Top 35 Wellness Angel Investors in Canada in November 2024

Originally trained as a medical doctor, Dr. Ray Muzyka cofounded BioWare, a video game development studio focusing on story and character, in the early 1990s. He practiced emergency/family medicine for two years full time, with medicine transitioning to part-time over the following decade as he focused on his role as BioWare’s CEO. BioWare wasacquired by Electronic Arts in 2007, and Dr. Muzyka took on the roles of Senior Vice President at Electronic Arts and General Manager of EA’s BioWare division, which grew over the next five years to span eight development locations worldwide with about 2000 staff (1400 full time). He retired from video games in October 2012, with his third “career chapter” at ThresholdImpact, where he focused on sustainable, profitable impact investing: mentoring and angel investing in information technology, new media, and medical innovations with social entrepreneurs. An active angel investor and entrepreneurial mentor, Dr. Muzyka is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, the A100, the Ashoka Support Network, and the Board of Governors of the University of Alberta (serving as Chair of the Human Resources Committee and on the Learning and Discovery Committee and as a member of the University of Alberta Advancement Council). He is Chair of the University of Alberta’s entrepreneur Venture Mentoring Service, a venture advisor at iNovia Venture Capital, and a member of the Alberta Research and Innovation Advisory Committee and the Alberta Premier’s Advisory Committee on the Economy. He also serves on a number of private company boards. He previously served on the board of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences from 2001-2008 and was on the Board of Trustees of the Stollery Children’s Health Foundation from 2012-2015. He was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame in 2011 and received the International Game Developers’ Choice Awards 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Muzyka received the inaugural Alumni Innovation Award in 2015 from the University of Alberta. He additionally was named as the 2017 Allard Chair in Business at the MacEwan University’s School of Business and as an Honorary Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary Club International in 2016, in recognition for his philanthropic efforts. Other awards include entry into Canada’s Top 40 under 40 and Ernst and Young’s 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year (IT, Prairies).He obtained his Bachelor of Medical Science from the University of Alberta in 1990, his Doctorate of Medicine from there in 1992, and his MBA from the University of Western Ontario (Ivey School of Business) in 2001.

Founder and CEO of Optimity. Proactive Health Evangelist; Data Science Nerd; Authentic Leader #Anomaly #WonderWoman #Pioneer

Rasool is a serial entrepreneur with experience in the software, healthcare, and CPG industries. He continues to maintain his passion for technology as an active angel investor with a focus on b2b, consumer saas and health tech. Rasool maintains an active role with CEO’s as a board member, mentor and advisor. He currently serves on the boards ofthe Victoria Foundation, VIATEC, and Checkfront Software.

Paul Geyer, a successful Medtech Entrepreneur and experienced Board member. Over the past 20 years Paul founded and led two companies through their growth phase, in one case to a successful private exit and in the other case through growth as a public company with numerous acquisitions. Both companies have grown to be anchor medical devicecompanies in the Vancouver area, employing more than 350 people.In 1991 he founded Mitroflow International Inc., a tissue heart valve company. Paul grew the company from 9 employees to more than 125 employees in 1999. In 1999 Paul sold Mitroflow to Sulzer Medica, for more than $50 mil. Paul's leadership resulted in Mitroflow growing to more than 200 employees, making it one of the largest medical devices companies in the Vancouver area. In 2001 Paul started Medical Ventures, a new specialty vascular device company where he is currently Chairman of the Board. From its inception to June 2008, Geyer held the position of CEO at Medical Ventures (now Neovasc) and was responsible for raising over $40 million in Equity financing and growing the company’s product portfolio through internal development and the acquisition of 3 other companies. In 2008 Paul began focusing on sharing is expertise to assist other Entrepreneurs to build successful businesses, through his involvement as a mentor or Board member. He also focused on building the local community through his involvement as a Board member of BC technology industry association, along with a number of non-profit community based organizations. Paul is actively engaged as a Philanthropist, as Chairman of the Board of Social Venture Partners Vancouver, involved with Science World, Entrepreneurship at UBC, Project Somos Children’s Village and other organizations.Paul is currently the CEO of LightIntegra Technology Inc., a spin-off from Canadian Blood Services which has developed the ThromboLux technology, used to determine platelet quality for blood transfusions.

