Ka-Hay Law has been working at the intersection of business and impact for nearly two decades. As Partner at TELUS Pollinator Fund, she’s one of the women leading the charge on impact investing in Canada. In this ‘Women in Tech’ interview, The Tech Factor speaks to Ka-Hay on her background, impact investing in Canada, and about female founders in the Canadian startup ecosystem.
Ka-Hay Law has been part of the impact ecosystem for about two decades in Canada and Africa. For well over a decade, she’s been actively making impact investments in Canada. Earlier she held various roles at the Lundin Foundation for nearly 10 years. As Partner at TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good, she continues to have a ringside view of the impact ecosystem. As part of The Tech Factor’s ‘Women in Tech’ series, we find more about Ka-Hay and impact investing in Canada.
Ka-Hay Law: Two decades of intersection in business & impact
Ka-Hay Law was born and raised in a small blue-collar town in southern Ontario, surrounded by farmland. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with a bachelor’s engineering degree in materials sciences in 2004. She started her career in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) area in Canada, but soon moved to Africa. There, she lived and worked in Ghana, Zambia and Kenya, on various roles in small businesses and impact investing, before relocating to Canada in 2010.
We asked Ka-Hay about the journey and why she gravitated towards the impact ecosystem. She said – “I trained as an engineer. But my nearly two decades of career experience has centred around business and impact. I worked for a number of years supporting small business growth in Southern Africa where markets are still emerging. In that role, I saw the inner workings of charity backed initiatives. And while philanthropic efforts are important, I felt they were ultimately limited in how they could scale solutions.
I then transitioned to impact investing, directly investing in for profit start ups and building a direct investment portfolio across Africa. Throughout this experience, I was drawn to the impact ecosystem, as it harnessed the ambitions of founders towards solutions that could be commercially successful and create meaningful change for our communities, our environment, our health.”
Canadian startups building for impact has grown significantly
Ka-Hay Law began tracking the impact startup ecosystem in Canada upon her return in 2010. At that time, domestic impact and start up market was very nascent. And she found it to be in stark contrast to a vibrant ecosystem in East Africa, UK, and US. Therefore, she continued to focus internationally for a decade. So how has the ecosystem of tech and impact investing in Canada evolved since then?
She says – “Canada has always had good pockets of tech ecosystems that have produced significant global companies. Think Vancouver, Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa. I’ve noted in the last 7-8 years, a significant increase in the depth of startups in each of these markets. And also the expansion into new hubs – Victoria, Calgary, Montreal. Specifically in the impact ecosystem, the number of startups building for both commercial and impact scalability has significantly grown.”
Indeed, high growth in impact investing in Canada has been ongoing for over a decade. RIA Canada estimated the 2019 Canadian impact investing market to be about CA$20.3B. This was 5x larger than the 2013 CA$4.1B estimate and 50% more than the 2017 CA$14.8B estimate. Atlantic Canada’s growth of share of VC funding in Canada also points to a wider spread of startups across Canada.
And what does Ka-Hay Law specifically like about the Canadian ecosystem? She highlights – “I really like the collaboration across the ecosystem here in Canada. While there is healthy competition, there’s also a deep sense of supporting the community. And that’s a win-win for startups and the VC industry alike. And an important part of this is the growing pool of early-stage capital that are backing these founders and building the pipeline of startups.”
TELUS Pollinator Fund taking an ecosystem approach
TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good is the corporate impact venture arm of TELUS, and had launched in November 2020. Ka-Hay mentioned that it was started partly in response to support the increasing number of founders building for impact and profits.
The approach of TELUS Pollinator Fund is to provide wholistic support to entrepreneurs while impact investing in Canada. Ka-Hay said this was true both in terms of the scale of commitment from a corporate venture arm (launched with an initial $100M), but also in the ecosystem support, backing early stage funds, and accelerators that focus on founders, as well as releasing impact tools into the ecosystem, such as its Pollinator Impact Navigation tool.
She shared more details about its focus. “The Fund invests in four strategic areas: Sustainable Agriculture, Caring for our planet, Transforming Healthcare and Enabling Inclusive Communities. I lead our investments in Caring for our planet, which is focused on Climate Data Solutions, and enabling Climate Resilience and Sustainable Agriculture, which is looking at solutions that can reduce carbon emissions along the food and agriculture supply chain.
The TELUS Pollinator Fund invests into companies that are venture backable and can produce measurable impact in our focus areas. We invest in early to growth stage, with our sweet spot being Series A/B. We also work very closely with TELUS business units to leverage our corporate capabilities to both help start ups scale and drive strategic value. This is the unique synergy of a corporate impact venture fund.”
Thesis of impact investing in Canada & US similar
When asked to compare the ecosystem of impact investing in Canada with that of US, Ka-Hay shared a few points. She highlighted – “From an investment thesis perspective, there is not much difference between Canada and US impact investors. Especially in climate, there is venture capital north and south of the border that is looking for really compelling start ups.
That said, from an investor standpoint, the US has more investors, and a broader range of capital available to support startups with the many variations of capital required – from high capex solutions to hardware enabled solutions to deep tech. This opens up different options to help companies as they grow and mature through different capital requirements. From a start up perspective, there are also just more start ups in the US that can access a much larger market faster and demonstrate traction in a shorter timeline.”
So were there no unique benefits that Canadian impact founders had? She disagreed – “There are benefits to Canadian founders. There is less competition in the market and with investors. And there’s improved access to non-dilutive funding that can be really meaningful to early stage founders looking to demonstrate product market fit and early traction.”
No better time to be a woman in Canadian tech
While the share of women angels has been increasing, we asked Ka-Hay how participation of women in startups & impact investing in Canada has evolved over time.
She was optimistic – “There’s never been a better time to be a woman founder. There’s a growing recognition of the opportunity (and need) for venture capital to flow to founders that don’t fit the traditional, as this can be a significant untapped opportunity. A number of funds exist to back early-stage founders and these are all funds led by really compelling women leaders, which can be really meaningful for a founder looking for investors with shared values.
At the TELUS Pollinator Fund, backing diverse founders has been a key tenet to our investment thesis – we believe that diverse-lived experiences can offer an advantage to new opportunities that the mainstream market has not yet recognized. We just completed our 2023 impact review and are pleased that 38% of our portfolio companies are led by women, and 50% are led by founders who are Indigenous or have racialized backgrounds.
There have also been really important initiatives in the industry to support women. Organizations like Canadian Women in VC have been really instrumental in recent years in building a community and network of support for women in VC. Networking is so crucial to venture investing and having a safe community to support women through all stages of their career is truly valuable. Organizations like CapInclusive also do important work as they work with existing funds to help identify how a fund’s culture could better support diversity and inclusion. These would not have existed 10 years ago, and while there is still a lot of work to be done, there is progress to bringing more women into this industry.”
Advice to women & founders from Ka-Hay Law
So finally, what would be the key advice from Ka-Hay Law to other women who are just starting as startup investors or startup founders in Canada? She signed off with a pointed recommendation – “Reach out. Ask for a coffee chat. The community is really vibrant and you’ll find a friend here in the impact and start up ecosystem.”
She’s also open to meeting and learning from founders in general or for TELUS Pollinator Fund. Feel free to to connect with her on LinkedIn.
