Nelson Lee, founder of Maple Ventures

About Maple Ventures

Seven ventures across AI, finance, and New Media.

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Maple Ventures builds and scales companies across AI, finance, and New Media.

Maple Ventures is the studio and holding company behind a portfolio of seven companies spanning AI transformation for banks and credit unions, small-business software, consumer finance, local commerce, and a media brand reaching millions of people each month.

It was founded by Nelson Lee, a former Shopify software engineer who left Big Tech to build his own companies full-time. What started as a single budgeting app has grown into a family of ventures that each try to answer the same question: how can a fast team create outsized value?

Today that portfolio includes The GCC, Solarium, Love Maple, Maple Budget, NelsonTalksMoney, Boop, and Build416 — with work featured by the Toronto Star, the University of Toronto, and more.

Interested in partnering, sponsoring, or just saying hello? Get in touch.

I hope you enjoy all of our products at Maple Ventures as it is how I plan on leaving my mark on the world.

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Nelson Lee

CEO and Founder

Meet the Founder

Nelson Lee

Nelson Lee

Nelson is the CEO and founder of Maple Ventures.

He was previously a Software Engineer at Shopify where he worked on the Headless, Custom Storefronts, and Admin Integrations team. He was the founder of Haven Safe, a public safety company whose Angie division was acquired by Victim Services Toronto in partnership with Toronto Police.

A graduate of the University of Toronto's Computer Engineering program with Honours, Nelson also completed two separate minors in Artificial Intelligence and Business. He received the $50,000 Troost Difference Maker Award and $32,000 5T3 Award.

Previously, Nelson was a Software Engineering Intern at the fintech startup Hearth in San Francisco and is an honoured alumnus of NEXT36 (2023), 8VC Fellowship (2022), and SHAD (Dalhousie 2018). He also served as a Governor on the University of Toronto's Governing Council, overseeing $3.5 billion in university funds and 90,000 students.

Nelson now resides in Toronto, Canada.