Derek Spratt

I am currently a mentor and advisor to tech companies and a board member of the BC Discovery Fund.

As a veteran of the Canadian tech space, I initially worked as a mobile products designer engineer for Motorola in their wireless data division, developing 1st generation public network mobile computing devices in the 1980s. In the 1990s I founded and ran 2 wireless tech companies, PCS Wireless (micro-cells, a precursor to WiFi networks) and Intrinsyc Software (IoT), which collectively raised more than $200M and employed over 500 people globally. In the mid 2000s I helped build BC Advantage Funds as a board and investment committee member, and advised Quorum Fund in Toronto and Bessemer Venture Partners in NYC on tech transactions. In the later 2000s I was CEO of a mobile app analytics company, Mobidia, which was sold to App Annie in 2015. I helped ScaleUP Ventures in its early days, a corporate Canada backed VC firm, by raising capital for the fund from BC investors (LPs), and acting as a partner and MD from 2017 to 2019.

Starting in the late 1990s I became an advisor to the BC Government and the TSX Venture Exchange, and held board positions with the Vancouver Enterprise Forum, Acetech, WinBC, DigiBC, and Wavefront – a wireless tech accelerator.

I helped bring Social Venture Partners (co-creating thriving sustainable and just communities) from Seattle to Vancouver in the late 1990s with a financial investment and a position on the board, worked with Sierra Legal Defence Fund/Earth Justice (environmental legal advocacy) as an investor and board member, helped build the BC Science-World Eurika Gallery as an investor and committee member, and helped found the Scientist in Residence Program (giving children early exposure to science and scientists) for Vancouver schools along Don Rix with matching financial investments and a position on the board of advisors.

I have been with my spouse Cheryl for the past 39 years. We have 3 grown children, Perry, Colin & Evan.