Somel Investments

The firm is led by founder Shyam Gupta and his daughter Sophie, who serves as co-founder and managing director. Chris Hanck operates as the chief investment officer. Given the small, closely knit team, investment decisions are made collaboratively by the family principals and the CIO.

Somel relies heavily on the deep operational network Shyam Gupta built as founder of SDP Telecom, a telecom equipment company sold to Molex/Koch Industries in 2014. Sophie Gupta extends that reach through her leadership roles in the Canadian venture ecosystem, including co-chairing the CVCA's Diversity & Inclusion committee and serving on the board of The Forum. Their co-investor relationships with BDC Capital and Fonds de solidarité FTQ also provide a consistent pipeline of technical founders in Quebec.

Somel operates as the Gupta family's private investment office, deploying only the family's own balance-sheet capital. It does not raise funds from external limited partners, which differentiates it from a conventional venture capital firm. Its investing activity is early-stage and concentrated in Canadian deep-tech, but its governance and capital structure are that of a single-family office.

The firm focuses on direct, early-stage equity investments in technology startups. There is no public record of Somel making commitments as a limited partner into third-party funds, consistent with its identity as a hands-on, family-run investment office.

Somel targets deep-tech sectors where hardware and IP-rich software converge. Documented portfolio holdings include a fabless semiconductor company (Boréas Technologies), photonics (Aeponyx), AI model-optimization software (Deeplite), and programmable SDN switching (NoviFlow). The firm also makes opportunistic bets in digital health, having backed ViTAA (aortic analytics) and PrecisionOS (VR surgical training).

The firm's capital base originates from Shyam Gupta's sale of SDP Telecom, a telecom equipment manufacturer he founded, to Molex — a subsidiary of Koch Industries — in 2014. The proceeds of that transaction form the economic foundation of the family office.

Yes. The Gupta family operates The Somel Foundation alongside its investment activities. The foundation is a distinct legal entity from the investment office, though both are part of the family's broader private-wealth architecture.