​Rotman Commerce Entrepreneurship Organization, Venture Capital Group, and University of Toronto AI are collaborating to connect the University of Toronto community. The Co-Founder Mixer is the ultimate event to find your technical or non-technical co-founder, network with startup founders and VCs, and hear the stories of successful alumni founders.

​Co-Founder Mixer

​The event is designed to bring together students from across UofT (Rotman, CS, Eng, and more) to connect with potential co-founders. Attendees will also have the opportunity to hear from UofT alumni founders in tech and consumer packaged goods (CPG) and to network with peers and founders.

​Event Structure

​5:00 - Registration, Networking, Food
5:15 - Co-Founder Pairing Session
6:00 - Founder's Panel
6:45 - Networking
7:30 - Event Ends

​*Attendees should come prepared with at least one problem they face in their lives that could be solved with a startup and be ready to present it to everyone in attendance.

​Meet the Founders

​Can (John) Uncu (Co-Founder, CTO of Asepha) - John is the CTO of Asepha, a venture-backed healthcare startup using AI clinical tools to enable automation and personalization in pharmacies. Asepha participated in NEXT 36, winning the Venture of the Year Award, and was part of Techstars Toronto 2023.

​Christian Ibanez (General Partner of Dragonfruit Ventures) - While at Rotman Commerce, Christian was an early employee at VendorPM, a venture-backed B2B SaaS startup, where he helped raise a $20M+ Series A round. He was also an Investor at Feld Ventures and held various fractional C-suite roles at high-growth startups. Christian is now building Dragonfruit Ventures, combining his experience in both operating and investing to deploy capital to high-growth startups while offering fractional support.

​​​Jai Mansukhani (Co-Founder, CPO of OpenSesame) - Jai served as the Co-President of UofT AI and co-founded Lumos, an edtech startup that served clients such as Canada's largest school board. After Lumos, Jai started OpenSesame, a platform that helps companies quickly build, deploy, and test AI applications for the world to see.

​Sergey Sapelnyk (Co-Founder, Bedford Marketing) - Sergey co-founded the Rotman Commerce Entrepreneurship Organization in 2016 to provide student entrepreneurs with access to resources that were previously unavailable. Today, he operates two e-commerce CPG companies, Pearly Drinks and Society Socks, and also runs an e-commerce marketing agency, Bedford Marketing.

​​​​Registration

​The event is open to all, not only to University of Toronto students. Founders, investors, enthusiasts, and students from outside UofT are also welcome.

​Rotman Commerce (RC) students can register through the RC Portal or Luma, and UofT students can register via Luma. You'll receive the event confirmation and details before the event.