ilias Benjelloun

Ilias Benjelloun has a unique experience on multiple sides of the tech entrepreneurship table over the last 15 years in the Canadian ecosystem:

• 3x entrepreneur
• startup community builder
• corporate innovation lab & VC builder

He is the co-founder of MTL NewTech, the premier tech startup association in Canada. He helped design, launch, and grow the Innovation Lab & Startup Ventures arm at Desjardins, a $500bn in assets financial institution. He is the co-founder of Stay22, the first AI-driven media revenue generation SaaS for the travel creators & the conference industry.

Ilias is deeply involved in building Canada’s innovation ecosystem, propelling and supporting key collaborative initiatives and over 1000 tech and science-based entrepreneurs. He is recognized for spearheading Québec's startup ecosystem for more than a decade, and championing collaborative innovation across the world.

He is looking today to expand his impact by leveraging the learnings, networks and assets build over the last decade to empower, elevate, collaborate and build bridges with other emerging startup ecosystems.

Notable highlights:

• Cofounded 3 startups, latest at $40M ARR and 48 people team.
• Built a 10 000 tech entrepreneurs community's non-profit organization since 2008 in Canada. Supported 1000+ startups in their commercialization, and involved 100+ corporate and organization partners. Helped spun-out 5 vertical-based non-profits throughout the last decade dedicated to empowering niche tech communities in Canada.
• Helped establish the trailblazing corporation innovation lab of a $500BN financial institution with a triple bottom line approach to innovation and investment since 2016. 30+ organization and corporate partners, 7000+ entrepreneurial projects created, 100+ startups accelerated, $250 millions CVC fund: 45M strategic core investments, 200M verticals-based funds, 5M evergreen early-stage ventures.