Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner

Investor Stage

Early stage Venture,Late Stage Venture

Tony van Marken is Managing Partner of First Ascent Ventures based in Toronto, Canada. He serves as a board member / observer of Rubikloud, Q4 Inc, Sensibill, Dialogue and ThinkData Works and is a mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Tony has had a successful career as an award winning high-tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, management consultant and independent investor having worked in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and France.

Recognized as a leader in his field, Tony was honoured in 1998 as one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 and was awarded the 1996 Canadian Venture Capital Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Tony sumitted Everest in 2005 to become the first South African to climb the original seven continental summits (Kosciusko version). He has completed over 35 high altitude climbing expeditions with over 65 summits on seven continents. Tony is also a veteran endurance athlete having completed numerous marathons and ultra-marathons (2x Two Oceans) as well as some of the world's most challenging mountain bike stage races including the Cape Epic (2x), Trans Andes (Patagonia, Chile) and the Legend of El Dorado (2x) (Colombia).

He has worked as a motivational speaker around the world and lectured on Leadership at Oxford University (Saïd Business School), Duke University Corporate Executive Education and the University of Cape Town (Graduate School of Business).