I had the privilege recently of attending the Great North Ventures annual reception. It was a wonderful experience to see and chat with so many of my favorite people, all in one room — successful founders and smart investors who’ve been a major part of building the Minnesota startup ecosystem over the years. I’m grateful to my friends at Great North for putting together such an excellent event.
Not only was the networking special — and the bites and drinks! — but Rob and Ryan Weber put together a great program as well, featuring three entrepreneurs they’ve backed over the years:
• Mynul Khan, founder and CEO of Field Nation, who shared lessons from nearly two decades of building and the compounding value of capital-efficient growth and perseverance.
• Atif Siddiqi, founder and CEO of Branch, who talked about scaling one of the country’s leading workforce payments platforms and the growing opportunity around embedded financial infrastructure.
• Nir Dremer, co-founder and CEO of CapitalOS, who shared his perspective from Stripe, Tipalti and now CapitalOS on how financial products are increasingly becoming embedded directly into the software businesses use every day.
Left to right: Rob Weber, Atif Siddiqi, Mynul Kahn, Nir Dremer, Ryan Weber
As Rob said in his recap of the event, “We also had the opportunity to share an update on Great North and Fund III, including why we’re particularly excited about the opportunities we’re seeing today in vertical AI and embedded financial technology. Most importantly, nights like this reinforce what we have always believed: venture works best as a network. Capital matters, but so do the relationships, introductions, operating experience and willingness to help one another along the way.”
Ryan added: “We brought together investors, founders, operators, business leaders and friends of Great North for an evening of candid conversation about building companies, navigating change, and where some of the biggest opportunities in technology are emerging.”
I was struck by Ryan’s comments about how success is so much more than just capital: “Great North has always been a network-driven fund. Some of the most valuable things we can do aren’t writing checks — they’re introducing a founder to a customer, helping someone find a critical hire, connecting investors and entrepreneurs, or bringing in another operator who has already lived through the problem.”
It’s been a great pleasure for me to be part of the Great North Ventures community for close to ten years now, and I look forward to keeping in touch with all the wonderful people I have gotten to know,
(For more, see the LinkedIn pages of Rob Weber and Ryan Weber.)
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