# Top 10 Oil and Gas Angel Investors in Canada in May 2026

## T. Chen Fong
- Type: Angel
- Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Angel
- Focus: Software, Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology

Dr. Fong is a Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary. He was formerly the Head of the Department of Radiology at the University of Calgary and the Calgary Health Region. Dr. Fong is active in funding and nurturing start-up companies. Over the past two decades, he funded over 50 companies in diverse technology sectors,with an emphasis in medical devices. Dr. Fong is the co-founder and board member of Calgary Scientific Inc. and is also on the board of Clarius Mobile Health, Cohesic Inc. and Innovere Medical. In addition to seed investing, Dr. Fong is active in the Calgary community sitting on six charitable boards and foundations.In 2015, Dr. Fong joined the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) at the University of Toronto business school as a mentor. CDL helps young entrepreneurs to shape or pivot their nascent ideas. He is widely credited with launching CDL at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, bringing together seasoned business leaders from Alberta, Canada and the US to grow budding companies. Dr. Fong is on the Strategic Advisory Board of CDL and a Fellow of CDL in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. In 2017, Dr. Fong was named to the Order of Canada for his contribution to medical technology innovation and philanthropy.

## Elizabeth Iorns
- Type: Angel
- Location: Palo Alto, California, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed
- Focus: Software, SaaS, Health Diagnostics

Elizabeth Jane Iorns is a New Zealand scientist, entrepreneur and researcher, and the founder and CEO of Science Exchange. Scientific Advisor at Rarebase. She is also the Co-founder and Chairman of Perception Biosystems. She has a PhD degree in Cancer Biology from The Institute of Cancer Research.

## David LeGresley
- Type: Angel
- Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Relevant deals: 1
- Focus: Energy, Oil and Gas, Natural Resources

Mr. LeGresley is a corporate director. He was an executive of National Bank Financial and spent 12 years with that company, most recently serving as Vice Chairman (2006 to 2008). Mr. LeGresley has extensive experience in the financial services industry, including positions at Salomon Brothers Canada (1990 to 1996) and CIBC Wood Gundy (1986 to1990). He also serves as a director of one TSX-listed company and one private company.He received a Bachelor of Applied Science Degree in Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1981 and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1986.Mr. LeGresley is a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors – Rotman Directors Education Program and a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors.

## Dylan Taylor
- Type: Angel
- Location: Denver, Colorado, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A
- Focus: Aerospace, Space Travel, Satellite Communication