Nadav Ben-Chanoch - Partner @ Pareto Holdings

Jason Warner is the Co-founder, CEO of poolside. He previously worked at Redpoint Ventures as a Managing Director. Jason Warner attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jon Oringer is the founder and chairman of Shutterstock.

Steve Schlafman is a Founder & Coach at High Output. He attended Northeastern University from 2000 to 2003.

Andrew Wilkinson is the Co-Founder of Tiny. He attended Ryerson University.

John Currie was formerly Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of lululemon athletica. Along with lululemon’s executive team, John led the growth of the company from US$150mm to US$1.8B in revenues, and from 75 stores to 300 stores, over a 7 year period.Prior to joining lululemon in 2007, he was Chief Financial Officer ofIntrawest Corporation, a world leader in destination resorts and leisure travel. In 2014, as the head of the special committee of the Board of Coastal Contacts Inc., the worlds’ largest online retailer of vision care products, John oversaw its sale to Essilor. He is also a board member of the Vancouver Airport Authority. John brings more than 30 years of experience in sound financial management of private and public companies in the retail & consumer space.

Ajay Agrawal is the Co-Founder of Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation. He previously worked at Queen's School of Business as a Assistant Professor. Ajay Agrawal attended the University of British Columbia.

Greg founded Traction on Demand, a Burnaby-based cloud technology consultancy and software development firm, in 2006. His original intention was to serve a small number of clients by helping them unite their sales and marketing teams; however, Traction has since grown into a nationally-recognized brand with offices and 250+ employees across NorthAmerica. It is now ranked as one of the continent’s fastest growing technology companies. Greg’s commitment to workplace culture and community has landed Traction on Demand on Canada’s Top 10 Best Places to Work list for the past three years. Additionally, Traction is a current finalist for Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies in Canada. Individually, Greg has been recognized for both his unconventional leadership style and expertise in cloud computing and data. In 2013, Business in Vancouver named him one of the Top Forty Under 40, awarding him once again with CEO of the Year in 2016.

Dickinson, owner and CEO of Venture Communications, a company she grew from a small, local firm to one of the largest independent agencies in Canada, is also the CEO of District Ventures and Youinc.com. Companies all aimed at helping market, fund and grow entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies. She is a two times best-selling author,accomplished speaker and is best known to Canadians as one of the venture capitalists on the award-winning CBC series’ Dragons’ Den.

Edward Lando is the Founder of Pareto Holdings. He previously worked at Horizons School of Technology as a Co-Founder. Edward Lando attended the Wharton School.

Andrew Perlman is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at North Equity. He attended The George Washington University School of Business in 1996.

Ajay Agrawal is the Co-Founder of Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation. He previously worked at Queen's School of Business as a Assistant Professor. Ajay Agrawal attended the University of British Columbia.

Pivotal Software was founded by Norm Francis in 1994. Francis was a co-founder of Basis Software Group (BSG) the company that developed ACCPAC, an accounting software package which was purchased by Computer Associates in 1985. Francis invented the concept of 360-degree customer relationship management (CRM), a concept that continues to be usedtoday to describe the unification of activities across the organization by employees who play a role in the customer relationship. The company released its first customer relationship management product, Pivotal Relationship Version 1, in April 1996; this product is the predecessor to the current Pivotal CRM product line.The company changed its name to Pivotal Corporation in June 1999 to reflect its broadening focus beyond just software into professional services, content, hosted application services and other online services. Pivotal Corporation went public in August 1999 and its shares were listed on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol PVTL.In February 2000, Pivotal Corporation was selected by Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect, to showcase its Pivotal CRM software at the worldwide premiere of Microsoft Windows 2000. Pivotal CRM, then called Pivotal eRelationship, was the first eBusiness relationship management (eBRM) solution to be certified for Windows 2000.Pivotal Corporation was acquired by CDC Corporation, in February 2004. The acquisition added 1,700 customers, as well as marketing, sales, service, and partner management capabilities to CDC Software’s business unit focused on front-office solutions for mid-sized enterprises.

