Mo Bazazi

Mo Bazazi is a Toronto-based investor, operator, entrepreneur, and filmmaker with an unusually varied path into venture capital. He earned a BA in Biological Sciences and later an MBA from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. As an entrepreneur he founded Call Link Telecommunications, which he grew into the largest carrier of voice traffic from Europe to Iran. He relocated to Toronto in December 2014, and early on worked as a consultant to MD Homecall (a Toronto medical-services startup) and served on the Saïd Business School (SBS) Seed Fund investment committee, overseeing seed-stage investments across edtech, telecoms, and enterprise software.

In Toronto he moved into technology investing, working with the OpenText Enterprise Apps Fund (OTEAF) assessing tech investments across the North American market before joining First Ascent Ventures. He completed a six-month internship with the fund and joined full-time in January 2016 as an Associate, rising to Senior Associate and then Vice President. Over his tenure he was involved in essentially all of First Ascent Ventures Fund I's transactions, handling deal sourcing, valuation, financial analysis, due diligence, portfolio management, and fund reporting.

At First Ascent, Mo served as a board observer for ThinkData Works and stepped in as interim CFO of ThinkData Works during the company's ~$8M Series A. He also provided partner-level support to portfolio companies including Sensibill, Rubikloud, Rock Content, and Q4 Inc. Alongside his fund work he has been a mentor at Techstars and an advisor/mentor to early-stage founders (published under "MR Bazazi").

More recently, Mo transitioned from the investing side into enterprise software operating roles. He is currently at Novisto (an ESG/sustainability data-management software company), holding the title of Director of Sales, North America / Enterprise Account Executive. He has also been active in the Oxford alumni community, serving as president of the Oxford Business Alumni (OBA) Toronto chapter.

• Invests through First Ascent Ventures in growth-stage (Series A/B) enterprise SaaS companies rather than seed or angel deals.
• Sector emphasis on enterprise software built on cloud, AI/ML, big data, 5G, mobility, IoT and blockchain, with a stated focus on privacy and security.
• Geographic focus is North America, sourced from First Ascent's Toronto and San Francisco offices.
• Looks for companies with real commercial traction where the fund can add hands-on operational value — Mo's own history of taking board-observer and even interim-CFO roles signals a "roll up your sleeves" style of engagement.
• His personal stated orientation, from his own writing: *"Looking for ventures, opportunities and new friends in the Toronto ecosystem."*