Who Attended the StartUp Toronto Summer Bash?
By Chuck Black
There was only room for four hundred people at the August 9th, 2016 StartUp Toronto Summer Bash. The summer bash was held at the Marché Mövenpick in downtown Toronto. Seems like everyone came out to celebrate the growth of the Start-up Toronto’s Meetup group to 2500 members.
Here are a few attendees.
First off meet, Michelle Kostiuk and Hans Schnell are from Shoppspace. A group of likeminded entrepreneurs shaking the foundation of co-working in Toronto, at least according to their instagram page.
To learn more, or to check out their co-working space, go to
Another guest we talked to Cong Wang is an innovation consultant, entrepreneur and project manager. Currently making Kitchener/ Waterloo his home, which makes for quite the commute from downtown Toronto.
His resume currently lists three hats as the innovation consultant & president of Synchronous Incubation and Development Labs, the co-founder & CTO of Verse Software Lab Inc. and the director/ senior technical advisor at INVUZE™ Digital Media Solutions, Inc.
Edward Wensing and Logan Prong are co-founders of Verkspace. A Toronto based co-location facility which takes inspiration from the Scandinavian way of life while Balancing hard work with passion and a sense of community.
The name derives from the old Norse term Verk, which is a space to get work done and make things happen.
Then I ran into more memorable attendees
Next, we found these two ladies enjoying Startup Toronto Summer Bash. Svetlana Ratnikova, the chief operating officer for leadership development at the RTG Group. While Margo Langford is a partner at First Stone Venture Partner. Each performs different roles to support Canadian start-ups.
Svetlana is part of a team of marketing and creative strategists who help entrepreneurs, companies, and nonprofits “create a better world through business.”
Margo is part of a venture partnership which plans on raising $5M to make 25 investments in new start-ups over the next three years.
Tessa Thomas is the founder of @FITKNOWTS, which provides five-page summaries of the best health and fitness books.
According to Thomas,” Books are long. No one has time to read a stack of books each month in search of a few golden nuggets of health and fitness wisdom. ”
Her company is addressing that issue.
Arash Alboraz is the CEO of the ARPA Group.
He’s currently working on an innovative application. Wrapped around elements of gamification theory. The app allows for new forms of interaction. In addition to online reviews (while you’re in the store) and discounts from retail outlets.
Ask Callum Hewitt where he was a month ago? He’ll tell you that he was working at his old job as a talent manager at Venatrix in the UK. He was recruiting graduate sales talent for the UK’s hottest disruptive tech companies.
Now he’s currently just relocated to Toronto, where he plans to perform much the same role, once he settles in (and gets used to the humidity).
What’s Next
Since we don’t want you to miss anything. Some noteworthy upcoming StartUp Toronto events include a Business Plan Workshop Aug 30. Startup Drinks Toronto Sept 13. Marketing Plan Workshop Sept 27. On Sept 21 will be at the Fundica Roadshow Finale in Waterloo.
Join Startup Toronto now TorontoStarts at our upcoming events on our EventBrite page!
In conclusion, don’t miss the next Startup Toronto Summer Bash or our next Startup Social Open Pitch Open Bar Open Networking
We look forward to seeing you there.