Dylan Taylor is a global business leader, commercial astronaut, thought leader and philanthropist. Currently, Dylan serves as Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space exploration firm focused on building the next generation of space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies.Dylan has been recognized by HarvardUniversity, SpaceNews, the BBC, the Financial Times, Pitchbook, CNBC, CNN and others as having played a seminal role in the growth of the private space industry. As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging space ventures, including Axiom, Kepler, York, Astrobotic, LeoLabs, Relativity, and Planet, Dylan is widely considered the most active private space investor in the world.Dylan’s technical background, global business experience and unbridled passion for space make him a unique figure within his industry. As a thought leader and futurist, he has written many popular pieces on the future of the space industry for Forbes, FastCompany, Newsweek, SpaceNews, The Space Review, and Space.com. As a speaker, Dylan has keynoted many of the major space conferences around the world and has appeared regularly on Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNBC.Dylan has extensive global business experience as both a board director and CEO in several industries, including advanced electronics, finance and real estate. He previously served as a Director for UMB Bank, a Fortune 500 company based in Kansas City and as a mutual fund director for the Jackson Funds where he oversaw assets of $8B across 130 distinct funds. He has also served in the roles of CEO, President and Board Director for multinational companies like Prudential PLC, Honeywell, Colliers and Jones Lang LaSalle. Dylan was recognized as a Fortune 1000 CEO with P&L responsibility in excess of $3B and operations encompassing 15,000 employees in over 60 countries. In addition, Dylan has participated in 4 IPOs over the course of his career. Dylan is a leading advocate of space manufacturing and the utilization of in-space resources to further space exploration and settlement. In 2017, he became the first private citizen to manufacture an item in space when the gravity meter he co-designed and commissioned was 3D printed on the International Space Station. The historic item is now housed in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.Dylan is an explorer of note. On December 11th, 2021 Dylan became just the 606th human to go to space as part of the crew of Blue Origin’s NewShepard Mission 19. Accordingly, Dylan earned his commercial astronaut wings with the FAA and his universal astronaut wings from the Association of Space Explorers.He is also one of only a handful of humans to have descended to the deepest part of the world’s oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench as part of the Limiting Factor Expedition in July of 2022. In that mission, Dylan descended with pilot Victor Vescovo to a depth in excess of 10,800 meters (35,500 feet) into an area of the Mariana Trench that had never been visited by humans. Dylan is the youngest human to have been to the deepest part of the world’s oceans and crossed the Karman line into Space. Dylan has been a member of the Explorers Club since 2014.Dylan maintains an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Dylan founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems. Space for Humanity has successfully sent two citizen astronauts to space via Blue Origin including both the first Mexican-born woman (Katya Echazareta), and first African-born woman (Sara Sabry). Building upon his passion and support for the space industry, Dylan serves as a strategic advisor for both the Archmission and the Human Spaceflight Program and is a co-founding patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which promotes the growth of commercial space activity. Additionally, he is also a leading benefactor to the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and Mission: Astro Access.Dylan is the founder and Chairman of Multiverse Media, an integrated global media company focused on science and technology, with an emphasis on space. Multiverse is the parent company of the popular space philosophy website 2211.world as well as the Ad Astra Dinners, a Jeffersonian-style dinner series featuring some of the world’s leading influencers discussing the future of humanity in space. Another subsidiary of Multiverse Media, Multiverse Publishing, publishes books by leading authors including Frank White, Isaac Asimov and Gerard K. O’Neill. Multiverse is also the executive producer of the documentary film, The High Frontier and the forthcoming film, Fortitude. For his influence as a global leader and his commitment to creating a positive impact on the world, Dylan has been honored with numerous personal and professional accolades in recent years. The World Economic Forum recognized Dylan as a Young Global Leader in 2011 and a full member of the World Economic Forum in 2014. That same year he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. In 2020, Dylan was recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following in the footsteps of 2019’s inaugural winner, the late Paul Allen
and subsequent winners Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.Dylan Taylor earned an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and holds a BS in Engineering from the honors college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated Tau Beta Pi and in 2018 was named Alumnus of the year. He is also a graduate of the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century program at Harvard University.Dylan and his family reside in Denver, Colorado where he is active locally with Colorado Concern and the Colorado Spaceport. In his spare time, Dylan enjoys hiking, competing in triathlons and spending time outdoors. As a weekend warrior athlete, Dylan has more than 25 top ten finishes and 25 age group wins to his credit, and he regularly interviews world class athletes whom have shown extraordinary resilience as the host of the Legendary Podcast. He is married to legal expert, consultant and author Gabrielle V. Taylor with whom he has two teenage daughters.

## Ali Rowghani
- Type: Angel
- Location: Mountain View, California, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series C, Series B, Series A
- Focus: Software, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Ali Rowghani is the CEO of YC Continuity. Previously, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of Twitter, Inc. from 2012 to 2014, where he was in charge of Twitter’s product, design, business development, developer platform, and media teams. He was hired as Twitter’s first Chief Financial Officer and served in that role from 2010 to 2012. Forthe 9 years prior to his time at Twitter, Ali served in several roles at Pixar Animation Studios, Inc., including as Chief Financial Officer and as Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning.Ali holds a BA and MBA, both from Stanford University. Ali is on the Board at Checkr, Lob and Restoration Hardware (NYSE: RH), and is a Board observer at LendUp.

## Blaine LaBonte
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed
- Focus: Information Technology, Big Data, Lighting

Blaine LaBonte

## Barney Pell
- Type: Angel
- Location: San Francisco, California, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Angel
- Focus: Software, Information Technology, Mobile

Barney Pell was the co-founder, Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of LocoMobi Inc. Barney has a long history as a leading technology innovator, product visionary, entrepreneur and angel investor based in Silicon Valley. Barney is known for being an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mayfield, a top Venture Capital firm, which he left to becomeFounder and CEO of Powerset, which built a natural-language based search engine that read each sentence in Wikipedia and answered user queries in plain English. Microsoft acquired Powerset in 2008 to help create its new search engine, Bing. Barney then served Microsoft as Search Strategist, Evangelist, and Chief Architect for Local Search at Bing, until leaving Microsoft in September 2011 to return to the start-up world full-time.Barney also has active investor, board member, and advisory roles with multiple start-up companies and non-profits across a variety of industries. Barney is Co-Founder, Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Moon Express, a private company building autonomous robotic lunar landers to enable exploration and commercial development of the solar system. This builds on his earlier career managing advanced software technologies at NASA. Highlights of innovations during Barney’s career at NASA include mission critical software to support planning and collaboration for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission; Clarissa, the first spoken dialog system in space; and the development of the Remote Agent, the first AI system to fly onboard and control a deep space probe. Remote Agent is widely considered one of the top achievements in the history of Artificial Intelligence and was awarded NASA’s "software of the year" award in 1999. Barney is also Associate Founder and Trustee of Singularity University (SU), a new university created to educate leaders for life in a future driven by accelerating technological change.Other recent active angel investments and advisory positions include: Getaround, Robotex, Halcyon Molecular, SpaceX, and CrowdFlower. Recent start-ups that have had successful exits include: Appjet (now Google), Aardvark (now Google), Hot Potato (now Facebook), Etacts (now SalesForce.com), Movity (now Trulia), and LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional social network which recently went public after acquiring its hundred-millionth member.Barney received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and his B.S. degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a National Merit Scholar.Barney is a frequent speaker at conferences and universities. These include keynote talks at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the Association for Computational Linguistics, Search Marketing Expos, International Semantic Web Conference, World Wide Web Conference, the Informational Retrieval Conference, and panels at SXSW Interactive. Barney has also spoken at the NPA and IPI conferences and has been featured in all major Parking industry magazines.

