GCV Powerlist 2017: Paul Sestili

Paul Sestili said Rogers Venture Partners (RVP) was proud to be the most active Canadian corporate venture investor, according to GCV Analytics data presented at the inaugural Canadian Corporate Innovation Summit last month.

He added: “RVP has had an exciting past couple of years. We have invested in emerging technologies, such as blockchain, and disrupting the healthcare and finance verticals, with investments in PokitDok and SecureKey.

“RVP has also focused on segments transforming digital media and the TV viewing and video advertising experience with investments in Cognitive Networks, acquired by Vizio, and Watchwith, acquired by Comcast.

“Personally, I have spent significant time exploring the transformation of marketing automation within small and medium business, with investments in Yodle, acquired by Web.com, and Five Stars. The RVP team continues to conduct industry deep dives and white papers, most recently within virtual and augmented reality, while analysing investments across the entire stack.”

Having originally worked at oil major Chevron’s corporate venturing group in the late 1990s, Sestili was a venture capitalist at APV Technology Partners and then Mezzanine Capital Partners from 2000 until he joined the corporate venturing unit established by Canada-based telecoms and media firm Rogers Communications in 2013.

Sestili, who is also on the board of Next Issue Media, has also spent the past year as chairman of the corporate venture group of US trade body the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

He said: “It has been an incredibly enjoyable year working with many corporate and institutional investors around the world. NVCA’s latest initiative, of which I am very proud to be a part, is the mentoring program, which we launched in January [at the Global Corporate Venturing & Innovation Summit].

“I will be presenting the initial data and feedback from the program during an unpanel session [at the GCV Symposium in London].”

For his GCV Rising Star award last year, Sestili said corporate venturing ultimately came down to networking. “In addition to getting to know our fellow corporate venturers, we need to work with as many financial VCs as possible. The best opportunities and outcomes result from introductions and co-investment within your network. The more people we all know, the better off we all are. And those networks are the building blocks for long-term corporate venture capital viability.”