David Dufresne

David Dufresne has more than 20 years of experience across Canadian venture capital and startup operating roles. He began his VC career in the early 2000s as an investment manager at Desjardins Venture Capital (roughly 2001–2008) and later worked with the BlackBerry Partners Fund (now Relay Ventures). He holds an MSc in business management from Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.

Between VC stints, Dufresne moved to the operating side, serving as CEO of the music-technology company Bandzoogle for about five years (~2010–2015) and then as Head of Strategy/Growth at the music platform Bandcamp. He returned to venture capital as a founding partner of 500 Startups Canada, and in March 2018 co-founded Montreal-based Panache Ventures alongside Mike Cegelski, Patrick Lor and others. Panache grew into one of the most active seed-stage funds in Canada, closing its inaugural fund at roughly $58M.

Dufresne stepped away from Panache Ventures in May 2021, citing divergence with his partners on strategy, investment process, fund operations and team management for Fund II. He subsequently built an angel portfolio and launched CMD Capital, a fund intended to lead seed rounds in AI-strong startups. CMD Capital halted fundraising in February 2025 amid a difficult VC market. In mid-2025 he joined AQC Capital (Anges Québec Capital), a Québec-government-backed firm that co-invests with the Anges Québec angel network, as an investment partner helping deploy the remainder of its second fund.

He is also an associate/mentor with Creative Destruction Lab's Montreal AI stream and a recurring mentor and speaker in the Canadian startup ecosystem (Startupfest, NEXT Canada).

• Invests at pre-seed and seed, the earliest institutional stages, typically co-investing alongside angels and other seed funds.
• Sector interest spans consumer internet, enterprise software, and AI; his CMD Capital thesis targeted startups "using AI in non-trivial ways to solve industry problems" (i.e., applied AI over hype).
• Emphasizes a founders-first philosophy and leans on operator experience (having been a startup CEO himself) and a network spanning Canada and Silicon Valley.
• At AQC Capital, his mandate is to bring new deal flow through his Canadian and U.S. venture connections and to invest in a handful more companies through Fund II.
• Historically flexible check sizes (roughly $100K–$10M at Panache, ~$1M sweet spot); as an angel, checks are smaller and network-driven.