Why Calgary Can Be North America’s Next Tech Hub 🌐🚀
A recap of 'The Future of the Calgary Tech Ecosystem', featuring Mayor Jyoti Gondek
Last week’s Tech Thursday, “The Future of the Calgary Tech Ecosystem,” brought together Mayor Jyoti Gondek, OCIF’s Crystal Phillips, and Clayton Feick of recently-acquired Ontopical. The conversation focused on what’s driving momentum in local tech, how public and private capital are accelerating growth, and how Calgary can be Canada’s next innovation hub.
This is our recap of the top ideas from last week’s Tech Thursday.
“We believed in [tech]. COVID proved us right; tech carried us through.”
- Mayor Jyoti Gondek
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3 Reasons Why Calgary Will Be North America’s Next Tech Hub:
TL;DR
Large funds are committing to Calgary, and local exits are starting to return capital to investors: Large investments funds like KKR are committing resources to Calgary as a tech hub, fuelling optimism for tech and providing more local liquidation events.
OCIF’s $60M recapitalization: Commitment from the municipal government to OCIF to support local companies will continue to grow Calgary’s tech ecosystem that has already grown substantially from the initial investment in 2018.
Shifting our view of “failure” to Success: Stories like the recent Attabotics news should not be considered a failure, but instead an opportunity to redistribute talent into the industry, which will help build fast growing tech companies.
3 Reasons Why Calgary Will Be North America’s Next Tech Hub:
1. Local Exits Returning Capital to Investors and Employees
With the recent acquisition of Ontopical by Sovra, there is doubling down on Calgary as a tech hub, including the creation of an AI tech hub, backed by KKR, an American private equity firm with assets totalling over $350B USD.
Why this is important:
It’s a vote of confidence in the city’s ecosystem. KKR is one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world, their investment into Calgary evidences the current talent pool, and potential for growth. The AI tech hub will come with a significant amount of hiring.
Exits fuel innovation. When liquidity is returned to local investors and employees, that money is often returned into the ecosystem. We have seen this with PayPal spinning out companies like SpaceX, YouTube, and Yelp. You also saw this with LinkedIn, Zappos, and to a certain extent SkipTheDishes.
Local investors who see these returns will be more likely to see local high-growth Tech companies as good investments and re-invest that capital in the ecosystem.
Key Takeaway: The vote of confidence from KKR and commitment to building tech infrastructure in Calgary is a great reason for optimism in Calgary’s tech future, and ability to fuel even more local exits down the road.
2. Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund’s Recapitalization
Calgary committed $100M to the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund (OCIF) in 2018, supporting nearly 1,000 companies and nearly 3,000 jobs. A follow-up $60M was recapitalized by the City of Calgary, signifying the belief in the ecosystem.
Why this is important: After the initial commitment of $100M to help grow Calgary’s tech ecosystem was a success (as evidenced by the numbers above in addition to helping companies such as Ontopical scale and ultimately be acquired), the additional $60M will be tailored to sectors where Calgary has a ‘Right to Win’, including AgTech, Renewable Energy, Aerospace, Defence, and others.
Key Takeaway: The commitment from both the government and OCIF to support local companies' ability for scaling, acquisition, and return capital to investors and employees alike will continue to grow Calgary’s tech ecosystem that has already grown significantly from the initial investment in 2018.
3. Companies Going Under Should be Treated as a Success, Not a Failure
While American culture can view failures as learning opportunities, Canadian tech has often viewed failure as a ‘black mark’, but with the benefits of talent redistribution and valuable experience, companies that go under should be viewed as success for the ecosystem in the long-run.
Why this is important: Having a company go under not only provides employees within those companies valuable learning experiences about fast growth and innovation, but the talent is also redistributed into the economy. As mentioned with the massive hiring for the KKR-backed AI centre, there is already interest in people coming from Attabotics to be a part of this new venture, who will also have the experience of building fast growing tech companies.
Key Takeaway: By reframing the mindset around a company going under into a positive, more ambitious founders will view Calgary as a place to push the envelope, resulting in more innovation, and as a result, Calgary becoming more renowned as a North American tech hub.
Hot Take:
Calgary’s Quality of Life Factors will Play a Massive Role in Tech Growth
Tech talent will continue to be attracted to Calgary, not just for the jobs in the space, but for everything else that make this city special. The quality of life, cost of living, and vibrant arts and culture scene will all play an integral role in our continued success.
Why does that matter? Calgary has already seen record interprovincial migration. Quality of life factors paired with a growing tech ecosystem will only help us accelerate the growth of the city’s tech talent pool to become one of North America’s best.
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Including:
Jeff Smith, CEO at Digital Commerce Bank
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Including:
Leah Sarich, Head of Story at Thin Air Labs
Remi Schmaltz, CEO & Founder at Brilliant Harvest Inc.
Joella Almeida, CEO & CO-Founder at MedEssist
Benjamin Kemp, CEO at Ambyint
September 25th: Toast X BetaKit ‘Top 25 Women in Tech’ Gala
We’re thrilled to be hosting a formal gala to celebrate the Top 25 Women in Tech across Canada. You don’t want to miss it