Q-News
May 2010
Posted in Mike's Commentary
First came Google and then came BumpTop,
a company name that is poised to become a verb.
Can’t you just see all of the early-stage technology companies with inflated
views on valuation and the inevitable or preordained sale to Google, Microsoft
or Oracle looking you in the eye and telling you straight faced that they are
the next BumpTop? All kidding aside,
kudos to Anand Agarawala, his angel investors, Amar Varma at Extreme Venture Partners and Scott Pelton
at Growthworks, for believing in Anand’s
ability to turn his masters thesis “Enriching the Desktop with Physics, Piles
and the Pen” into reality, grow his team to 16 employees, and convert $1.65
million in investment capital into a rumored $30 million sale to Google. Hopefully we’ll see lots more Canadian
companies get “BumpTopped” in the near future!
April turned out to be more of the same with only five
companies reporting to have raised $52.5 million. But if we look at a trailing
12-month chart of deals and dollars invested we can see that the rate of
decline appears to be slowing.
Mind you,
it’s tough to think about the level of monthly investment activity getting much
worse.
On the positive side, we’re seeing plenty of interest and
activity at the grass roots level. The York Technology Association continues to
hold sold-out monthly lunch presentations and Mobile Monday is consistently
held to a packed house at MaRS. We’re also moving into planning season for
the annual Canadian
Innovation Exchange. The first
meeting of the CIX advisors took place last week and by all indications this
year’s exchange (scheduled for the first week of December) will be another
‘must-attend” event. With lots of hard work and planning by Robert Montgomery (First
Maximilian Associates and Achilles Media Ltd.) and Rick Nathan (Managing
Director, Kensington Capital Partners) and participation from a large supporting cast of tech sector
professionals, we can expect to see a great event and showcase for Canada’s top
innovative technology companies.
You also have to hand it to the guys over at Bridgescale Partners, who in a
relatively short period of time have stepped up to the plate and are becoming leading
cheerleaders for Canadian technology companies, filling the void left by the
departure of Rick Segal from JLA Ventures.
In particular, Rob Chaplinsky and Howard Gwin have done an excellent job
of fast becoming active members in the Canadian technology community and, with
their Digital Puck initiative and Mentor
Mondays, look to have real longevity.
Two additional organizations that are gathering interest
are C100, a member-driven organization
dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment and,
as mentioned, Digital Puck, a
community of Canadian technology entrepreneurs and supporters looking to
connect and exchange thoughts. Check
them out and get active.
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