Really too bad. Especially with the situation in America right now I know a number of founders that had decided not to do the "move to California" strategy.

From the article:

Last month, a number of women came forward to the New York Times, alleging misconduct by McClure and others in the venture community.

That to me sounds like not really too bad but instead about f'n time.

It's possible to not feel particularly bad for 500 Startups themselves, while still feeling bad for the Canadian entrepreneurs who will have fewer options available to them.

> There is no "Situation" right now.

As an immigrant, yes there damn well is.

Other than a few headlines in the news has it really been that bad ?

Bad enough to change a whole business plan ?

One of the big problems is actually that nobody knows. Yeah, guys getting shot was disturbing to my Indian friend. I'm more concerned when a story pops up saying that the "immigration reform" might reduce green cards by half. I'm more concerned that I might go home for a visit and then get told no when I ask to come back. I'm also sick to death of the anti-immigrant BS (and no, it's not just about people here illegally. It's anti-immigrant in general).

If you think that outcome is likely to happen, you might make decisions not to put yourself in that situation. Uncertainty around US immigration and borders would be a very understandable reason to not start a startup in the US. Why start it here when you might be legally prevented from running it next year?

ohh, the company/startup is called "500 Startups", for a while there i thought canada is falling apart .. and a count of 500 startups were shutting down

As if we have 500 startups...

It's nice to see that they have a better than industry average score of supporting women co-founders but now you really have to wonder if that's tainted or not. McClure did himself and the companies they invested in no favors.

the really bad part, some Canadian minority founders will have to search for seed funding elsewhere.

Or, you know, build a business based on their profits.

Heaven forbid. A business with positive cash flow is so not cool!

Pursuit of positive cash flow for it's own sake and before the time is right can also be a stupid decision.

And yet a great majority of successful businesses are bootstrapped.

There's plenty of government grants for minority-founded businesses, especially if they're recent immigrants.

grants are very diferent to seed stage financing and normally preced it.

Could you link to some government grants for recent immigrants? Thanks!

Why don't they just give this to everyone? Canadian government really loves to favor the new Canadians over the old ones. I don't think it should matter...

The government doesn't "favour new Canadians over old ones." That's crap.

The government offers funding to new immigrants because they lack many of the social networks that people who were raised and educated here possess. Also, it's a pretty good investment, as immigrants have a stronger entrepreneurial bone than the average Canadian, due to self-selecting as go-getters (i.e. emigrating).

Sorry, immigrants make better entrepreneurs? Is this a fact or just something you pulled out of thin air? Not to mention the fact that allowing only immigrants to benefit from this is discriminatory and directly contradicts your first sentence. What about all the potential native entrepreneurs that might not get their chance to shine due to not being given the same advantages as the foreigners? You should work for government, I think you would fit right in.

A wild guess: immigrants arrive in a new country with very little support from family with existing savings, homes and the like. They often need more of a "leg up" than someone whose family has been in the country for generations.

Sorry, but I don't like Hacker News turning into reddit threads where unproven speculation gets read as truth.

Care to provide some substance to your claims with examples of precisely what kinds of funding supports (in $$$) the Canadian government actually gives to new migrants?

There's a common meme out there that refugees get more money than welfare recipients, and it's outright false. (Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/do-government-assisted-refug...)

we've an extremely weak, hyper image-conscious liberal government... what are you expecting?

I wish Canada was a socialist country...

What a tragedy