Two Small Fish Ventures

It’s been an incredible couple of weeks to be a part of the Schulich School of Business - York University community! We had the privilege of attending two fantastic events that have left us inspired and re-energized: 1️⃣ Cherry Rose Tan, MBA, MA's Book Launch 📚 Cherry Rose’s new book “Still Standing: What It Takes to Thrive and Innovate in a Messy World” dives deep into mental health and the realities of being a founder. It was an incredibly eye-opening and heartfelt experience. Hearing her speak so vulnerably about the challenges founders face—and the importance of prioritizing well-being—was a reminder of the power of community and support in entrepreneurship. 2️⃣ Fall Mixer hosted by Schulich Startups🤝 This was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends, make new connections, and reflect on shared experiences. One of the highlights was hearing our talented investment analyst, Mikayla Wronko, share her journey from Schulich to joining us here at TSF. Her story was inspiring and a testament to how transformative the Schulich experience can be. Thank you, Chris Carder, for these awesome events. We are grateful for the vibrant Schulich community and the many opportunities it brings to learn, grow, and connect. 💙 Looking forward to more events like these in the future! #Networking #Schulich #Entrepreneurship #VC #MentalHealth #LifelongLearning

Building technology is about founders creating what they love. Building a product is about creating something others love to use. Commercialization is about building something people will pay for. These three phases are related but distinct. For deep tech companies, these phases often have minimal overlap and unfold sequentially. At Two Small Fish Ventures, we are thoughtful and experienced investors. We understand that starting to generate revenue—or choosing not to—at the right time is one of the secrets to a company’s success that very few have mastered. No revenue? No problem. In fact, that’s great. Bring them on! Read my blog post for more details.

Last night, we had a phenomenal time at ventureLAB 's HardTech Gala! The event was a fantastic showcase of innovation and creativity in the hardtech space. We heard 8 groundbreaking pitches by CEOs: Sina Alavi from Kimia Analytics, Mark Donaldson from Quantuity Analytics Inc., Dr. Macarena Cataldo from Virdis Energy, Sahar Sam from Wireless PNC, Alexander von Kaldenberg from GoChip Animal Technology, George Yin from VCycene Inc., Denis Tokarev from Cattle Scan, and Ilia Borishchev from VIBRAINT. It was inspiring to see so many brilliant minds come together to drive the future of tech. Thank you to our table members Parnian Majd, B.Eng, M.Eng, Richard Liang, Shreyas Potnis, Pat Martinson, and Roberto S. Enkerlin for engaging in such constructive discussions, it was a pleasure to have you at the Two Small Fish Table. A massive shoutout to the team at ventureLAB for curating such an impactful summit, bringing together leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors who are paving the way in advanced manufacturing, hard tech, and more. The energy and dedication to pushing technological boundaries were palpable. Here’s to continued growth, new partnerships, and transformative innovation in the industry! #HardTech #Innovation #VentureLabSummit #TechInnovation

Venture funds live or die by the percentage of the portfolio that becomes breakout successes, not by playing it safe. In my latest blog post, I break down the math behind why a portfolio of 20 companies, backed by “100x conviction,” can deliver outsized returns and consistently outperform. Counterintuitively, playing it safe can actually put the fund in a far riskier position. This is the exact strategy we follow at Two Small Fish Ventures, and it’s one of the secret sauces for our success. Curious about it? Check out the post to learn more.

Schulich Startups has done it again with a fantastic event to kick off the school year! Last week, we had the pleasure of hearing one of our LPs, Brice Scheschuk, CPA, CA Scheschuk, who is the Managing Partner at Globalive, present his infamous workshop “Founders: Play Your Own Game.” Brice highlighted the importance of celebrating customer and product wins instead of just focusing on fundraising and dilution wins, a message that resonates and aligns with TSF’s philosophy. The real measure of a company's success lies in its ability to deliver value to its customers and create impactful products. A quote by our Operating Partner, Allen Lau, was a feature in Brice’s presentation: “Outlier founders should be unrecognizable to their former selves every two years.”  This was an awesome night of reinforcing the belief that founders should focus on the long game by delivering real value to customers and continuously evolving. #Startups #Schulich #Tech #Innovation #Toronto

Congratulations to Axiomatic_AI on their US$6M seed round led by Kleiner Perkins! Two Small Fish is thrilled to be an early investor since the company’s inception—and the only Canadian investor. Axiomatic is a startup that pushes the boundaries of AI. While Traditional Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at languages, they struggle with logic. Axiomatic’s new AI model, Automated Interpretable Reasoning (AIR), changes the game by combining reinforcement learning and world models to provide clear, actionable insights. We can’t wait to see how Axiomatic continues to revolutionize engineering and scientific discovery within AI! Read more about it in our blog post.

We are excited to announce that Toronto-based startup Viggle has raised $19M USD in funding! 🎉 The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Two Small Fish as a significant investor. As part of the investment, Allen Lau has joined the company as an advisor. Viggle AI transforms character animation with the world's first 3D video foundation with a physics understanding, their JST-1 model. The platform can completely revolutionize the animation and game design process and help everyday creators generate viral memes and entertaining video content. Viggle AI empowers creators and professionals to bring their visions to life faster and easier. Since its launch in March, Viggle AI has grown from thousands of users to over 4 million! 🚀 It’s a game-changer for content creation, and we are so excited to see how it shapes the future. Get all the details in this BetaKit article below. Congrats to Hang Chu and the Viggle team! #AI #Animation #ContentCreation #Startups

Congrats to our portfolio company, Story, for raising an $80 million Series B! We are so excited to be part of their journey. Read more about it in our blog post: https://lnkd.in/gbYKk4qn

Congrats to our portfolio company, Story, for raising an $80 million Series B! We are so excited to be part of their journey. Read more about it in our blog post: https://lnkd.in/gbYKk4qn

Last week’s Venture Day presented by NEXT Canada was an incredible experience! We were truly blown away by the ideas and passion that these founders brought to the table. We had the pleasure of connecting with many talented entrepreneurs, each with very unique perspectives and insights. We are so excited to continue watching these founders grow and to see where their journeys lead them. Congratulations to one of our portfolio companies Blumind for being chosen as one of the top 12 companies of Next Canada's 2024 cohort! It was really nice to connect with the NEXT Canada community, through Venture Day and the dinner later that evening. It is evident that all of the founders of their 2024 cohort are trying to solve very important issues in the world. What an incredible day! Thank you NEXT Canada, Reza Satchu and Kyle J Winters for having us!