Tim Jackson (Waterloo 150 Profile)

Tim Jackson

Tim Jackson is a Waterloo venture capitalist in the high-tech community who also volunteers his time to an astonishing array of community groups. In his busy life he does make time for one vice, however, and it is poker.

Fortunately, the qualities that make a good poker player dovetail nicely with the business of investing in local engineers and scientists:

“In poker, all you’re trying to do is make good decisions,” Jackson said once. “It’s exactly the same in business. I can play a hand perfectly with the odds in my favor but then the one card comes up and you lose . . . In business, you can do everything right, then the stock market crashes.”

Jackson has been in the business of nurturing local talent since he co-founded Tech Capital Partners in 2001. He launched the local company with Andrew Abouchar and together they established the business with a $23 million fund.

“What we’re looking for is smart engineers with great ideas and then we will build a company and management team around them and their technology,” Jackson said at the time.

Before starting up his own company, Jackson had been the chief financial officer of PixStream Inc. and was responsible for negotiating the sale of PixStream to Cisco Systems for $550 million in 2000.

Jackson was pleased to set up Tech Capital in an Uptown location on Erb near King Street because the location puts them near the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Centre for International Governance Innovation, while not straying too far from the technology and innovation at the University of Waterloo.

When he’s not working out of his renovated office, Jackson spends many hours volunteering his time to non-profit community organizations. He chairs the Waterloo Public Library Board and is president of the board of directors for the Food Bank of Waterloo Region. He also sits on the Board of Governors for the University of Waterloo and is the chairman of the University’s Finance and Investment Committee.

Jackson won a prestigious award from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario in 2006 for distinction in professional and community activities. In 2001, Tech Capital Partners won in the new business category at the Waterloo Region Business Achievement Awards. His most recent award came from the Volunteer Action Centre, which honoured him in the leadership category.

Jackson’s drive for innovation has been a gift to community agencies looking to stretch their services to reach more people. In his work with the Food Bank, Jackson encouraged the non-profit agency to take a risk on a new project. About five years ago, the food bank began a programme that is now seeing millions of pounds of food that had been going to landfills end up at food banks across Ontario.

“You have to take risks,” says Jackson. “You have to try new things to advance and you cannot penalize people if it doesn’t work.”

In his business life, Tim Jackson is proud to say that these days he and his colleagues have raised $95 million from sources outside Waterloo Region. “We have convinced these people,” says Jackson, “that Waterloo is the best place to invest.”

Photo courtesy of Tim Jackson