Ray Matthews

Ray Matthews is a Vancouver-area entrepreneur, venture capitalist and marketing strategist whose career has spanned education, business building and life-sciences finance. A former Master Teacher in Nanaimo, British Columbia, he is also a Rotary Foundation Scholar who pursued graduate studies at the University of Queensland in Australia. He is described on his own site as a former educator, author and entrepreneur who specializes in marketing, business development and financing.

Matthews' entrepreneurial track record began with Balance Sportswear, a direct-sales apparel company he scaled to multi-million-dollar revenue and sold within roughly 24 months. He went on to become a fixture of the British Columbia venture capital scene. In 2001 he co-founded Qwest Emerging Biotech Fund (VCC) Ltd., a boutique life-sciences venture fund that won the Canadian Venture Capital Association's "Deal of the Year" award for its successful exit of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, returning roughly 23.4x to investors.

He is also a founding partner of Lions Capital and BC Advantage Funds, where he served in a sales, marketing and business-development capacity (VP of Sales and Marketing per his LinkedIn). Across these vehicles he has been credited with helping aggregate over half a billion dollars in venture capital and portfolio-company financings. He played a capital-markets and investor-awareness role for flagship portfolio company Tekmira (later Arbutus Biopharma), where his work helped drive an approximately 15x return for investors, and he advised regenerative-medicine company Sernova Corp (TSX-V: SVA), associated with an approximately 10x investor return.

Today Matthews runs Ray Matthews & Associates Inc. (raymatthews.ca), a strategic advisory and "venture catalyst" practice. The firm develops marketing, financing, branding and communication strategies for private and public companies — and selectively fuels, funds and supports a small number of early-stage founders. Matthews positions himself as a seed investor, investor-relations professional and start-up strategist with exit expertise, having previously worked with OP4 Media Networks.

• Backs early-stage / seed companies as an angel investor and "venture catalyst," combining capital with hands-on marketing, branding, investor-relations and capital-markets support.
• States the firm fuels, funds and supports "a finite number of entrepreneurs who are disruptive & unconventional" — founders with "insatiable desire and courage" to meaningfully improve their industries.
• Strong bias toward life sciences, biotech and regenerative medicine, reflecting his Qwest, Tekmira and Sernova track record — but also technology and growth-stage public/private companies.
• Value-add is positioned around storytelling, message-building, branding and aggregating investors — i.e., helping companies "start conversations" and build market awareness to raise capital.
• Looks for companies that can credibly achieve outsized exits; his marquee deals (Aspreva 23.4x, Tekmira ~15x, Sernova ~10x) signal a focus on high-multiple, exit-driven outcomes.