The C100 has named startup-support executive Ray Newal its new CEO, as the tech network pursues an ambitious international expansion. “Canadians are heading out to build companies to solve problems that exist around the world,” he said. “There’s real potential for C100 to be that group that connects them.”

Canadian venture capitalists in Silicon Valley launched the organization in 2010 to bring together expatriates working in the local tech ecosystem. The non-profit runs mentorship and networking programs for Canadian founders and organizes industry events. It now has 516 members in 34 cities around the world, up from 297 and 17, respectively, in July 2021.

Newal, who resides in Toronto, is the C100’s fourth leader, and its first based outside the Bay Area. He was most recently head of capital and ecosystem for MaRS, the government-backed innovation hub, and before that took the Techstars accelerator chain to Bangalore. 

Canadian-born and -raised, Newal says his experiences in India illustrate the need for the C100. He moved to Mumbai in July 2010 to run Jigsee, a mobile video technology firm he co-founded. “I had to go and make sense of a market that was completely foreign to me,” Newal recalls. Fellow Canadian migrants he met there helped him navigate the business culture and local tech ecosystem. But there was no equivalent of the C100, which had just begun connecting expats in Silicon Valley. 

In February 2011, Jigsee raised US$1.2 million from Sequoia Capital and the Indian Angel Network, according to Pitchbook data; two years later, Milpatis, Calif.-based Vuclip acquired it for an undisclosed sum. Newal has also worked at Yahoo and Microsoft.

C100 co-chairs Janet Bannister and Andre Charoo both cited Newal’s background as a founder and his experience expanding organizations internationally as major draws. Under former CEO Laura Buhler, the network has pushed beyond the Bay Area, launching chapters in New York, Los Angeles and London over the last year. The C100 also hopes to expand in Europe and Asia, said Bannister, Toronto-based managing partner at Real Ventures, an early-stage financier. 

The organization was looking for an executive to lead the journey to “the C10,000, or whatever that number is,” said Charoo, general partner at San Francisco-based angel firm Maple VC. “That means you’re going to need a global playbook.” 

With Silicon Valley still accounting for about 30 per cent of its members, the organization is recruiting another board member in the Bay Area, and will continue to host marquee events there, said Bannister. “It is our core and always will be the birthplace of C100.” The group’s 48Hrs program, which brings startups across the border for meetings with mentors and investors, went virtual during the pandemic, but its annual summit returned to Napa, Calif., in February.

The goal is to keep supporting the most promising tech founders in Canada, said Bannister, adding that Newal has done “tremendous work” with entrepreneurs at Techstars and MaRS. Newal himself said it’s too early to lay out his precise strategy for the C100, but that he plans to meet with members and sponsors to develop one. The organization “has built a community around Canadian leaders in tech who [have] scaled large businesses around the world,” he noted. For founders based in Canada, he said, “it’s very difficult to access that kind of wisdom” locally. 

The C100 will look to add to its current team of five, Newal said. He noted that his Toronto base puts him in close proximity to the organization’s corporate partners and funders, the most significant of which include the Business Development Bank of Canada, RBC, Scotiabank and Silicon Valley Bank.

Newal brings a valuable network among top executives in the country, according to Charoo. “We’re going to need more dollars to support this global expansion.” But the C100 declined to disclose its annual budget. 

Founders and financiers say Silicon Valley’s network effect—the concentration of capital and companies that draws more of the same to the Bay Area—has weakened during the pandemic, with some of its most celebrated firms and funds going remote. The C100 is seeking to adapt accordingly. Newal said he wants to make it “a community” that embraces the way “tech has scaled to the rest of the world.”