Four years ago, Fraser Hall and Dan Eisenhardt started Vancouver Founder Fund with one goal: to be the funders they wished they had had as founders. They also set out to address the underserved market of quality, early-stage capital available to entrepreneurs in Western Canada. While they have never wavered from their thesis, the name never felt right. Which is why we are very excited to announce our new brand: Rhino Ventures.

A lot has changed since the beginning. Our team has grown to 5 people, we’ve moved offices (now located inside a Zeppelin!), we’re investing out of our second…

Vancouver, August, 16, 2018 Frustrated with our previous experience of raising capital as founders in the B.C. ecosystem, it became apparent that there was a lack of quality capital available to B.C. companies. Our investors wavered between being overbearing and absent, which resulted in them never being aligned with our interests or bringing any real value beyond capital. Like any founder, we set out to solve this problem. We started VFF in 2015 with a $14 million dollar “proof of concept” fund with a thesis of being true service-based investors who can add tangible value to the companies we invest…

TL;DR We invested in Article, despite a founder being a GP, and we’re glad we did.

We are pleased to announce our participation in the $4M USD [$5M CAD] seed funding announced today by Klue, a Vancouver-based start-up that has built a platform supporting competitive intelligence in the sales cycle. The round is led by OMERS Ventures with additional participation from BDC, SK Ventures and other existing angels including Ryan Holmes (CEO, Hootsuite), Jonathan Ehrlich (Partner, Foundation Capital) and Daniel Debow (former SVP Salesforce, CEO Helpful).

Founded by 15+ year industry veterans — Jason Smith, former President of Vision Critical, and Sarathy Naiker, former Chief Technologist at Sophos/Active State, the Klue team is working to improve…

Vancouver Founder Fund Closes its First Venture Fund at $14.1 Million

Vancouver, November 2, 2016 — Vancouver Founder Fund (VFF) has closed its first fund with a total of $14.1 million in committed capital. Based in Vancouver, the VFF team are first-time fund managers who believe in a “service-based” approach to venture capital: using their own entrepreneurial and management experience to “extend the capacity” of founding teams is a central part of their investment thesis.

Fraser Hall and Dan Eisenhardt founded VFF with a determination to do things differently. They are pulling from their own experience raising early-stage capital from…