Canadian VC's have a terrible habit of stringing along founders for months to try and gather more info/data on the companies and never giving a firm answer. It is one of the most destructive forces possible, it causes Founders to waste months chasing money when they should be building their product/teams, I've seen it kill many good companies with great founders who should have been given a chance to build a team/product, not chase money for months. Hopefully this fund will force Canadian VC's move faster, as long as there aren't any landmines in the terms... But with the government money invested I worry about the terms.
Second this. I had similar experience in 2003-2004. I guess things haven't changed much in last decade.
Another issue was the Canadian VCs being followers. It was funny when I was raising money in Canada. A few Canadian VCs I talked didn't return calls until I sent them email mentioning that I am visiting U.S. VCs tomorrow. The C. VCs called me at 11pm few minutes after I sent emails. I came back to U.S. by end of 2005.
It is most probably handout by politicians to their favorites. I had some interesting experiences trying to get govt funding too in Canada.
IMHO, government money is so tough to divy out. Mainly because there is a large group of people who are cheerleading for the investment to fail. That is, the opposition party and their supporters.
