About
Adam
McNamara.
Computer scientist, former founder and Shopify's first VP Product. Adam has backed outlier founders since 2012, often in deep tech.
Backing founders who could
define their industry.
I co-founded a mobile product company that Shopify acquired. I stayed on as Shopify's first VP Product and spent three years helping build what's now one of the most important commerce platforms on earth.
I'm a computer scientist by training, and my favourite part of this work is learning fundamentally new science from the people who discovered it. I also know how hard it is to raise money for ideas that look too strange or too early. Most investors want proof first, so founders working on important things spend their time convincing people instead of building.
We try to fix a small part of that with a fast, independent and technically informed decision. Since 2012 we've invested our own money in outlier founders, often in deep tech and mostly in Canada. If you're one of them, I'd love to learn more.
Background
General Partner. A Canadian family office making angel investments in founders whose companies could define their industry.
Shopify's first VP Product. Built the merchant platform and the product organisation during hypergrowth, as Shopify grew from startup to a commerce platform used by millions.
Co-founded a mobile product company. Shopify acquired it, which led to the VP Product role.
Software engineer working at the intersection of cryptography, signals analysis, and national security.
Software engineer building systems to detect and disrupt financial crime at national scale.
The foundation for everything since: reading papers, evaluating hard technical problems, and knowing what's actually hard.