Mark Skapinker is a Managing Partner at Brightspark, a software, Internet and Mobile

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 ...

firm with offices in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

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, ...

, Canada and

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. Brightspark has twice won the Canadian Venture Capital Association "Deal of the Year Award" for its successful investments in ThinkDynamics (acquired by IBM) and Radian6 (acquired by Salesforce.com). Born in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, he immigrated to Canada where, along with Bert Amato and Dennis Bennie, he co-founded

Delrina Delrina Corporation was a Canadian software company active from 1988 to 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or ...

, where they devised its first product, the electronic form software PerForm. He served as Delrina's President. The firm was well known for its WinFax product and was acquired by Symantec in November 1995. In 1997 he founded Balisoft Technologies, an Internet infrastructure company that created intelligent customer interaction software. This firm was merged with Servicesoft Technologies in 1999, which was in turn acquired by Broadbase Software in September 2000, and thereafter by Kana. In 2008, Mark co-founded iStopOver.com, a Toronto-based Internet business focused on peer to peer travel with online ecommerce which was sold to 9Flats in 2012. In 2000, Mark co-founded Brightspark Ventures in Toronto. For over 20 years, Brightspark has managed early stage and seed Venture Capital funds, with over $135 million under management. Sophie Forest has been a Managing Partner in Brightspark since 2004. Brightspark's investors include individual Canadian accredited investors, Family office and institutional investors.

References

External links

"Founding Father", an article about Mark Skapinker derived from Profit Magazine, accessed November 6, 2005

"Seeds sown at Delrina are still sprouting", story about the founders of Delrina and what they went on to do afterwards, accessed November 6, 2005
Businesspeople from Toronto Businesspeople in software South African emigrants to Canada Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Delrina {{SouthAfrica-business-bio-stub