Brenda Irwin

Managing Partner

Brenda is an investor, advisor and seasoned board director - LinkedIn

Brenda has been a venture capitalist in the healthcare industry for more than two decades. Prior to founding the Relentless Venture Fund, Brenda was a Partner at Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) as a member of the healthcare team where she personally managed a $100M portfolio. In addition, she co-founded an angel investment group alongside Olympian, Simon Whitfield building a portfolio that facilitated active, healthy living.

Brenda is an EIR for Life Sciences BC ‘Investor Readiness Program’, an associate for Creative Destruction Labs (‘CDL’) and won ‘CDL Associate of the Year’ in 2023, and is a member of the national Digital (formerly known as Digital Supercluster) Project Selection Committee. In 2024, Brenda also chaired the inaugural “Horizon-AI” Project Selection Committee for DIGITAL.

A seasoned VC and director, Brenda has been a board member of greater than two dozen private and publicly listed companies as well as non-profit organizations, including a six-year term on the board of Providence Healthcare where she chaired the Innovation Committee of the Board. Brenda is proud to have spent a decade on the non-profit Board of Directors for Take A Hike – Youth at Risk Foundation, an organization enabling at-risk youth to positively change their lives. Brenda was an inaugural member of the board of directors for the national Table of Impact Investment Professionals (‘tiip’); she has been a director and investment committee member for the national medical technology consortium, MEDTEQ+. Current Relentless portfolio board representation includes Canary Medical, LUCID, Orpyx Medical, and Modality.AI.

Brenda’s industry honours include being declared as one of BC’s Most Influential Women in Finance, a Top 40 under 40 award recipient, four-time nominee for RBC’s Canadian Women of Influence and was recognized in 2023, 2022 and 2021 as one of the 500 most influential business leaders in British Columbia.