Ryan Holmes

Ryan Holmes (born December 30, 1974, in Vernon, British Columbia) is a Canadian internet entrepreneur best known as the founder of Hootsuite, the social media management platform. Raised on a rural farm, he was a serial entrepreneur from an early age — running a paintball business in high school and later opening the Growlies pizza restaurant in Vernon (1997–1999). He attended Okanagan College for business and computer science but dropped out; he was later awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of British Columbia in 2018.

After moving to Vancouver, Holmes taught himself web design and founded the digital agency Invoke Media, out of which Hootsuite was built in 2008 as an internal tool for managing social media accounts. Hootsuite spun off as an independent company, raising a $1.9M Series A in 2009, $20M from OMERS Ventures in 2012, and a landmark $165M Series B in 2013 — at the time the largest venture financing for a Canadian software company. Under Holmes the platform grew to serve millions of users, including a large share of the Fortune 100.

Holmes has since shifted much of his focus to backing the next generation of founders. In 2013 he coined the term "Maple Syrup Mafia" to describe Canada's emerging tech ecosystem, and he founded the League of Innovators (originally "The Next Big Thing"), a charity/accelerator that builds entrepreneurial skills in young people. In December 2021 he and fellow investor Manny Padda launched LOI Venture, a ~$20M fund investing in tech founders under 30, largely drawn from the LOI accelerator pipeline. He is also an author (*The $4 Billion Tweet*, *Saving Social*) and a longtime contributor to Forbes, Fast Company, and Inc.

• Backs young founders: LOI Venture "backs founders under 30 usually building tech products attending the LOI Program" — a highly curated, accelerator-fed deal flow.
• Stage & check size: Pre-seed and seed; fund cheques of roughly $100K–$300K, with SPVs able to push a round toward ~$1M.
• Sectors: Broad early-stage tech — SaaS/enterprise applications, consumer, AI, fintech, health, climate, and social.
• Geography: Canada-first with US reach; historically an active champion of the Canadian ("Maple Syrup Mafia") startup ecosystem.
• Operator-investor edge: Combines capital with hands-on mentorship — pitch reviews, AMAs, go-to-market and distribution coaching — leaning on lessons from scaling Hootsuite. He still codes and prototypes himself.
• Angel/syndicate track record: Roughly 39 personal investments over his career, weighted toward enterprise applications and consumer.