The SAIL Fund Team
The SAIL Fund team is committed to strengthening Canada’s socioeconomic output. Our work is based on decades of collective experience building companies from Canadian research, managing IP, and developing international innovation ecosystems.
Dr. Kyle Briggs is a physicist, entrepreneur, a Vanier Scholar, and holds a PhD (2019) from the University of Ottawa in nanoscale biophysics. He received numerous awards for this research and innovation community involvement, including the CMC Douglas R. Colton Medal for Research Excellence in 2020 and the Ottawa Forty Under 40 award in 2026. He is the former CEO of Northern Nanopore Instruments, a nanotechnology company that was acquired in 2023 after bootstrapping from idea to acquisition without using dilutive investment.
He is currently the Entrepreneur in Residence for the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa, and the author of CanInnovate, a newsletter that brings awareness and suggests solutions to Canadian innovation challenges.
He is actively involved in the startup community as a mentor and advisor focused on supporting founders presently crossing the interface between academic research and early commercial operations.
David Durand, B.Sc., LL.L., co-founder of MVIP Solutions, Inc., is a trained IP lawyer and strategist that assists clients in maximizing value. He is also the president of Forum International De La Propriété Intellectuelle-Québec (FORPIQ) and board member of AIoT Canada. In addition to being an advisor to the National Crowdfunding and Fintech association of Canada (NCFA), he is member of the ISO-SEG 15 (Metaverse) and ISO TC-279 working group and a lawyer (Durand Lawyers) - member of the Quebec Bar as well as a registered trademark agent before the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
David has presented before the Standing Committee of Finance (FINA) and the Science and Research (SRSR) on the Support for the Commercialization of Intellectual Property, as well as been involved in several government consultations regarding innovation, tax incentives, and economic security. He has also contributed a chapter to Intellectual Property Management for Start-ups: Enhancing Value and Leveraging the Potential. He is president of Forum International De La Propriété Intellectuelle-Québec (FORPIQ)
TJ Misra has a 15-year background in public-private partnerships for innovation ecosystems, applications of novel capital deployment approaches, and founding and consulting for startups in the US, Switzerland, the Middle East, and Canada. She holds a Master in International Affairs (Security and Conflict Management) from Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID) in Geneva with a focus on the relationships between counterterrorism and economic development, and a History BA from the UCLA Honors College. She was a Special Consultant to the Commissioner for Employers, Canada Employment Insurance Commission (ESDC), a Foreign Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal covering StatsCan, and the Education & Collaborations Manager for the California Shakespeare Theater.
She is the Vice-President of the Network of Indian Professionals Canada and was also a workgroup leader for the United Nations AI for Good Global Data Pledge. She is a member of the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Committee, has been a mentor for the University of Ottawa Telfer School’s Entrepreneurs’ Club and a Career Mentor/Research Advisor for the American University in Dubai's Department of International and Middle Eastern Studies.
