John Stokes, Real Ventures, Wins 2025 Barry Gekiere Lifetime Legacy Award
John Stokes has lived and worked all over the world. He spent the first part of career as an entrepreneur, starting his own tech companies and working for VC-backed and publicly traded businesses in places like New Zealand, South Africa, and Hong Kong. After a couple of exits, Stokes looked back at his experience working with VCs and realized that it wasn’t very positive. He decided to become an angel investor and to give other startups a better experience than he’d had.
After meeting his wife in Japan, Stokes followed her back to her home city of Montréal. At that point in his career, he also segued from angel investing to VC fund management. “I was in a new place and trying to get established, so I did a lot of networking to try to develop relationships,” recalls Stokes. “At the time the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Montréal wasn’t very strong and I quickly decided that I wanted to change that and bring the same vibrancy and excitement I’d experienced elsewhere to my new home.”
One of the people Stokes met early on was Shahir Guindi, Chair Emeritus and Partner at Osler. “John immediately struck me as a very smart, charming, and compelling guy,” says Guindi. “I wouldn’t have guessed that an outsider and an anglophone would be able to enter what was a pretty insular industry at the time and start his own sector. He wanted to set the tech ecosystem on fire by introducing seed and pre-seed incubation financing, which we hadn’t had before, and that’s exactly what he did.”
If You Build It, They Will Come
In 2007, Stokes co-founded Real Ventures, an early-stage VC known for nurturing entrepreneurs. “I always try to be there and to show up for the entrepreneurs we back,” says Stokes. “Sometimes that means being willing to spend time with them and listen. Other times it means helping the entrepreneur figure out how to tell their story in the most impactful way or being direct with them when others aren’t willing to be. As a VC, my job isn’t to build their business. It’s to get them to the best place possible to realize their full potential.”
Over the years, Real Ventures has invested out of five funds, backing over 60 high-growth tech companies that are collectively valued at more than $15 billion. In doing so, Real Ventures has played a foundational role in shaping Canada’s startup ecosystem. That includes launching FounderFuel, the country’s first and longest-running venture-backed accelerator. To date, FounderFuel has backed more than 100 companies — including Mejuri, BenchSci, Sonder, Paper, Unsplash, Zeffy, and Stay22 — creating a pipeline of globally successful startups that are headquartered in Canada.
At the same time, Stokes has been a catalyst for innovation across the ecosystem, regularly fostering deep, long-term partnerships between entrepreneurs and the broader investment community. This has included creating the spaces, programs, and initiatives that empower founders and strengthen the broader ecosystem.
Stokes co-founded the OSMO Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to accelerating the growth and international success of Montréal’s startup ecosystem. In 2011 OSMO launched Notman House, Montréal’s first dedicated campus for entrepreneurs. An abandoned mansion and former hospital, the 30,000-square-foot building became a hub where startups, investors, and industry leaders could come together to collaborate and support one another. “I wanted it to be a place that represents the entrepreneurial spirit and that gives entrepreneurs hope,” says Stokes. Notman House has housed hundreds of entrepreneurs since opening its doors in 2011.
Well-Deserved Recognition
“John is a true visionary,” says Guindi. “He’s passionate, extremely hardworking, relentless, and patient. He got everyone to believe in him and his vision and brought an entire sector to Canada. He’s truly the patriarch of the early-stage tech ecosystem in this country and has done so much to nurture young entrepreneurs and set them up for success. His accomplishments are truly inspiring.”
Stokes has been recognized with the Barry Gekiere Lifetime Legacy Award, sponsored by FASKEN, for his outstanding accomplishments. “I knew Barry reasonably well,” he says. “He was a special guy and I never would have imagined that someone like me would receive the award created for someone like him. It’s an honor and I feel very humbled to be seen to have some of the qualities that he showed throughout his life.”
In spite of all of his accomplishments across his career, Stokes shows no signs of slowing down. “A new reality is upon us,” he says. “Despite the economic progress we have seen, social and planetary challenges are on the rise. My big focus going forward is to figure out what role capital, creativity, and technology can play to help shift us toward greater harmony with the planet and toward social cohesion rather than unrest.”
More than 30 years into his career, Stokes appears to be just getting started.
