Diagram
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of insurance, financial services, and healthcare.

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Our Companies
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Vision

Advance the world with innovation.

Diagram is a launchpad for the most exciting ventures in insurance, financial services, and healthcare.

With our long-term perspective, we can make an unmatched commitment to entrepreneurs with our depth of both capital and expertise. Combined with the support of our highly distinguished investor base, Diagram offers early stage companies a unique platform to think big, launch in Canada, and pursue global success.

Approach

Deeper commitment unlocks more potential.

Traditional Funds

Diagram
Strategy
Traditional Funds
By making targeted investments focused on our areas of expertise, we work closely with our ventures to help them win.
Strategy
Diagram
By making targeted investments focused on our areas of expertise, we work closely with our ventures to help them win.
Funding
Traditional Funds
Small initial seed investment, lots of time spent by founders on fundraising.
Funding
Diagram
Larger seed investments give our founders the runway and focus they need to build great companies.
Partnerships
Traditional Funds
Founders spend significant time and efforts trying to build key partnerships with larger companies.
Partnerships
Diagram
Our close association with Portag3 Ventures gives our founders a built-in strategic advantage and dramatically accelerates the time to market.
Network
Traditional Funds
A handful of angel investors support founders with their network and expertise.
Network
Diagram
50 world-class advisors and investors are each committed to supporting all of our ventures.
Support
Traditional Funds
Investor support is diluted across a large number of investments and generally strategic in nature.
Support
Diagram
Focusing on few bets allows us to deploy substantial resources and provide hands-on support to founders in the early stage of their venture.
Team

Shoulder-to-shoulder
with our ventures.

We work closely with our founders and their teams to accelerate growth by finding the best talent, opening up doors, and providing strategic and tactical support.
Francois Lafortune
Founder & CEO
Paul Desmarais III
Chairman
Dan Robichaud
Managing Partner
Marc-Antoine Ross
Chief Innovation Officer
Guillaume Marion
Chief Financial Officer
Marie-Eve Bernard
Head of Talent
Benoît Béland
Head of Marketing & Communications
Karel Vuong
General Manager
Damien Charbonneau
Director, New Venture Creation & Strategy
Jean-Nicholas Hould
Director, Digital Strategy
Vitor Carenzi
Controller
François Proulx
Advisor, Security
Sébastien Malherbe
Advisor, Product & Design
Vladimir Novakovski
Advisor, Technology & ML
Francois Lafortune
Founder & CEO
Paul Desmarais III
Chairman
Dan Robichaud
Managing Partner
Marc-Antoine Ross
Chief Innovation Officer
Guillaume Marion
Chief Financial Officer
Marie-Eve Bernard
Head of Talent
Benoît Béland
Head of Marketing & Communications
Karel Vuong
General Manager
Damien Charbonneau
Director, New Venture Creation & Strategy
Jean-Nicholas Hould
Director, Digital Strategy
Vitor Carenzi
Controller
François Proulx
Advisor, Security
Sébastien Malherbe
Advisor, Product & Design
Vladimir Novakovski
Advisor, Technology & ML
Francois Lafortune
Founder & CEO
Paul Desmarais III
Chairman
Dan Robichaud
Managing Partner
Marc-Antoine Ross
Chief Innovation Officer
Guillaume Marion
Chief Financial Officer
Marie-Eve Bernard
Head of Talent
Benoît Béland
Head of Marketing & Communications
Karel Vuong
General Manager
Damien Charbonneau
Director, New Venture Creation & Strategy
Jean-Nicholas Hould
Director, Digital Strategy
Vitor Carenzi
Controller
François Proulx
Advisor, Security
Sébastien Malherbe
Advisor, Product & Design
Vladimir Novakovski
Advisor, Technology & ML
Backers

The strength of industry titans.

Portag3 is an early-stage investor exclusively backed by a corporate partnership between Power Financial Corporation, IGM Financial Inc., and Great-West Lifeco Inc.
$1.2T
Assets Under Management
AUM
$65B+
Combined Market Cap
Market Cap
30M
Customer Relationships
Customers
14,400
Financial Advisors

The expertise of business visionaries.

