Outgoing Accelerator Centre CEO & Bay Street Financier Responsible for Startup Funding
Tim Ellis, the former Chief Executive Officer of Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre has been brought on Michael Wekerle’s investment bank called Difference capital. Wekerle has also bought up a 50,000 square-foot former BlackBerry building at 156 Columbia St. According to the Record, Tim Ellis will be managing the property which will eventually house several local startups.
Ellis: “We Hope to Start Off with $200M”
In an interview with the Record Ellis told a reporter, “My partner, Michael Wekerle, is in the process of raising the funds now and he is pretty confident we can get to a couple hundred million to start, but ultimately we would love to see something up around $600 million, so it’s significant.”
Currently Unnamed Centre “Will Probably have the Word ‘Waterloo’ in There” says Ellis
The unnamed facility will offer coaching and mentoring services from a number of well-known technology start-up successes, including former CEO of Descartes Systems Group, Art Mesher. Over the past several years Ellis has seen many Waterloo-based start-ups eventually decide to leave the area as the region does not yet have sufficient capital funding to support maturing tech companies. The capital offered through Ellis and his partner will provide the flexibility to start-ups through longer term investments.
First Tenant of Columbia Street Building Moving In
Auvik Networks is the first tenant to set up in the Columbia Street Building. The company was founded in 2012 by local veterans of the Tech Sector including Marc Morin, a co-founder of Sandvine and PixStream, David Yach, former chief technology of software at BlackBerry, and Alex Hoff, a former product manager at Sandvine.
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