It was a very busy period here, starting with the Western Angel Investment Summit in Victoria last week. I wrote a round-up of the event here. The obvious thing was of course the excitement of being back in person. But what really struck me this time was the quality of the companies presenting and the progress companies have made through the pandemic period. The strong momentum in financing markets enabled lots of companies to keep raising and building. In particular deep tech companies were able to complement that with government funding. I had the honour to open the event and talk about what has transpired so far and where we are going. I think that the real threats such as another pandemic, war in Europe, food security and environmental concerns are setting us up for another wave of innovation and investment opportunities. We keep going. And, Victoria is really an amazing place:
The war in Ukraine is escalating on many levels. More and more stories of murdered and raped civilians, setbacks for the Russians while the focus is shifting to the eastern part of the country for some decisive battles. The strength of the Ukrainian forces was again evident yesterday with the crippling of Russia’s flagship cruiser ‘Moskva’. No one could have predicted this and it gives us hope for the longer term, although in the short run Russia’s response is expected to be fierce and violent. The demands for international support keep going and it seems more western nations are ramping up to do just that. I enjoyed Boris Johnson’s walk in downtown Kyiv, a political stunt for sure, but it points to how the west is embedding itself in and banking on Ukraine. The news that Sweden and Finland are now positioning themselves for rapid ascension to NATO would have been unthinkable two months ago, yet here we are. A new world order with ongoing wars and new alliances is rapidly taking shape.
Enjoy the long weekend, Happy Easter and Chag Sameach.