The second annual OKGN Angel Summit was another sign that the startup community is growing substantially in the valley.
Even the winner of this year’s $155,000—Minga founder Jason Richards—seemed more excited about the future than he did about the oversized cheque he was holding during one of the last public events in Kelowna before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
“No one’s going to ever say that winning’s not great, and I’m super excited to put the W in the column for this event,” Richards said. “As a long-time Kelowna tech entrepreneur, it’s a community win. We’ve spent years without an angel network with only a small number of companies in town.
“It’s a double win, and I love that. It’s a huge win for the community, and I’m pretty happy with the win for us.”
Minga, an education communication app, bested 44 other startups in the months-long contest. Thirty-six Okanagan investors put up $5,000 each to become an angel, and they whittled the field of startups from 45 to 24 to 12 and then to the final six, who presented their cases on March 12 at Kelowna’s Innovation Centre.
“It was a very different process this year,” OKGN Angel Summit fund manager Drew Shaw said. “This year was much more competitive. The quality was incredible. It was down to two companies, and it was a dead heat. There was a lot of debate.”
Shaw didn’t say which company finished as the runner-up, but the five who didn’t win the grand prize will likely still end up receiving seed money from the angels through connections made during the process.
In fact, last year’s winner, Trellis, ended up with less money from investors than some of the startups it beat in the competition. Essentially, everyone wins.
Richards sure is looking forward to having all of those angels in his corner.
“We’re going to bring in 30 successful business people from our community that now have a vested interest in seeing us be successful,” he said. “So that’s a huge component when you have those people in your corner as part of an event like this. That’s arguably probably long-term a bigger help (than the money).”
Minga was born out of Richards’ frustration with communication at his children’s schools. He came up with the idea three years ago, and he started selling it one year ago. He announced earlier this week that he is offering it to schools for free during the pandemic.
“Right now we break all this communication up into different places, and a lot of it is archaic tools,” he said. “Like, they’re still e-mailing kids. As parents, you’ll get a permission slip dragged out of the bottom of the knapsack, right? And that’s how I went to school.
“Minga’s about bringing all of that into one place, whether it’s the basketball team, the book club, a classroom or a whole school conversation. Everything’s in one place.”
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