Canadian Tech Startups: Three Reasons for Optimism

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - June 30, 2013 - PRLog -- Gone are the days when tech startups had to be in Toronto. Gone are the days when venture capital was a gift from heaven. Gone are the days when the mentality was that you had to get to Silicon Valley as quickly as possible.

I see three major reasons why we can be optimistic for our homegrown tech startups:

The PwC 2013 Report on emerging Canadian technology companies. [http://www.pwc.com/ca/v2rsurvey] The latest edition of this report, now in its tenth year, talked to over 200 CEOs from a wide national cross-section of emerging Canadian technology companies, including the Branham 300, the Canadian Business Tech 100, Profit Hot 500 and others.

They found that “The startup ecosystem is expanding, with more investors and investment opportunities presenting themselves.” Paul Jackson, Founder of the QuickBooks-integrated, web-based platform, Method Integration told PwC that in his opinion, “we’re becoming bigger-picture thinkers and we’re looking for growth more rather than just purely profit.” CEOs were also optimistic on the potential the government’s new Startup Visa Program can have to help solve the problem of attracting more top-level talent for Canadian startups -- the Canadian government is already heavily promoting it in Silicon Valley [http://www.denverpost.com/technology/ci_23281230/canada-comes-silicon-valley-poach-high-tech-workers] to foreign workers caught in America’s immigration laws.

Venture capital funding. The recently-released Wavefront report titled “Impacts of Foreign Equity Investment in Canadian Firms” [http://www.wavefrontac.com/news/canadian-startups-seek-fo...] found that a homegrown VC market is developing through its growing pains, as US and other foreign funds continue to invest in Canadian tech startups. And with foreign funding comes foreign exposure and expertise for our benefit.

There are some promising new VC players in Canada, such as Pycap Venture Partners. Pycap will put “more than $800,000 into Canadian startups in the ICT and enterprise space within the next eight years,” according to itbusiness.ca [http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/new-vc-firm-raising-7-milli...], which explained that “each year, the $10-million micro-venture capital and angel investment fund will support around four startups with roughly $200,000 each, spending almost $7 million in total.”

Stuart Browne, Pycap’s founder and CEO, told itbusiness.ca that the fund’s investors tend to be “people like doctors, lawyers, and dentists who have the funds but not the knowledge to invest in the right companies.”

New Brunswick. Yes, that’s right, New Brunswick. Okay, I’m making a bigger point here: You don’t need to be in Toronto or Kitchener-Waterloo to be where it’s at. (That said, it’s not bad being in Kitchener-Waterloo [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/05/22/canada-startups-kitchener-waterloo/2347897/] these days!) Gerry Pond, co-founder and former chairman of Radian6, has partnered with Boston-based angel investor Gurunraj Deshpand “to create the Pond–Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Fredericton’s University of New Brunswick,” modeled after a similar institution at MIT to teach “commercial and social entrepreneurship skills to students,” according to TheStar [http://www.thestar.com/business/small_business/exitstrategy/2013/05/22/why-new-brunswick-is-canada-s-next-tech-startup-hub.html] There are dozens of other startups in the province, and according to Pond, Atlantic Canada has the technology, but could stand to improve their sales and marketing. The Pond-Deshpande Centre is a big step in that direction.

Author: Amit Hooja,CMO NetsurfMedia