About the series
The Builder Dinner series is offered by Builders Club and Barn Ventures. The series features home cooked meals, founder discussion and connection, and is supported by a workshop series that has been developed with founders. This has evolved over nearly three years with the support of various people and organizations in the ecosystem. We have had a significant number of founders move on to raise capital from YC, [Afore.vc,](http://afore.vc,/) Garage VC, etc. Founders from companies like [Datacurve.ai,](http://datacurve.ai,/) Voltra, [Automax.ai,](http://automax.ai,/) and many others have attended.
You don't have to be on a venture path to apply. This is to help you better understand it so you can build in a way that makes sense to you.
If you’re serious about building, this is for you.
Read some articles based on the W26 cohort here. Along with related content.
Jesse is the founder behind Velocity and the Creative Destruction Lab — two of Canada’s most influential founder-building platforms. For over two decades, he’s been focused on one problem: how to turn exceptional technical talent into real founders. He now runs Builders Club, a founder-first space for ambitious people who want to build without permission. Direct, opinionated, and deeply invested in fixing the startup pipeline.
May 12 — Adi Patel, Co-founder & CEO of Clearline
Toronto-based, YC S22. Building autonomous coding agents that turn customer feedback directly into shipped PRs. Raised from Panache, Garage, Y Combinator, and Ada's CEO. Started Clearline (formerly Lancey) with his twin brother Abhi after both worked at Ada.
May 19 — Harry Gandhi, Founder of Lumen Research Labs
Waterloo native and Thiel Fellow. Founded Medella Health in 2013 building smart contact lenses for glucose monitoring; ran it for nearly seven years as CEO through its evolution into Voyage Labs. Then crossed to the investor side: Venture Partner at Amplify Capital, four years with 1517 Fund backing dropouts and deep-tech founders, advisor at MaRS. Now back to building with Lumen.
June 9 — Sheldon McCormick, CEO at Communitech
Built Properly to a $35M run rate, then watched product-market fit shift. Now runs Communitech. Bringing a builder's perspective to one of Canada's most important ecosystem roles.
June 16 — Devon Galloway, Partner at Garage Capital
Co-founder of Vidyard, one of the few Waterloo companies to scale to a real outcome from here. Now investing at Garage. Spent over a decade inside the founder seat before sitting on the other side of the table.
July 7 — Eldon Sprickerhoff, Founding Partner at Caledon Ventures
Founder of eSentire, took it from a Cambridge basement to one of the largest pure-play MDR companies in the world. Now investing in cybersecurity and deep tech founders. One of Canada's clearest examples of a long, patient build.