Dr. Milad Alucozai is an Afghan-American neuroscientist, entrepreneur, biotech executive, and global investor with nearly two decades of experience in deep tech, primarily in life sciences. He pushes the boundaries of bioengineering and computational advancements, integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence into biology and medicine.With a strong commitment to commercializing transformative technologies and fostering startup ecosystems worldwide, he is a thought leader and formal mentor for entrepreneurs through organizations like Creative Destruction Lab and the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School.Currently, Milad is the head of Bio and Deep Tech at BoxOne Ventures, where he spearheads the firm’s investments in early-stage companies with breakthrough scientific ideas. With nearly 80 early-stage investments, they are recognized as one of North America’s most active venture firms. He is also a Venture Partner at Entrepreneur First, a global fund that has built over 500 companies from scratch with an enterprise value of $10bn. He supports founders with strategy, scaling, business development, securing growth capital, and leadership training, often being their first investor and guiding them from startup inception to IPOs or acquisitions.He started his career in translational neuroscience and multiphysics laboratories before transitioning into founding roles at biotech startups. He is part of the founding team at Mekonos, a San Francisco-based company creating a proprietary cell-engineering platform to support the future of cell and gene therapies. He was also part of the founding team at Corstem, which specialized in machine learning and artificial intelligence software and was later acquired by Circle Cardiovascular, a platform in over 1000 hospitals and more than 40 countries. At Accenture, Milad directed teams of data scientists, designers, and engineers in developing artificial intelligence platforms for global pharmaceutical companies and hospital networks.Milad serves as a Fellow in Healthcare Engineering at the Regenstrief Center. In 2020, he served as an External Advisor to AstraZeneca. He was recognized as a National Science Foundation Scholar and Macklin Fellow at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in Neuroscience from Purdue University’s Honors Program. As a George J. Mitchell Scholar, he completed his master’s in Immunology and earned his doctorate from the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health.

Tobyn Sowden is the CEO at Redbrick.He attended University of Victoria.

Paul Stamets, speaker, author, mycologist, medical researcher and entrepreneur, is considered an intellectual and industry leader in fungi: habitat, medicinal use, and production. His research is considered breakthrough by thought leaders for creating a paradigm shift for helping ecosystems worldwide. He has received numerous awards, including:Invention Ambassador (2014-2015) for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Mycologist Award (2014) from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA), and the Gordon & Tina Wasson Award (2015) from the Mycological Society of America (MSA). In 2020, Paul was inducted into the Explorer’s Club. He has been awarded myriad patents in the field of mycology. Paul is the founder and sole owner of Fungi Perfecti, LLC, 
the maker and marketer of the category-leading myco-supplement Host Defense line.

Huda is the Founder and CEO of Dot Health, a real-time personal health data platform. With a background in engineering from the University of Toronto and a prolific career at some of Toronto's best known startups including Wattpad, Wave, and Wealthsimple, her latest venture is transforming the way people access and control their own healthinformation for good. Huda's work has been featured in The Globe and Mail, Metro News, CNBC, and Metro Morning. She has been recognized amongst the Top 5 CEOs in Toronto Life and as a Top 25 Women of Influence in 2017.

