BC Business: Top 30 Under 30
With its Top 30 Under 30 awards, B.C. Business Magazine celebrates B.C.’s “young guns, who excel in their respective industries, give back to the community and planet and who will lead business in this province for years to come.”
Venture Connection is proud to have three clients and alumni from the program named among B.C. Business Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30 for 2014:
Lisa Fraser
CEO of Squeezease Therapy Inc. and a VentureLabs client, Lisa began with an insight she had while teaching special needs children to swim: hugs help.
For her final project at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, she designed the Snug Vest, a therapeutic garment that inflates to provide pressure, like a hug. Derived from a practice called “deep pressure therapy,” it has a proven calming effect on children with autism, ADHD, and sensory disorders. She had never planned to commercialize the Snug Vest after graduating, but the positive feedback convinced her there was demand.
Michael Cheng
Cheng, co-founder of WittyCookie Digital Agency and more than a dozen other ventures, was in 2013 named one of Maclean’s magazine’s future leaders under 25, as well as the 2013 cohort for Next36.
He has received a litany of other awards, including the Surrey Board of Trade’s Top 25 Under 25, SFU’s Student Entrepreneur of the Year and the Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize.
You can read more about Michael in this SFU press release.
Milun Tesovic
A Venture Connection success story, Milun is best known as the founder of MetroLyrics, the song-lyrics website that was acquired by CBS Interactive Music Group in 2011 for what Tesovic describes as “well into eight figures.” At the time, it was the third-largest music site in the world, behind qq.com and Yahoo Music, with more than 45 million hits a month.
However, MetroLyrics is just one of a dozen startups Tesovic has launched since his teens. Although not all were successful, two others—Echolima Hosting Solutions and Arcadebanners .com—were also acquired in smaller deals. Today Tesovic retains an unofficial management role “across a couple of properties” at CBS, but spends the bulk of his time helping other startups. That commitment to the local startup scene includes investments through three venture funds, including Boris Wertz’s Version One Ventures. He has also invested directly in a handful of local startups, including Recon Instruments and Food.ee, and is an adviser to several more.
Awards will be presented to the winners on April 30th at a special cocktail reception. You can find more information on the awards, the reception, and other winners on the BC Business website.