Dr. Ellen Farrell

Dr. Ellen Farrell is an national-award winning mentor and expert in venture capital. She is an advocate for venture capital as a way for founders to grow scalable growth companies.  She understands founders, empathasizes with them and designs ways to help them understand that if you have a passion but no money, venture capital can be a pathway to success for you.  

Investoready, her new program for women, helps founders focus on the difficult question and answer (Q&A) sessions.  The Q&A is more important than the pitch because that is where the funding is decided.   There is a little known secret that most people do not know about raising investment from VC.  She trains clients and trainers to transform founders’ abilities in Q&A that makes clients stand out from the crowd. 

She applied cutting-edge science to her decades of training to build a program of instruction for founders seeking VC.  Focusing on the Q&A, her team built software to help founders adapt to the right way to address Q&A conversations to excel in raising VC.  Using simple images and meaningful examples, founders and trainers gain valuable insights from Ellen’s methods.  It is no wonder she was twice recognized as one of the nation’s top mentors.  

She is looking forward to meeting you and your Entrepreneurship Centre, accelerator or incubator clients to train you in Investoready’s method, fuelling you and your clients’ pathways to success.

“The biggest misunderstanding about investor Q&A? It’s not about answering questions.”

— Dr. Ellen Farrell

Some facts about Dr. Ellen:

  • Twice recognized as nation’s top six mentors by BDC and Futurepreneur

  • Co-Director, Master of Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovationm 

  • Helped students found Venture Grade: Student Venture Capital Fund, a $265,000 fund raised and managed by students. 

  • Coached teams variously beating world’s leading universities in international VCIC

  • Top university teaching award Father William A. Stewart Medal for Teaching Excellence

  • Conducted research for Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, MaRS District, ACOA, and the Office of Economic Development 

  • Doctoral work in venture capital completed at the University of Nottingham

  • Student Association Award for Outstanding Excellence in Education

  • Wrote the business plan for Sandpiper VC, the new women’s VC fund.

Selected Works and Contributions of Dr. Ellen Farrell