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“We are venture capital investors, so we invest in companies rather than incubate them,” she elaborates. “It involves a lot of helping founders with what they need, such as recruiting, product launch, customer development and strategy but it’s their company.”

Although she declined to discuss her current projects, saying the information is “stealth” because they are in the early stages of investing, she proudly pointed to Newsle and Context Relevant (a machine learning company), as two successful investments.

She thinks all those years on the ice and between the pipes has a lot to do with her professional success. “The goalie gets to watch the play unfold from a bit of a distance so you get a unique macro level versus always being in the thick of it,” she says. “The real art of goaltending is being able to get a good read on the players and predict what he/she is going to do.” After all, she adds, “you can never win a game as a goalie alone, so you get really used to pumping up the team around you.” And getting a read on a founder and the supporting team around that person is vitally important for a venture capital investor.

That’s why keeping the faith is the most important lesson she’s learned in her young career. “There is a lot of volatility in investing and in the early stage of building a company,” she explains. “Believing in our founders even when the world doesn’t yet agree is the most important thing.”

And being from Canada has made her feel comfortable on the American West Coast, she says. “I think San Francisco is a lot closer culturally to Canada and I miss that,” she explains. She describes it as “a bunch of intelligent people who love the outdoors, which is what I always associate with Canada.”

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