Who are we?
Malcolm MacTaggart
B.Com, MBA, CPA, CIM
Co-Founder
malcolm@insights.build
Malcolm was the Country Manager of Microsoft in Canada in its formative years (which 'fun fact' started above the Golden Griddle Pancake House, near the airport in Toronto) he joined Microsoft before it went public and led its development until 1990, establishing 8 offices across the country and a distribution and support centre in Mississauga. Less than a decade later, he started building CryptoCard (a remote access and network security firm) from a single shared-office facility in Carleton Place (near Ottawa) into a company doing business in over 30 countries, leading it to a successful exit in 2006 with its sale, to a boutique merchant bank in England, and retired from corporate life.
His interests pivoted and he dove into the ‘crazy start-up world of entrepreneurship’ as a mentor, founder, advisor, and investor. Over the course of 4+ years working with the Innovation Synergy Centre in Markham (now known as VentureLab) and the Business Advisory Centre in Durham (BACD) he worked with over two hundred start-ups and entrepreneurs from ‘idea and inception' concepts to ‘growth and development’ realities. Along the way he founded, or was part of the founding team in 15 different businesses, most successfully, (some not so much, 3 crashed and burned - ouch), 3 wound down, 4 had successful exits (yay!) and the others are still operating today across a variety of industry sectors doing business in Canada and internationally.
Founder of the an angel group in 2012, saw the deployment of over $12M across 74 companies before winding down in 2024. Teaching in the business faculties at 3 universities (York, Trent and Ontario Tech) with an academic focus on entrepreneurship; in which the founder/owner-manager is the hub of the wheel and the spokes represent various subjects and disciplines. He’s taught 10 different courses, in 6 different disciplines, to over 8,000 students in his academic career.
Over the last 10 years, he’s seen hundreds (and hundreds) of investment opportunities, screened over 250 companies and received formal investment presentations from over a thousand. He knows first-hand what works, what doesn’t, and what’s needed to make a business viable, scalable, and successful. Malcolm’s background and diverse set of experiences has given him the unique ability to provide a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is, been-there-done-that, point of view for the benefit of entrepreneurs and founders by delivering more knowledge, more experience and more insight. And that, in a nutshell, is what Insights is all about.
Kristen Marumoto
BA
Co-Founder
kristen@insights.build
Kristen stumbled upon the start-up world while working at PUSH, a wearable-technology start-up based in Toronto while completing her degree at the University of Waterloo. PUSH was acquired in 2021 by Boston-based WHOOP.
Wanting to help other entrepreneurs experience similar success, Kristen switched gears and started working with her local Regional Innovation Centre. Her responsibilities included ‘on-boarding’ new clients and engaging with them one-on-one to understand their needs, expectations and goals. From her ‘boots on the ground’ approach and genuineness when listening to the ‘where-we’re-at’ realities and needs of entrepreneurs, she understands how intimidating and difficult it can be to navigate building something from scratch. "How do I validate my idea without spending money?" "How much should I charge?" "What should I focus on first?" "How do I manage the fear of failing?" These are some of the common questions she's engaged with on a daily basis with founders.
In early 2019, Kristen transitioned to the early-stage private equity world and started working with Malcolm at Durham's Neighbourhood Association of Angel Investors (DNA Angels, formerly known as the Spark Angel Network). She's worked with over 150 early-stage companies and knows full-well the fundraising process that founders go through, what works (and what doesn’t), investors' expectations and the soup-to-nuts journey founders must successfully navigate.
She’s mentored countless entrepreneurs and founders at Co-iLab, Spark Centre, Brilliant Catalyst and Venture13 providing honest and realistic advice.
Wanting to broaden her clientele, Kristen decided to build out programming for the Small Business Centre, based in Barrie - to facilitate a more efficient and effective approach to deploying small business grants, and ensuring the business owners actually know how to best utilize them.
She is the operational behind-the-scenes driver and the catalyst that sparked Insights’ creation. Being frustrated with seeing entrepreneurs get lost between the cracks, she and Malcolm are both passionate about supporting all ventures especially non-unicorn oriented ones.