Lance Tracey - Founding Partner @ Full Stack

Barney Pell was the co-founder, Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of LocoMobi Inc. Barney has a long history as a leading technology innovator, product visionary, entrepreneur and angel investor based in Silicon Valley. Barney is known for being an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mayfield, a top Venture Capital firm, which he left to becomeFounder and CEO of Powerset, which built a natural-language based search engine that read each sentence in Wikipedia and answered user queries in plain English. Microsoft acquired Powerset in 2008 to help create its new search engine, Bing. Barney then served Microsoft as Search Strategist, Evangelist, and Chief Architect for Local Search at Bing, until leaving Microsoft in September 2011 to return to the start-up world full-time.Barney also has active investor, board member, and advisory roles with multiple start-up companies and non-profits across a variety of industries. Barney is Co-Founder, Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Moon Express, a private company building autonomous robotic lunar landers to enable exploration and commercial development of the solar system. This builds on his earlier career managing advanced software technologies at NASA. Highlights of innovations during Barney’s career at NASA include mission critical software to support planning and collaboration for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission; Clarissa, the first spoken dialog system in space; and the development of the Remote Agent, the first AI system to fly onboard and control a deep space probe. Remote Agent is widely considered one of the top achievements in the history of Artificial Intelligence and was awarded NASA’s "software of the year" award in 1999. Barney is also Associate Founder and Trustee of Singularity University (SU), a new university created to educate leaders for life in a future driven by accelerating technological change.Other recent active angel investments and advisory positions include: Getaround, Robotex, Halcyon Molecular, SpaceX, and CrowdFlower. Recent start-ups that have had successful exits include: Appjet (now Google), Aardvark (now Google), Hot Potato (now Facebook), Etacts (now SalesForce.com), Movity (now Trulia), and LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional social network which recently went public after acquiring its hundred-millionth member.Barney received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and his B.S. degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a National Merit Scholar.Barney is a frequent speaker at conferences and universities. These include keynote talks at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the Association for Computational Linguistics, Search Marketing Expos, International Semantic Web Conference, World Wide Web Conference, the Informational Retrieval Conference, and panels at SXSW Interactive. Barney has also spoken at the NPA and IPI conferences and has been featured in all major Parking industry magazines.

Scott Lake is a startup entrepreneur, tech investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the cofounder of Shopify (NYSE: SHOP), then later as founder of Source Metrics.Currently, Scott is a general partner at Hello Ventures, where he leverages all the learning from his entrepreneurial journeys to invest in and advise early-stage techcompanies.Scott also plays an active role with his wife Jess as philanthropic funders of diverse social and public health causes.In his past lives, he has been a bike messenger, a university lecturer, a driver at NATO, and a political science PhD.

Thaddeus Young is the current Founder of Reform Ventures. He previously worked at Brooklyn Nets as a Professional Athlete. Thaddeus Young attended Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jon Oringer is the founder and chairman of Shutterstock.

Jim Estill founded EMJ Data in 1979 and grew the company to $350,000,000 in sales. Jim sold EMJ to SYNNEX in September 2004 and became CEO of SYNNEX Canada growing sales from $800,000,000 to $2 Billion in May 2009. Jim was one of the founding board members of RIM where he served for 13 years.

Rian combines his years of experience with law firm IT with his in-depth software development experience to help create software law firms love to use.

Rob Fraser currently works as the Founder and CEO for Endur Apparel.

Jacky is dedicated to angel investment and has built up a portfolio of more than thirty startup companies in Canada and the US. His target investments are the early-stage B2B companies with disruptive technologies and business potential in enterprise software, information technologies, MedTech, and Advanced Manufacturing.Jacky has acquiredconcrete business experiences as a successful founder in the startup ecosystem and an executive of Fortune 500 companies over two decades. His remarkable accomplishments range from building startups from scratch to leading a billion-dollar business with the leverage of 14,000 enterprise channel partners. The unique journey has shaped Jacky's outstanding of investing in early startups.Jacky holds the degrees of Mater's E.E. and MBA, and he graduated from CEIBS and The Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania.

David Ceolin

Jon Oringer is the founder and chairman of Shutterstock.

Darrell Kopke is a Director, CDL-Vancouver at Creative Destruction Lab. He attended The University of British Columbia.

Joshua Landy - Founder & Chief Medical Officer @ Figure 1

Nadav Ben-Chanoch - Partner @ Pareto Holdings