Dominic Talalla

Dominic Talalla is a Toronto-based venture investor and operator who serves as Managing Partner of Trellis Capital Corporation, a private venture firm founded in 2000 that provides growth capital to small- and mid-sized Canadian technology companies in the industrial, manufacturing, alternative-energy, and IT-infrastructure sectors. In 2019 he co-founded Dash40 Ventures alongside Sunil Selby (with Humza Teherany chairing its advisory board), an early-stage fund focused on Toronto-area startups. Talalla is a hands-on investor: consistent with Trellis's operating model, he currently serves as CEO of Datec Coating Corporation, a materials-technology company he helped grow from an early stage to a roster of blue-chip customers.

Before his investing career, Talalla spent more than four years as Investment Director at BDC Venture Capital, where he evaluated and invested in advanced-technology companies and sat on the boards of several portfolio companies. Earlier, he was General Manager of the Canadian Sales Operation for General Electric's Industrial Systems business. He has also taught venture capital coursework at McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Business.

He is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) who graduated from McMaster University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering & Management (Class of 1992) and holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University. He has held or holds director roles at Volante (Systems), iS5 Communications, Datec Coating Corporation, and Teraspan, and sits on the boards of the Hamilton Innovation Factory and the McMaster Engineering Industrial Advisory Council.

• Invests at the early/seed stage in ventures that have already been pilot-tested and have established customer validation — not pre-product concepts.
• Check size: up to roughly $300K in a first round through Dash40 with follow-on available; larger $0.5M–$2M cheques available through Trellis Capital when the opportunity warrants.
• Backs "Innovators, Disruptors, Builders and Visionaries" tackling significant problems with meaningful solutions "rather than minor improvements."
• Core value proposition is go-to-market help: the firm believes an early-stage company's primary challenge is "access to potential customers and channel partners," and it leans on its executives' networks to help founders "navigate through hierarchies and divisions within enterprises" and reach senior leaders who can "validate revenue opportunities."
• States that "collaboration between entrepreneurs and investors on revenue growth is essential to their shared success" — an operator-investor, revenue-first philosophy reflected in his own CEO role at a portfolio company.
• Sector lean toward industrial tech, materials, communications/IT infrastructure, and B2B/fintech software, consistent with his engineering background and Trellis's historical focus.