expanding the Rolodex,” he says out onthe street. “That’s the value of being in an incubator likethe Duncan McNeill Centre for Innovation. How would Ihave heard about this event otherwise?”He pauses, his mind backtracking to conversationsof minutes earlier. “God,” he says. “How much moneydo you have to raise before you start actually making it?”The C100Canadian Chris Albinson likes torefer to his community of fellowexpats in California’s SiliconValley as “the lost province.” Onereason is size: an estimated300,000 of us live and work in theregion. Another may be that it’s acommunity that remembers whereit came from – at least if the C100is any indication.Formed by Albinson less thantwo years ago with Anthony Lee,a general partner at technologyventure capital company AltosVentures, the C100 was aresponse to the global downturnand modelled after the successfulefforts of India and Israel inmarketing their entrepreneursin the United States. The sameshould be done, they figured, forCanadians. So, they invited 98other top Canadian execs andinvestors to be charter membersof the non-profit organization.“We felt we owed a lot toCanada,” says Albinson, aveteran investor in startups.Today, the C100 supportsentrepreneurs from back homewith events like 48hrs in theValley, a boot camp that connectsCanadians to business in theregion. Since inception, thegroup has brought down morethan 110 entrepreneurs, seenroughly $180 million raised andtwo C100 companies exit – one,social media monitor Radian6,selling for $326 million.But for Albinson, successisn’t measured in millions. Mostly,C100 is about building a betterentrepreneurial community andmeeting a need for mentoring andbusiness development. “It bringseveryone up a level.”v5.1 2011 43