Portag3 Ventures announced on Thursday the creation of its new group of senior advisors, adding six members including industry leaders from Rockefeller Capital Management, RBC, and Google.
The advisors will be tasked with working with the venture capital firm to provide expertise to its portfolio companies, as well as support its investment team in sourcing deals.
“The quality of the individuals we have been able to attract as senior advisors speaks for itself,”
said Adam Felesky, CEO of Portag3. “We are rather humbled and very proud to welcome them to our platform as we continue to deploy Portag3’s second fund.”
Portag3’s six new advisors are:
- Gregory J. Fleming: president and CEO of Rockefeller Capital
Management, the US-based financial services firm founded by the Rockefeller family in 1882. Prior to leading Rockefeller, Fleming was president of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. - Greg Mills: former managing director of Global Equities at RBC Capital Markets, Mills
joined RBC in 1998 as head of equity trading. He is also an advisor to the Creative
Destruction Lab at the University of Toronto and has served as chair on committees including the Strategic Advisory Committee. - Richard Reiner: executive chair of Montreal-based Dfuse, a group “organizing the world’s blockchain information flows by providing robust, easy-to-use and reliable APIs and documentation.” He is also the executive chair of Fluent.ai, and Cybeats.
- SzeJack Tan: the head of growth marketing for Google Assistant at Google. Prior to joining Google, Tan co-founded a number of companies in Toronto including Performer Media an online ad network, that was acquired by Torstar.
- Imran Gulamhuseinwala: an implementation trustee for the Open Banking Implementation
Entity in the UK, Gulamhuseinwala was also a partner in the Financial Services practice and a global leader for FinTech at EY until earlier this year. - Peter Hancock: former president and CEO of AIG, Hancock spent 20 years at J.P. Morgan where he founded the global derivatives business, restructured and ran the fixed income and credit businesses and served as group CFO and Chief Risk Officer.
“Paul Desmarais III and Adam Felesky have a compelling vision focused on early-stage FinTech disruptors and a shared passion for partnering with ambitious, creative entrepreneurs,” Fleming stated. “Portag3 has a lot of momentum and I am honored to be part of it.”
RELATED: Power Financial now claims 89 percent stake in Wealthsimple following $30 million investment
Earlier this week, it was announced that Portag3 had led a $42 million Series B funding round for Toronto-based FinTech startup Koho. Portag3 has been working closely with Koho since 2016, when Power Financial (Portag3’s parent corporation) led an undisclosed bridge round in July 2016 with participation from angel investor Adam Felesky, who later became Portag3’s CEO. Portag3 also led the company’s $8 million Series A round in 2017. Felesky and Power Financial SVP and Portag3 executive chairman, Paul Desmarais III both sit on Koho’s board of directors. Portag3’s portfolio also includes Clearblanc, Wave, Borrowell, League, and Wealthsimple.
Felesky noted that the advisory board’s insight and expertise which span insurance, financial services, and more, “will be invaluable as we work to build global FinTech businesses.”
“They are building businesses with the chance to become global giants and I am excited to play whatever role I can in helping them achieve that,” Hancock stated.