On May 26th, I attended the C2 conference in Montreal, joining my good friend Harley Finkelstein…
Entrepreneurship
It has not been a great couple of weeks for the Toronto-Waterloo area as BlackBerry, the big anchor tech company of that region, is struggling with its turn-around and just put itself up for sale. But where a giant tech company struggles, one of the most exciting startup ecosystem in North-America has emerged over the […]
borisOn May 26th, I attended the C2 conference in Montreal, joining my good friend Harley Finkelstein…
In an effort to spur on their local economies, many provincial and city officials have…
It has not been a great couple of weeks for the Toronto-Waterloo area as BlackBerry, the big anchor tech company of that region, is struggling with its turn-around and just put itself up for sale. But where a giant tech company struggles, one of the most exciting startup ecosystem in North-America has emerged over the past 5 years: 500px, Achievers, Desire to Learn, FreshBooks, Kik, Thalmic Labs, Top Hat, Tulip Retail, Upverter, Vidyard, Wattpad, and Well.ca are just some of the thriving start-ups in that area.
Three years ago, I didn’t have a single investment in Toronto. Today, I have four: Top Hat, Upverter, Wattpad and one yet-to-be-announced. In fact, Toronto is now the most important geographical market for version one ventures.
Top tier U.S. funds are beginning to take notice of this area now too. Whenever I talk to NYC- or Valley-based investors these days, they all want to discuss what’s happening in Toronto and most have made investments in a Toronto or Waterloo startup.
What’s driving all these activity in the area? It’s people. The Toronto-Waterloo cluster has an incredible talent pool. First, the University of Waterloo (ranked among the top 50 engineering schools worldwide) has been churning out talented engineers that have been highly prized in Silicon Valley and other tech hotbeds. The University is well known for embracing innovation, featuring cutting edge research in quantum physics and nanotechnology.
In addition to top notch engineers, the area has a great number of high tech senior marketing and sales professionals that can be recruited from larger tech players in the area like BlackBerry, Eloqua, and Kobo among others. The continued downsizing at BlackBerry has released a lot of talent into the local tech community.
It’s an exciting time to be participating in the area, whether as a startup or investor. Tech hubs like New York and Los Angeles may be getting most of the media coverage as alternatives to the Valley, but attention is starting to move northward. This is the time for Toronto startups.
Data / AI / ML
This November marks three years since the launch of ChatGPT. That moment brought AI into the mainstream, with large language models (LLMs) seen as the breakthrough technology powering it. Since then, innovation in AI has been relentless — perhaps one of the fastest cycles we’ve ever witnessed in tech. It’s worth pausing to reflect on […]
borisIt’s hard to believe that it has been three years since my first day at…
“It takes 10 years and $30m to become a great investor.” This quote has stuck…