As Chair and Managing Partner, Jess plays a pivotal role in shaping the firm’s strategic direction and ensuring alignment with its mission. She oversees investment activities, evaluating, selecting, and managing portfolio companies to drive growth. Jess leads the management team, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture.
Jess’s entrepreneurial journey began in university when she founded a web development company that evolved into a thriving online marketing firm. Over the last 25 years, Jess has transitioned from leading Insiteful Solutions to investing in high-growth startups. With her extensive business and board management experience, Jess became Executive Director of York Angel Investors (YAI) in 2014, where she drove a 450% membership growth and significantly boosted deal flow and investment amounts, earning YAI top rankings among Canadian angel investor networks.
In October 2019, Jess launched Equation as its founding CEO, uniting three prominent angel groups to create Ontario’s largest and Canada’s second-largest angel network. Under her leadership, Equation offered streamlined funding processes for founders and exclusive investment opportunities for its 200 member investors. Jess successfully transitioned out of this role, having established Equation as a key player in the investment community, to focus on other impactful projects.
Throughout her career, Jess has been a leader in Canada’s entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem, coaching and mentoring early-stage innovators, speaking at industry events, and serving on the NACO Board since 2017. Jess’s passion for connecting people, technology, and opportunities drives her commitment to growth, innovation, and community development. She continues to make significant contributions to the entrepreneurial landscape while keeping an eye out for the next big thing.
Mr. Baron has decades of experience in deal structuring, debt and equity financing, many RTO’s and IPO’s and private placements ranging in size from $5 million to $75 million. His experience includes management of national accounting and audit teams and structuring simultaneous mergers into single public and private entities. He has acted as interim COO and CFO for many of the companies he has advised.
Joe is a Business Development Analyst at Spyder Capital, where he plays a pivotal role in identifying and nurturing investment opportunities. With a keen eye for emerging market trends and innovative startups, Joe excels in conducting thorough market research and high level financial analysis to inform strategic decisions for the lead investors. His curiosity and passion for entrepreneurship and his analytical prowess enable him to support portfolio companies in achieving their growth objectives. Joe’s collaborative approach and commitment to excellence make him an invaluable asset to his team, driving the firm’s mission to support groundbreaking ventures and foster economic growth.
Mr. Rudy Joss, the founding partner of this firm, brought a wide range of experience to his work. His investment philosophy, centered on the discovery and development of innovative technologies, continues to shape our approach today. Rudy’s career began at IBM, where he worked for 15 years before founding CMS Software in 1986. He led the company as President until its merger with XKO Software in 2007, which was then rebranded as Solarsoft Business Systems. Under his leadership as Chairman, Solarsoft completed several successful acquisitions before being acquired by Epicor.
Rudy’s contributions to Spyder Capital laid a solid foundation for our success, and his legacy lives on in the principles he popularized. He also served as Director of York Angel Investors Inc. until his passing, leaving behind a legacy of dedication to fostering technological innovation and investment.
