Michael Wekerle

Michael Wekerle is a Canadian merchant banker and television personality, best known as a dragon investor on the Canadian reality show Dragon's Den since its ninth season.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Wekerle spent a year studying at York University before dropping out and taking a job at the . He subsequently joined First Marathon, rising to become head trader for the firm. In this capacity, he was one of the key figures in Rogers Communications' takeover of Maclean-Hunter in 1994.

He left First Marathon in 1995 to join Griffiths McBurney and Partners. In his role with GMP, he was closely involved with the 1997 initial public offering of Research in Motion.

In 2010, Wekerle experienced a bout of depression after his then-wife Lea-Anne died of a heart attack. His behaviour became increasingly erratic over the next several months; at a charity fundraising roast for Newcap Broadcasting CEO Rob Steele that summer, he drunkenly interrupted host Rex Murphy, and in October he arrived drunk at a hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and allegedly engaged in rowdy and disorderly behaviour. A valet with the hotel filed a lawsuit against Wekerle in 2013, alleging that he had suffered a permanent injury as a result of Wekerle's behaviour.

Wekerle left Griffiths McBurney in 2011, and launched his own merchant banking firm, Difference Capital, in 2012 to invest in technology startups. His investments through Difference Capital include the film and television studio Thunderbird Films, the data analysis firm Appinions, the medical technology firm BrainScope, the social media management service HootSuite, and the technology firm Vision Critical. In 2014, he announced the launch of a new business incubator in the Waterloo Region that would offer venture capital funding to new tech startups. He subsequently began buying high-tech commercial buildings in Waterloo, a number of which had previously been owned by BlackBerry.

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