Michael Cohen
Mike was passionate – about his family, his friends, his work and his life. Everything Mike did was with boundless energy, from working out, playing poker with his friends, spending time with his family and investing.
At VenGrowth, Mike found his calling. Mike was a natural born investor — he had great instincts. He was always reading and researching. He always knew the right questions to ask. Mike served as a board member on many of the companies in which we invested. He was a highly respected, and sometimes feared, board member — always contributing sage, insightful and creative advice. He had high expectations and would hold the management teams accountable to achieving performance. Mike would never hold back, he always would speak his mind and those companies definitely performed better because of Mike’s contribution.
Managing other people’s money is a huge responsibility and one Mike took very seriously. That’s partly the reason Mike had such high expectations of our investee companies and the employees at VenGrowth. Mike was incredibly principled and would stand his ground. He was a tough negotiator, but he would never take advantage of someone. There was always an integrity and fairness to the way Mike dealt with people. His word was his bond.
Mike was also a natural born leader and mentor. He worked very hard with the investment team, teaching them how to structure deals, or handle negotiations, the areas of due diligence to concentrate on, or how to deal with a sticky management situation. Mike was involved with every investment that VenGrowth made and always had something valuable to contribute.
Mike was a gifted businessman and was pivotal in building VenGrowth to one of Canada’s largest and most prolific venture capital firms. He helped foster and mentor some of Canada’s leading technology success stories. Mike leaves a lasting legacy in the Canadian business world in terms of the companies that were founded, the technologies that were developed and the jobs that were created. He also mentored junior investment analysts who went on to become some of the best Canadian venture capitalists in their own right.