## Dennis Bennie
- Type: Angel
- Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
- Focus: Software, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things

Dennis Bennie is a pioneer, entrepreneur and innovator in the Canadian technology industry. Over the past 20 years, Bennie's entrepreneurial management has powered Mission Electronics, Ingram Canada and Delrina. In 1997, he founded the XDL Venture Capital Fund, focusing on information technology opportunities. The $25 million fund hasyielded exceptional returns to date. One of its most noteworthy investments was a 1997 start-up, Delano Technology Corporation (NASD:DTEC). XDL Intervest, a $150 million fund was started in 1999 and is now fully invested. Bennie currently manages an experienced team investing in private equity opportunities as the XDL Capital Group. From 1988 to 1996, Mr. Bennie was CEO of Delrina Corporation, an independent software developer and publisher, which forged the new software categories of electronic forms and PC fax communications. Under Mr. Bennie's leadership, Delrina pioneered the development of PC fax software called WinFax and became a world leader in the communication software market with annual sales revenue exceeding $130 million. Listed on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, Delrina cultivated a reputation for leadership, growth and profitability, and completed several public offerings. In November 1995, the company was successfully sold to Symantec Corporation for share consideration valued at $560 million. Mr. Bennie entered the world of technology in 1979, when he co-founded Mission Electronics. He drove the expansion of this leading British audio equipment manufacturer to become a dominant force in the high-end stereo market. In 1982 he sold his interest in Mission Electronics and founded Aviva Software, an independent, mass-market software developer. Under his direction, the company expanded its scope to include software distribution and merged with Ingram Micro Inc. in 1986 to become Canada's largest software distributor. Residing in Toronto, Canada, with his wife Laura and three daughters, Dennis is an avid golfer and runner. A member of the World President's Organization, he also regularly serves on various charitable boards including the Toronto Hospital Board.

## George Whitesides
- Type: Angel
- Location: Watertown, Massachusetts, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed
- Focus: Energy, Hardware, Software

Whitesides joined Harvard’s Department of Chemistry in 1982 and served as department chairman from 1986 to 1989.
From 1963 to 1982, he was a faculty member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Whitesides held advisory positions on the National Research Council, National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense’s Defense AdvancedResearch Projects Agency (DARPA), and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and the American Philosophical Society, among other organizations.
He has received dozens of honors, including the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in Pure Chemistry (1975), the Arthur C. Cope Award (1995), the DARPA Award for Significant Technical Achievement (1996), the National Medal of Science (1998), the Von Hippel Award (2000), the Kyoto Prize (2003), the Dan David Award (2005), the Welch Award (2005), the Priestley Award (2007), the American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal (2007), the Prince of Asturias Foundation Award (2008), the Nanoscience Prize (2008), the Wheland Medal (2008) and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2009). In addition to Aresenal Medical, George is a co-founder of a number of companies including Genzyme, GelTex, Theravance and 480 Biomedical. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University in 1960 and a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in 1964.

## Lisa Shields
- Type: Angel
- Location: Vancouver, Alberta, Canada
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A
- Focus: Software, Information Technology, Energy

Lisa Shields is FI.SPAN’s founder and CEO. FI.SPAN is Lisa’s second financial technology startup - she also founded and led Hyperwallet Systems Inc for 15 years; today it is recognized as a leading global payments processor for business to consumer mass payouts. She is a member of the Canadian FinPay Committee, was named the EY RegionalEntrepreneur Of The Year in 2015 and received a Women in Payments Innovation Award in 2016.A firm believer in inclusive commerce, Lisa is always looking for new ways to unite ecosystem participants for the benefit of end users. She also has a personal interest in the underbanked and speaks frequently and passionately on the importance of low-cost, compliant payments.

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