Combined with the support of our highly distinguished investor base, Diagram offers early stage companies a unique platform to think big, launch in Canada, and pursue global success.
50+
Investors
30+
Entrepreneurs
$9B+
In Exits
7
CEOs of Listed Companies
Adam D'Angelo
CEO of Quora, Former CTO of Facebook
Andrew Chisholm
Former Global Head Financial Institutions at Goldman Sachs, Board Director at RBC
Angela Strange
Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
Anthony Lacavera
Founder & Chairman at Globalive Holdings, Founder & Former CEO at WIND Mobile
Carrie Russell
Former EVP & CMO at D+H
Dax Dasilva
Founder & CEO, Lightspeed
Henri de Castries
Former CEO AXA Global
Hugo Sarrazin
Senior Partner and Global Leader of McKinsey Digital Labs
Joe Lonsdale
Founder of Palantir, Addepar, and 8VC
Mike Cegelski
Managing Partner, Panache Ventures
Nadir Mohamed
Chairman Alignvest, Former President & CEO Rogers Communications
Razor Suleman
Founder & Former CEO at Achievers, Partner at Alignvest
Adam D'Angelo
CEO of Quora, Former CTO of Facebook
Andrew Chisholm
Former Global Head Financial Institutions at Goldman Sachs, Board Director at RBC
Angela Strange
Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
Anthony Lacavera
Founder & Chairman at Globalive Holdings, Founder & Former CEO at WIND Mobile
Carrie Russell
Former EVP & CMO at D+H
Dax Dasilva
Founder & CEO, Lightspeed
Henri de Castries
Former CEO AXA Global
Hugo Sarrazin
Senior Partner and Global Leader of McKinsey Digital Labs
Joe Lonsdale
Founder of Palantir, Addepar, and 8VC
Mike Cegelski
Managing Partner, Panache Ventures
Nadir Mohamed
Chairman Alignvest, Former President & CEO Rogers Communications
Razor Suleman
Founder & Former CEO at Achievers, Partner at Alignvest
Adam D'Angelo
CEO of Quora, Former CTO of Facebook
Andrew Chisholm
Former Global Head Financial Institutions at Goldman Sachs, Board Director at RBC
Angela Strange
Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
Anthony Lacavera
Founder & Chairman at Globalive Holdings, Founder & Former CEO at WIND Mobile
Carrie Russell
Former EVP & CMO at D+H
Dax Dasilva
Founder & CEO, Lightspeed
Henri de Castries
Former CEO AXA Global
Hugo Sarrazin
Senior Partner and Global Leader of McKinsey Digital Labs
Joe Lonsdale
Founder of Palantir, Addepar, and 8VC
Mike Cegelski
Managing Partner, Panache Ventures
Nadir Mohamed
Chairman Alignvest, Former President & CEO Rogers Communications
Razor Suleman
Founder & Former CEO at Achievers, Partner at Alignvest
Meet our backers
Companies

Ideas that push us all forward.

Quality healthcare
anytime, anywhere.
Learn more
"Diagram helps us directly in our business – they are close enough to understand our operations, yet completely supportive of our strategic direction. As an added bonus, we can consult with anyone from their hugely impressive and diverse group of investors. They have given us access into highest level of the Canadian business community."
Cherif Habib
CEO & Co-Founder, Dialogue
All-in-one HR platform for modern businesses.
Learn more
"Diagram is the best partner a startup could hope for. Access to capital, partnerships, talent and top-tier advisors. Diagram has allowed us to play in the major leagues from the very start."


Elijah Moore
CEO & Co-Founder, Collage
Launch your next company with us
Build with Diagram
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Francois Lafortune
Founder & CEO
Francois is the Founder and CEO of Diagram. Prior to founding Diagram, he was a co-­leader of McKinsey & Company’s Canadian technology practice, where he advised senior executives of banks and insurance companies. Prior to McKinsey, Francois was a serial entrepreneur, launching his first business at the age of 13. He then co­-founded Vitres.net, which has grown to become the largest student franchise system in Quebec (now part of Residencia). Francois earned a Bachelor of Engineering from McGill University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Paul Desmarais III
Chairman
Paul Desmarais III is the Chairman of Diagram, Executive Chairman of Portag3 Ventures, and also serves as Senior Vice-President of Power Corporation and Power Financial. Prior to his current position, he worked in the Risk Management Group of Great-West Lifeco. Previously, he worked in project management and corporate strategy at Imerys in France. He began his career with Goldman Sachs, in the Investment Banking Division, Investment Strategy Group, as well as in the Special Situations Group.

