Karim Gillani

Karim has a BASc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an MSc in Finance and Economic Policy from the University of London, and an LLM Master of Laws from the University of Toronto. For part of his education, Karim studied engineering in Singapore at Nanyang Technological University. 

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Karim is happily married with a 3 year old son and a baby girl on the way.

Karim has an extensive background in fintech, mobile tech, engineering, finance and strategy. He is currently the Co-Founder and General Partner at Luge Capital, a fintech-focused venture capital fund with $85M under management. Prior to Luge, Karim led Corporate Development and M&A activities for PayPal in Canada. 

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Before that, Karim started the Corporate Development practice at Xoom, a leading cross-border remittance company that went public on the NASDAQ in 2013 and was subsequently acquired by PayPal in 2015 for USD $890M. Prior to Xoom, Karim led M&A and strategic investments for BlackBerry in Silicon Valley. Karim was also responsible for establishing BlackBerry's largest partnerships, and he developed the company's overall strategy for mobile payments and commerce, including NFC payments, P2P and App World. 

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Karim spent several years working for Redknee Solutions in the UK where he designed telecom network infrastructure, including mobile money solutions, for operators in East Africa and Western Europe. In addition to serving on several startup boards, Karim is a Charter Member of the C100, a Board Advisor for Village Capital and a member of the Fintech Advisory Committee for the Ontario Securities Commission.

As a member of Class 25, Karim is serving his fellowship at Luge Capital under the mentorship of Jeremy Jonker and Julian King.