Interactions with potential investors tend to follow a similar pattern when you are Lionel Conacher and you live in the Google era and are a partner in a new venture-capital firm. Whomever the meeting is scheduled with will typically shake hands and offer a warm hello, but before getting down to business they will ask him not about Lionel Conacher, financier, but about his grandfather, also named Lionel, famed sportsman.
That would be The Lance Armstrong, cycling’s notorious liar/bully/jerk who, almost six years after admitting to Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive television interview that, “yes,” he did take Erythropoietin and other assorted banned substances in each of his seven consecutive Tour de France wins, is reinventing himself as a venture capitalist in partnership with a direct descendant of the presumably EPO-free Canadian sports hero.
Conacher went on to raise quite a bit of money for cancer research and was introduced to Armstrong by comedian Robin Williams . They remained acquaintances thereafter, crossing paths, here and there, until Oprah happened.
Lionel Conacher Conacher was working for Altamont Capital Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., when Armstrong called him about a year ago seeking advice. He did not disappear post-Oprah, but had begun a process of reinvention, launching a hugely popular cycling-focused podcast, The Move, in 2017, and following it up with The Forward, a podcast featuring chats with other sports and celebrity notables, including former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, skier Bode Miller and rocker Sammy Hagar.
Their firm, Next Ventures, is “designed to maximize growth opportunities in the exploding sports, fitness, nutrition and wellness markets,” according to its website. Part of the appeal is the alchemy between its two general partners. Much like Armstrong, the 56-year-old Conacher is ultra-competitive.
Once a fraud and a con always a fraud and a con!!