Sara Defina, CPA, CBV is a Partner at Information Venture Partners where she oversees the firm’s financial, legal, and operational activities and helps guide its investment strategy.
She joined the firm in 2020 as Director of Finance, leading fund operations, fundraising, and limited-partner relationships, while managing the legal and financial components of investment due diligence. Over time, her role has expanded to include evaluating new investment opportunities and providing post-investment support. Sara also serves as a board observer for several portfolio companies, including Wisedocs, Coconut Software, Procurify, and ThoughtExchange.
Before joining Information Venture Partners, Sara advised growth-stage B2B software companies on M&A and growth financing at SurePath Capital Partners and previously worked in KPMG’s Valuations Deal Advisory and Audit practices. An advocate for industry diversity, Sara serves on the CVCA Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto and is both a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) and Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA).
We sat down with Sara to learn more about her career journey across valuations, transactions, and venture capital. In this conversation, she shares how the CBV designation strengthened her technical foundation and professional judgement, the engagement that confirmed she’d chosen the right path, and her advice for aspiring CBVs.
How has the CBV designation supported your career development over the years?
The CBV designation has supported my career in many meaningful ways. First and foremost, it gave me a solid and rigorous analytical foundation. The CBV Program and working in valuations helped me build deep technical skills like financial modelling and research.
More importantly, it gave me a framework for judgement. The training goes beyond mechanics and teaches you how to exercise professional judgement. It helped me develop a structured way to think about businesses, market risk, how to compare companies and industries, and how value fits into that.
That has been especially valuable in my current role, where I’m often working with imperfect information, evolving business models, non-traditional capital structures, or companies that aren’t even profitable yet.
Lastly, the CBV gives you a practical edge across diverse roles. I started in a traditional valuation role at a Big Four firm, moved into investment banking, and now I’m in a broader finance, operations, and investing role at a venture capital firm. The skills from the CBV Program and my training at KPMG have been consistently transferable across all those milestones.
Can you share a particularly challenging yet interesting valuation analysis that made you realize you had chosen the right career path?
One of the most memorable and defining engagements for me was during my time at KPMG, when I supported a large merger of three wealth management institutions.
Up to that point, much of my experience had been in valuation work for financial reporting, which gave me a strong technical foundation and a solid understanding of valuation principles.
What made this engagement stand out was that it applied those same skills in a live transaction setting. I was building valuation models, analyzing synergies, thinking through integration risks, and helping assess the long-term strategic rationale behind the deal. Seeing how the analysis directly informed real decisions made the work especially engaging and it confirmed that I wanted to pursue a career where I could combine rigorous analysis with broader business thinking.
How does your current role as Partner at Information Venture Partners differ from your previous roles, and how has valuation expertise proven valuable in venture capital?
Early in my career at KPMG, I worked mostly with large, profitable operating businesses where the financial information was readily available. The valuation work felt very structured: DCF models, robust forecasts, clear comparable companies.
Venture capital is the complete opposite. You’re evaluating early-stage or growth-stage companies with incomplete data, limited history, and very few true comparables. It becomes much more of an art than a science.
But that’s where my valuation background has been incredibly valuable. The CBV Program of Studies gives you a judgement framework that still applies even when inputs are imperfect. The fundamentals of value and risk don’t change, you just rely more heavily on experience, pattern recognition, and informed judgement.
Do you have any tips for people looking to become CBVs in the future?
I always encourage people interested in the CBV path to speak with as many people in the field as possible. Everyone uses the designation differently, and hearing different perspectives helps you understand the breadth of opportunities it can unlock.
When I first started, I assumed CBVs only worked in valuation groups at the Big Four or in pension funds. But the skill set is transferable across many areas of finance. Gaining exposure early helps you see how versatile the training is and where it can take your career.
Can you share a fun fact about yourself?
In 2020, my husband and I bought our first home, and it turned into a four-year renovation project. We took on most of the work ourselves, with help from our family.
It was an intense and time-consuming process, but also incredibly rewarding. It reminded me how much I enjoy rolling up my sleeves, getting my hands dirty, and creating something from start to finish. That’s probably part of why I enjoy venture capital so much. I get to work with founders and teams building things from scratch. It’s not always glamorous, but it’s truly satisfying.