Paul is a director of Great-West Life, Investors Group, Mackenzie, Pargesa and Groupe Bruxelles Lambert. Paul also serves as Executive Chairman of Sagard Capital, Chairman of Wealthsimple and Vice-Chairman of Imerys. Paul is the recipient of a B.A. degree in Economics from Harvard College (graduating cum laude) and he holds a MBA from INSEAD in France.
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Dan Robichaud
Managing Partner
Dan is a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor. He sold his first company in 2006 to a Fortune 500 company. He then went on to start and exit five other technology companies. His latest venture is PasswordBox, which was acquired by Intel Security in 2014. Dan is also an active investor in many promising technology start-ups.
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Marc-Antoine Ross
Chief Innovation Officer
Marc-Antoine is the Chief Innovation Officer at Diagram. He is a serial entrepreneur having started his first company at the age of 21 and co-founded three successful companies: PasswordBox (Acquired by Intel), SoftCity and Piria (Acquired). From 2014 to 2017, he was Director, Data Engineering at Intel Security, where he built the big data team for True Key.

Marc-Antoine is very active in the Montreal tech community, personally advising several startups and mentoring companies at Founder Institute and Founder Fuel. He is also an ambassador for Centraide, having raised significant donations from the tech community.
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Guillaume Marion
Chief Financial Officer
Guillaume is the Chief Financial Officer of Diagram. Prior to joining Diagram, he was working in the investment banking division of HSBC in London, UK in its Financial Institutions Group advising global banks, insurers, asset managers, and market infrastructure providers. Prior to HSBC, Guillaume was part of the Rocket Internet ecosystem where he was CFO of Payleven, a financial technology startup based out of Berlin, Germany. Previously, he spent several years at PSP Investments in Montreal, Canada, initially in its direct private equity group and subsequently in its internal hedge fund.

Guillaume is also very active in the community having had several involvements with non-profit institutions in the fields of foreign policy, public policy, corporate governance, academics, and the arts. In addition to being a Chartered Financial Analyst and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst, Guillaume holds a Bachelor in Business Administration from HEC Montreal and a Masters in Finance from London Business School.
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Marie-Eve Bernard
Head of Talent
Marie-Eve is Head of Talent at Diagram and runs all recruiting, talent, and culture at Diagram and its portfolio companies. She has over 10 years of experience with several tech companies, where her team hired 200+ employees every year. Marie-Eve is an expert in employer branding and recruiting tools and has developed analytics and metrics to screen large numbers of candidates to predict on-job success. She has hosted conferences and given training to recruiters at both startups and some of the largest banks and companies in Canada. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from UQAC.
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Benoît Béland
Head of Marketing & Communications
Benoît is a marketing and communications leader with over 20 years of experience working with national and international companies in branding, communications, and customer relationship management.

He has managed multidisciplinary teams and carried out major projects for brands such as Bombardier, Telus, General Motors, Molson, Metro, and Saputo, while also leading account and strategy teams for well-known agencies like Publicis, TAXI, Nurun, KBS, and Cossette.

