TechAlliance is the place for dreamers, innovators, and world-changing ideas. We empower world-class tech ventures and fuel growth in Canada’s innovation economy, while championing, coaching, and amplifying businesses, and fostering a vibrant technology community in Southwestern Ontario.
As the lead voice of one of North America's top tech ecosystems, we believe ambitious people do their best work when they’re supported in and outside of work including generous vacation, extra-long weekends (that actually feel long), meaningful perks and benefits, and a workspace built for bold thinking. We’re a human-led, AI first organization – the kind of place curious and driven people want to be part of.
You believe in disruptive innovation that stretches the boundaries of what’s possible. You bring a systems-thinking mindset, embrace experimentation, and approach challenges with curiosity and creativity. As a teammate, you act boldly, focus on solutions, and operate with a growth mindset. You are someone who strives to make an impact in this region’s thriving tech sector and seeks a role where you can put your own innovative spin on things.
About the role
TechAlliance is seeking a Venture Growth Advisor to support a high volume of early-stage startups and hyper-growth technology companies, serving as a key point of contact for founding teams and CEOs providing strategic guidance and connections to the right people at the right time. The role actively conducts business development to attract and retain new ventures, managing a portfolio of member companies, and delivering entrepreneurial initiatives and advisory services throughout each venture’s lifecycle.
The Venture Growth Advisor works closely with founders to understand their challenges, remove obstacles, identify growth opportunities, and connect them to the people, resources, and capital needed to increase their speed of success. You are someone who is capable and enjoys managing multiple portfolio companies on the go, quickly responding to new issues daily, and following trends closely in the news and Canada's innovation economy, and wants to be part of a prosperous moonshot making the greater London area one of the top tech ecosystems in Canada.
This role is critical to strengthening Southwestern Ontario’s innovation ecosystem and advancing TechAlliance’s mission to support world-class ventures that drive economic and societal impact. As part of an agile and collaborative team, you will build relationships across the regional innovation ecosystem while supporting founders and contributing to TechAlliance’s vision for innovation leadership.
The ideal candidate demonstrates deep alignment with TechAlliance’s mission and a passion for supporting entrepreneurs. They bring knowledge of the startup and tech ecosystem in Ontario, Canada, and globally, and ideally have firsthand entrepreneurial experience—such as working in an early-stage startup or within the innovation economy. The successful candidate understands core business fundamentals including strategy, financial modeling, primary and secondary research, sales and marketing, raising capital and data-driven decision making.
You will work closely with founders to help them grow in ways that make the most sense for their ventures. You will ask thoughtful questions, challenge assumptions, and provide practical guidance while connecting entrepreneurs with the people, organizations, and resources that will help them achieve their goals. In return, you will gain exposure to innovative companies and inspiring founders, learning quickly in a dynamic and fast-paced environment.
A key dimension of this role is cultivating and expanding TechAlliance’s investor network to accelerate venture growth across the region. The Venture Growth Advisor builds and stewards relationships with angel investors, venture capital firms, family offices, and other capital partners—strengthening existing connections while identifying and engaging investors not yet closely connected to TechAlliance or Southwestern Ontario. Acting as a bridge between founders and capital, you will surface high-potential ventures, facilitate meaningful introductions, and create opportunities for investors to engage with emerging companies. With clearly defined annual KPIs related to investor outreach and venture introductions, you will play an important role in expanding the region’s capital network and connecting founders to the right partners at the right stage of growth.
Reporting to the Manager of Venture Growth, you will
Coaching:
- Actively advise a portfolio of early-stage startups and hypergrowth members providing guidance for business plan development and their constituent components, such as value propositions, market analysis, competitive advantage, customer acquisition, building a team, developing culture, business processes and operations, marketing, sales, finances, raising capital, pitch preparation, etc.
- Advocate for and be a public cheerleader to TechAlliance companies based on their unique needs, ensuring that they are well represented and highly engaged in our startup and scale-up support efforts and that each member benefits from the community and capitalizes on available services, programming, earned media and brand exposure, plus events needed to grow and scale their business.
- Support day-to-day success of companies accepted into the GROW and Rural GROW Accelerator, as well as Thrive + Prosper, identifying storytelling opportunities and educational and network experiences designed for their stage of growth.
Business Development:
- Recruit new TechAlliance members by attending regional tech and entrepreneurship experiences across each of the five counties we serve, in a business development capacity (may be outside of standard business hours) while having a strong understanding of prospective members' businesses, market landscape and industry trends.
- Liaise with internal and external members of Canada’s tech ecosystem including other Regional Innovation Centres and innovation hubs to advance the mandate of TechAlliance and our companies.
- Work directly with our Strategic Initiatives team to plan and deliver TechAlliance’s events and programs for founders, industry leaders and tech talent.
- Provide first-mover insight and support on developing internal processes and new initiatives that maintain and enhance membership satisfaction.
Funding & Raising Capital:
- Assist in identifying, making direct introductions to and accessing sources of funding, grants and dilutive capital investment, including government programs, private sector investors, angel networks, pitch competitions, etc.
- Share new funding opportunities, ecosystem intel and connections with the team to benefit TechAlliance members and create stronger ties to VC’s, investors, angels and funding decision-makers.
Portfolio Management & Reporting:
- Guided by strategic KPIs, demonstrate operational excellence with the use of AI-automated tools and systems designed to reduce administration and increase customer-facing activity by managing the analytics, tracking and engagement of your portfolio.
- Be responsible for the integrity of data collection and maintenance in TechAlliance’s CRM and actively support performance metrics reporting to funders.
- Ownership of making and tracking referrals to Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs), Growth Coaches, investors, service partners and potential customers, while ensuring KPI’s are up-to-date and reflected in reporting dashboards daily.
The right candidate will demonstrate the following qualifications
- Entrepreneur with experience in a startup environment or hypergrowth technology company
- University Degree or College Diploma in a business discipline.
- Client-facing work experience in a business or technology related field activating a customer-centric, consultative approach.
- Loves connecting 1:1 with entrepreneurs, CEOs, 2iC and their teams via in-person and virtually, responding to the high-paced demands of innovative businesses and their deadlines.
- Solid network locally, provincially, nationally and globally to influencers and door-openers who support, invest in or champion founders in innovation, and a deep willingness to make introductions.
- Able to think beyond traditional ideas and knowledge to find solutions that can drive businesses forward in a practical and innovative manner.
- Curious with an insatiable desire to ‘figure it out’ when faced with adversity.
- Dedicated team player who can contribute to a vibrant team culture and core values, while working independently and with ambiguity, prioritizing multiple and changing demands.
- Self-starter with a solution-focused mindset, always seeking learning opportunities through success and failures, with exceptional attention to detail.
- Excellent communication skills in English, both oral and written, are required to effectively perform key responsibilities such as preparing reports, delivering presentations, and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders.
- Software savvy – we’re a Microsoft shop and leverage tools like Slack, Gemini, GPT, Monday.com and HubSpot. Experience with Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) is an asset.
- Valid driver's license with access to a vehicle.
- Resides in Elgin, Huron, Lambton, Middlesex, or Oxford County.
- Fluency in French is an asset.
