Ten years doing technology M&A at Bennett Jones

So Graham, actually before our conversation I've been trying to figure out you because you have a very, let's say, unconditional, you have a very atypical profile, like looking at especially your law background. So today I was thinking about having a conversation about first who you are, and how your mind works, know, what happened till today that made you the person you are. And afterwards we can dive into your double roles. And then also I would like to talk about the Beyond Reach Labs investment. It's an amazing opportunity for us to turn the table and look at from an investor perspective who was one of the early backers of the team. We had a conversation with Pelle. If that sounds good for you, we can... design the conversation in this way and no scripts however it goes then we follow the flow.

Let's do it. think that's a great way to have a conversation today. I'm all yours. Fire away.

Awesome. All right. Is it true that you spent educate in a law firm as a lawyer?

Yes, it is. I practiced doing technology &A and technology financing at Bennett Jones here in Canada. Shout out to Bennett Jones, my boy Sebastian Gittins. He's killing it there still. ⁓ I did that for 10 years or just under 10 years.

Hahaha And it is quite impressive to see because for many people they might not reach the jump. But to me, when I take a look at the law, my sister is a lawyer. And actually having a lawyer in your side is an amazing thing because they can figure things out in a very matching way and reason very strongly if they have an ethical brain at the same time. But when I take a look at the law firm, it's always based on precedence and always looking backwards. and where you are today is almost totally opposite. Like you go forward to the unknown and then trying to do something that doesn't exist yet. Like maybe you can help us understand what happened.

great question. So I'll take you back in time. Before I did any of that stuff, I was an entrepreneur. Like I came out of high school and I went to get into entrepreneurship. And I did a number of startup companies that were like really small scale. And one that I did when I was living in British Columbia actually was relatively successful. It was importing electronic cigarettes. And this was before... electronic cigarettes were a big deal. Yeah, you know, there's one factory in China that was then producing them. It's like vapes, they call them vapes now. And I, you know, made some money doing it and I kept reinvesting the capital and reinvesting the capital. And eventually there's law passed, like a regulatory law passed while I had a boat on the way. And I had all my capital tied up in it and that failed.