As Diagram’s Head of Marketing and Communications, Benoît contributes to the growth of the portfolio companies and works to guide co-founders in the management and strategy of all marketing and communications activities. He is a graduate in business administration from UQAM.
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Karel Vuong
General Manager
Karel is a General Manager at Diagram where he works with its portfolio companies in an operational capacity to hire and grow teams while leading the firm's efforts on community, media relations, and public policy. He also serves as the Head of Platform & Community at Portag3 Ventures creating opportunities for its portfolio companies (Wealthsimple, League, Drop, and more) to share knowledge, scale up, and expand internationally. Karel is an advocate for the Canadian startup ecosystem and sits on the advisory boards for Singularity University's Canada GIC, Venture for Canada, and Startup HERE Toronto. Karel is a university dropout from the Computer Science program at the University of Toronto, Trinity College.
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Damien Charbonneau
Director, New Venture Creation & Strategy
Damien serves as Director, New Venture Strategy & Creation at Diagram. There, he develops investment theses for the launch of new ventures, helps put in place founding teams, supports the innovation team in creating proof of concepts, and advises CEOs of Diagram's portfolio companies on strategy. Prior to joining the fund, Damien worked at McKinsey & Company where he served clients in a wide range of industries and functions. In the 2 years he spent at the firm, Damien developed an expertise in delivering large-scale transformations for distressed companies. In his last engagement, he played a central role in the support of a billion-dollar transformation. Damien holds a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from Polytechnique Montreal University.
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Jean-Nicholas Hould
Director, Digital Strategy
Jean-Nicholas is Director, Digital Strategy at Diagram. After graduating, Jean-Nicholas moved to Chicago where he built MountainMetrics, an analytics software for a microblogging platform. He subsequently joined Montreal startup PasswordBox as an early employee, where he headed growth, scaling PasswordBox’ user base to 5M users. In 2014, PasswordBox was acquired by Intel. During his time at Intel, he contributed in building a world-class data science team for the True Key product. Jean-Nicholas is an entrepreneur at heart. His skillset is at the intersection of business, technology and digital marketing. He holds a Master in E-Commerce from HEC Montreal.
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Vitor Carenzi
Controller
Vitor is the Controller at Diagram. He brings with him several years of international experience in finance, accounting, treasury, and law from insurtech and manufacturing industries in Canada, Ireland and Brazil. He holds a Bachelor of Laws and he is currently studying to obtain the CPA designation.
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François Proulx
Advisor, Security
François Proulx is the CEO of Elliptica Security, a leading application security expert, and Security Advisor for Diagram and its portfolio companies. Previously, he led application and product security at McAfee's Safe Identity division and PasswordBox. In his free time, he regularly takes part in and organizes computer security competitions (CTF) such as NorthSec, DEF CON, iCTF, CSAW, HackUS, and Hackfest. Francois holds a Bachelor of Engineering, IT Engineering from École de technologie supérieure.
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Sébastien Malherbe
Advisor, Product & Design
Sébastien Malherbe is Product and Design Advisor at Diagram, the Head of Product at Intel Security, and Founder of The Mont Royal Watch Co. He was formerly the VP Product Management at PasswordBox prior to their acquisition by Intel in 2014 and the VP Product at BuddyPilots Aviation. He is driven by his passion for user interfaces and the web with over 10 years of experience in product and design. Sébastien is a graduate from Lycée les Eucalyptus's Electrical Engineering program.
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Vladimir Novakovski
Advisor, Technology & ML
Vlad is an Advisor, Technology & ML at Diagram and a technology leader and advisor based in Silicon Valley. He has engineering leadership experience at Euclid Analytics and Addepar, as well as Quora, where he founded the machine learning team. Prior to that, he headed up high frequency trading at Graham Capital, a $10 billion AUM hedge fund. Vlad graduated from Harvard College and began PhD work at Harvard as a Presidential Scholar before leaving to join industry.
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Adam D'Angelo
CEO of Quora, Former CTO of Facebook
Adam is the CEO and co-founder of Quora. He was the first CTO at Facebook, and also served as its VP of engineering. Adam developed the Synapse Media Player (a music suggestion software) along with Mark Zuckerberg and others while at high school. Fortune magazine has included D'Angelo as runner-up in its 'Smartest people in tech' article.
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Andrew Chisholm
Former Global Head Financial Institutions at Goldman Sachs, Board Director at RBC
Andy spent most of his career at Goldman Sachs & Co, which he joined in 1985 in New York. He served in a variety of progressively more senior leadership roles within the organization during his 30 year career including as Senior Strategy Officer of the firm globally from 2012 - 2014, as Head or co-Head of the Global Financial Institutions Group in both London and New York from 2002 - 2012, and as co- Chair of the Firmwide Commitments Committee (primarily overseeing the firm's equity underwriting activities) from 2011 - 2015. Andy is now a member of the Board of Directors of Royal Bank of Canada, Chair of the Advisory Board at the Ivey Business School, Western University, and Board Member of Evergreen Brickworks. He holds a B. Comm from Queens University (1981) and graduated with an MBA from the Ivey Business School at Western University in 1985.
