Mantella Venture Partners Welcomes Serial Entrepreneur, Chris Sukornyk as Venture Partner

    TORONTO, ON, October 26, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Early stage venture capital firm Mantella Venture Partners (MVP) today announced that Chris Sukornyk has joined the firm as Venture Partner. Sukornyk, who recently founded and sold the digital marketing platform Chango for $120m USD, is a serial entrepreneur having built and sold 5 previous startups.  His extensive operational experience founding, building, scaling and exiting early stage startups will dovetail with the firm's focus on seed stage tech investments.

"MVP was an early investor in my most recent company. As a founder, I absolutely loved the hands-on approach and sounding board they provided during what is traditionally a very lonely experience.  In my 20+ years as a start-up entrepreneur, I've learned a great deal that I now hope to share with other Canadian entrepreneurs. MVP has a great platform to do this, having one of the best early stage track records in Canada with investments and exits in companies like Ritual, Chango, Pushlife, Unata, SurfEasy, ChatKit, Wysdom, and more."

Sukornyk has built 5 startups that all leveraged technology in rapidly changing markets.  With his most recent venture Chango, Sukornyk focused on the convergence of online marketing and big data to successfully scale the business to 175 employees across North America and Europe.  For this success, Sukornyk was honored as Entrepreneur of the Year in Ontario by Ernst & Young; and Chango was ranked one of Canada's top 50 fastest growing startups by Deloitte.

"Chris is deeply knowledgeable about the early stages of a startup's life and the inevitable changes and adaptations founders must navigate," said Duncan Hill, General Partner at MVP. "We believe strongly that the key to continuing the Canadian start-up ecosystem's momentum is keeping people with Chris's skills and experience in Canada. Chris will be an amazing mentor and contributor to our portfolio, our investment strategy, and the ecosystem as a whole."

An avid surfer and outdoorsman, Chris is personally interested in the nexus of sustainability, technology and global connectivity. Chris is also an active angel investor with a personal portfolio that includes Ritual, ChatKit, PebblePost, and Selina.

About Mantella Venture Partners

Mantella Venture Partners invests in exceptional entrepreneurs building market-altering software businesses. At MVP we invest early - more than half of our investments to date were incorporated in our office. MVP typically invests up to $1,000,000 at inception, with the ability to support subsequent rounds as required. We invest alone, or alongside other value-added venture and angel investors that share the belief that founder/investor alignment is key to building successful companies and profitable exits. After investment, our portfolio companies benefit from active, hands-on involvement in all phases of growth, including product development, business development, marketing, financing, and team development.

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