Alexandre Taillefer is a Canadian

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

from

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. He is the founder and managing partner of XPND Capital, a private equity firm.

Commercial activities

In 1993, at age 21, Tallifer founded Intellia, an

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

service provider later bought by

Quebecor Quebecor Inc. is a Canadian diversified media and telecommunications company serving Quebec based in Montreal. It was spelled Quebecor in both English and French until May 2012, when shareholders voted to add the acute accent, Québecor, in ...

. He worked at Quebecor for five years (until 2000), where he led the online division. He completed a number of mergers, including the merger of Informission with Intellia to create Nurun, now owned by

Publicis Publicis Groupe S.A. is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. As of 2024, the company is the largest advertising company in the world by revenue. Based in Paris, it is one of the 'Big Four' advertising commpanies, al ...

. In 2007, he co-founded

Stingray Digital Stingray Group Inc. (formerly Stingray Digital and Stingray Digital Group) is a Canadian music, media and technology company based in Montreal, Quebec, with offices in Toronto, Ontario, as well as in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, ...

, a provider of musical products and services. Taillefer is managing partner of XPND Capital, a private equity firm hat manages some 40 million dollars across several

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

funds. While the firm initially partnered with

Stephen Bronfman Stephen Rosner Bronfman (born 23 January 1964) is a Canadian businessperson, philanthropist, environmental activist and scion of the Bronfman family. He is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Liberal Party of Canada and a senior advisor to Prime Mi ...

and his private equity firm Claridge, all of the capital in latter funds has come from the Quebec government. Taillefer was criticized for sub-par returns in funds which consist solely of public money. In 2015, the firm acquired

Voir ''Voir'' was a francophone alternative weekly newspaper in Montreal, Quebec, published by Communications Voir. ''Voir'' was founded by Pierre Paquet in November 1986. The first issue of the newspaper was published on 27 November 1986. Later o ...

, a major Quebec publisher. Also in 2015, the firm created Taxelco, a holding company which controls over 40% of the taxi market in Montreal, through controlling investments in Téo Taxi, Taxi Diamond, and Taxi Hochelaga.

Other activities

In 2012, Taillefer became chairman of the board of the

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (, MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it ...

. From 2013 to 2016, he was a "dragon" on the TV show '' Dans l'œil du dragon'', the Quebec version of ''

Dragon's Den ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it i ...

''. Taillefer has, from time to time, voiced his political positions. In 2015, he voiced his support for a $15 minimum wage. In May 2017, he encouraged the Quebec government to invest in subsidized childcare.

Personal life

In 2015, Taillefer's fourteen year old son committed

suicide by gunshot A suicide method is any means by which a person may choose to end their life. Suicide attempts do not always result in death, and a non-fatal suicide attempt can leave the person with serious physical injuries, long-term health problems, or ...

at home. He had struggled with cyberdependency and has sent distress messages in the Twitch chat of his idol

Sodapoppin Thomas Chance Morris (born February 15, 1994), known professionally as Sodapoppin, is an American Twitch streamer and YouTuber. He has one of the largest followings on Twitch, with over 8.9 million followers as of November 26, 2024; he also has ...

. Throughout 2017, Taillefer publicly denounced Twitch's lack of action in a series of media appearances as well as in a 45-minute documentary entitled ''"Bye"'', after his son's final message. Twitch's inaction in these types of situation was further criticized by psychologists and other streamers such as Stéphanie Harvey.

Political career

Alexandre Taillefer served as the campaign chair for the

Quebec Liberal Party The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP; , PLQ) is a provincial political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955. The QLP has traditionally supported a form of Quebec federalist ideology with nuance ...

in the

2018 Quebec general election The 2018 Quebec general election was held on October 1, 2018, to elect members to the National Assembly of Quebec. The election saw a landslide victory for the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) led by François Legault, which won 74 of 125 seats, g ...

. He did not run for a seat in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

. His position as campaign chair for the party in power and as a major shareholder of Quebec media companies generated concerns regarding his potential use of the media to promote the Liberal Party. Similar concerns resulted from the election of

Pierre Karl Péladeau Pierre Karl Péladeau (; born 16 October 1961), also known by his initials PKP, is a Canadian businessman, billionaire and former politician. He was also the MNA ( Member of the National Assembly) for Saint-Jérôme. Péladeau is the president ...

Parti Québecois Parti may refer to: *Parti (service), an online video platform, web hosting, livestreaming, and cloud services business. *Parti (surname), a Hungarian surname, and a list of people with the name * ''Parti'' (architecture), the organizing concepts b ...

leader. In an effort to respond to these concerns, Taillefer transitioned out of his managerial responsibilities.

L'actualité ''L'actualité'' is a Canadian French-language news and general interest magazine published in Montreal by Rogers Communications until 2016, then by Mishmash (XPND Capital). The magazine has over a million readers, according to Canada's Print Meas ...

, a Quebec media outlet announced on May 10, 2018, that Taillefer had been a registered lobbyist to seek subsidies for his taxi companies.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taillefer, Alexandre Living people Canadian mass media owners Quebecor people Businesspeople from Montreal Year of birth missing (living people) Dragons' Den