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Angela Strange
Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
Angela is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a top-tier venture capital fund based in California. She is also co-chair of C100, a non-profit that bridges Canadian entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley’s most influential expat technology entrepreneurs, executives, and investors to help Canadian companies win on the global stage. She also serves on Canadian Finance Minister Morneau's Economic Growth Council. Angela came to A16Z from Google, where as a Product Manager she launched and grew Chrome for Android and Chrome for iOS into one of Google's most successful mobile products.
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Anthony Lacavera
Founder & Chairman at Globalive Holdings, Founder & Former CEO at WIND Mobile
Anthony has a reputation as a disruptive entrepreneur that has changed Canada’s telecom landscape. He is the Chairman of Globalive Holdings and past CEO of WIND Mobile (sold to Shaw). He was named Canada’s CEO of the Year in 2010 by the Globe and Mail, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2006 and one of the 50 Most Influential Torontonians by Toronto Life Magazine.
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Carrie Russell
Former EVP & CMO at D+H
Carrie is an advisor to banks and fintechs on innovation and partnering for growth, with 25 years experience in North American Financial Service and Financial Technology Organizations. Her executive experience includes roles at D+H Financial Technology, TD Bank Group, CFDS, and CIBC. She has sat on the boards of Canadian Payments Association, Acxsys, Interac, and the Operations Committee Chair of Canadian Bankers Association, as well as voluntary board member of Young People’s Theatre.
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Dax Dasilva
Founder & CEO, Lightspeed
Dax Dasilva is the creative mind behind Lightspeed's suite of retail, hospitality and eCommerce tools. Founded in 2005, Lightspeed develops a cloud-based commerce platform used by over 45,000 customers worldwide to run better businesses and process over $15 billion in transactions annually. In 2015, Dax also founded Never Apart, a cultural non-profit determined to bring about positive social change and unity through original programming with global reach and impact.
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Henri de Castries
Former CEO AXA Global
Henri is the former Chairman and CEO of AXA Global. He joined AXA in 1989 after starting his career with the French Finance Ministry and French Treasury Department. Henri also sits on the board of HSBC and Nestlé. He has also been Chairman of the Institut Montaigne. Henri sits on the Board of the Association pour l'aide aux jeunes infirmes, an organization dedicated to helping disabled youth, and is Chairman of AXA Hearts in Action, AXA's volunteer community outreach program.
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Hugo Sarrazin
Senior Partner and Global Leader of McKinsey Digital Labs
Hugo is the global leader of McKinsey Digital Labs, a professional service organization within McKinsey that uses agile software development methodologies to deliver cloud, big data, and mobile solutions to clients. Hugo is a frequent author and thought leader and regularly speaks at industry forums on a variety of technology disruptions and their impact on business strategies and operations. Hugo supports the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, International Institute of Telecom, and the US Water Polo Association.
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Joe Lonsdale
Founder of Palantir, Addepar, and 8VC
Joe is a founder of 8VC and currently serves on the boards of Addepar, OpenGov, Oscar, Radius and Wish. Prior to 8VC, Joe founded Addepar, a leading wealth management technology platform. Prior to Addepar, Joe founded Palantir Technologies, a multi-billion dollar software company which develops information systems used by governments around the world. Joe also worked with the financial arm of PayPal while he was still a student at Stanford.
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Mike Cegelski
Managing Partner, Panache Ventures
Mike Cegelski is a Managing Partner at Panache Ventures. As an serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and mentor, Mike gets involved where it counts and where he can bring value. As an entrepreneur: Beltron from 1984 to 2000 and iBwave from 2003 to 2015. As an investor and mentor: over 30 companies in the past 10 years. Mike is visibly involved in the angel investing community through Anges Quebec and many other initiatives. He was named NACO’s 2015 Angel of the Year. Mike earned a B.Sc in Mathematics and Computer Science from University of Sherbrooke in 1982.
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Nadir Mohamed
Chairman Alignvest, Former President & CEO Rogers Communications
Nadir is a highly accomplished business executive who was most recently CEO of Rogers Communications. Under his leadership Rogers became the largest wireless carrier in Canada. Nadir serves on the board of TD bank and several other not-for-profits. He is an active member of Chief Executive Organization and continues to be a member of YPO Gold. He was named one of the world’s most successful immigrants by Bloomberg and has been honoured by the UN Association in Canada at their 2013 Global Citizens Dinner.
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Razor Suleman
Founder & Former CEO at Achievers, Partner at Alignvest
Razor is a Partner at Alignvest Management Corporation. Prior to Alignvest, he founded Achievers which helps organizations reward and recognize brilliant employee performance. As CEO of Achievers, Razor raised over $40m from top-tier VCs including Sequoia Capital and JLA Ventures before the company was sold to Blackhawk Network in 2015. Razor was named BDC Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007 and was E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011.