ОБ ЭТОМ ЭПИЗОДЕ
Katy Yam of Real Ventures joins Nectar, Gabriel and Ian on short notice for an episode that turned into Tech Politique. The crew covers the national investment summit, why the money keeps skipping early stage, Real's long bet on quantum, the Quebec election, Canada's AI sovereignty push, and why it's still a great time to build.
Show notes This episode was supposed to be about tech. Then Canada happened.
Katy Yam of Real Ventures stepped in on short notice, coming straight from a board meeting, to join Nectar Economakis, Gabriel Sundaram and Ian Jeffrey. They start with the national investment summit, where there were big announcements and plenty of growth capital but very little for early stage. Mecha's $60M Sequoia round with no Canadian investors on the cap table shows the cost of that gap.
Katy looks back at Real's early quantum and AI bets, including Xanadu, now public, and JS's role in building the Sherbrooke quantum hub. That leads into a discussion of commercialization, the lessons of Element AI, and Eric Ries's argument that innovation doesn't come from converging on best practices.
The crew then gets into the Quebec election: the CAQ's collapse, a PQ minority, and what referendum talk does to US investor appetite. Katy explains how fonds fiscalisés and Investissement Québec support the ecosystem, and why the sector should hold up whatever the government. They also talk about the All In conference, the vandalism at Mila, AI's knowledge gap, Radical's $1B fund, and Carney's new AI council.
They close on the bigger picture. They debate sovereign capability against cross-border collaboration on quantum, and Nectar shares Peter Zeihan's 2040 timeline for the US, from the Maverix AGM. Katy brings in Ray Dalio's cycles and talks about the European and Middle East capital building bridges into Canada. The crew finishes on seed-strapping and why hard times make for strong founders.
