Amid the unprecedented surge of unicorns emerging from B.C. the past year-plus, BIV has reached out to the leaders behind these high-growth companies to determine what’s behind this wave of activity and where the tech sector goes from here.
The following responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.
What do you believe is behind the recent surge of unicorns emerging from B.C.?
Judi Hess, CEO, Copperleaf Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq:CPLF)
Forty-plus years of hard work developing the tech sector in our province, which includes the increased availability of talent and capital.
Ryan Wong, CEO, Visier Inc.
If you look at the organizations in B.C. that hit unicorn status recently, the overwhelming majority of them are mature organizations that have been around for close to 10 years. Visier itself is approaching 12 years, and we saw other unicorns like Clio [Themis Solutions Inc.] mature, and they’ve been around since 2007. Further, B.C. software companies traditionally have been undervalued compared to their peers in the U.S. So last year’s rush of unicorns is less of an anomaly and more of an inevitability. There just so happened to be a large number of companies just waiting to break through, and last year was the time.
Laurie Schultz, chairwoman, Riskalyze Inc. (former Galvanize CEO)
I view B.C.’s cascade of recent unicorns as an output of many hard years of work, especially in the last 10 years, to raise the profile of the sector and to address the talent supply challenge. This coincides with the elimination of global boundaries and bricks and mortar environments accelerating our access to international supply and demand.
Steve Munford, CEO, Trulioo Information Services Inc.
The growing experience and strength of the talent in B.C., capital from south of the border recognizing this, and the macro trend that technology will underpin everything we do and is a great place to invest.
Stephen Sidwell, CEO, Nexii Building Solutions Inc.
The technology sector across B.C. has been scaling and diversifying for many years, particularly in Vancouver. What we are experiencing now is the culmination of many years of tech growing and developing in B.C., with a more supportive and dynamic ecosystem for entrepreneurs to thrive and attract investment. This momentum is continuing to attract more talent and capital to B.C. and encourage governments to scale their support for education, training and investment. The recent surge of unicorns emerging in B.C. is a trend that has the potential to continue and will definitely be transformative for the economy.
What’s driving growth at your own company?
Wong
The pandemic forced organizations to realize that their single most important asset is their people. Companies had to rethink how to monitor productivity, engagement, remote work, health and safety, mental health and burnout, and many more questions that all directly relate to people data. This monumental shift has absolutely led to more organizations coming to Visier to better understand their people.
Sidwell
While Vancouver and B.C. building codes are aggressively advancing sustainable building practices, the construction industry is lagging far behind other industries on innovation and improving building materials and methods to reduce climate impacts. As the urgency for climate action continues to grow there is huge demand for sustainable, cost-efficient and disaster-resilient building products that can scale rapidly. Nexii delivers on all of these elements, and that’s why we’ve gone from startup to 400 staff in just three years.
Greg Smith, CEO, Thinkific Labs Inc. (TSX:THNC)
The market we’re in is growing rapidly. The creator economy is accelerating with a strong and growing interest in entrepreneurship and creating businesses around your passion, skills or knowledge.
Alan Baratz, CEO, D-Wave Quantum Inc.
The growth of our company is being driven by our ability to translate the complex science of quantum computing into tangible real-world value for customers. D-Wave is the only quantum computing company demonstrating the commercial value of quantum computing to a blue-chip customer base, including industry leaders like Volkswagen, Toyota’s R&D Labs and Lockheed Martin. This success is directly related to ongoing advancements in our quantum systems, quantum access via the cloud and the creation of quantum hybrid applications, which allow companies to have the best of both worlds (access to classical computation and quantum computers) to solve bigger problems.
Hess
Our culture, people and dedication to product innovation are the keys to our success and growth – as well as our passion to deliver exceptional value and extraordinary experiences to our customers.
Carl Hansen, CEO, AbCellera Biologics Inc. (Nasdaq:ABCL)
AbCellera’s growth over 2020 and 2021 occurred while actively responding to the global pandemic, and we are proud to have brought forward two COVID-19 antibody therapies.
How has the pressure to perform increased since reaching unicorn status?
Munford
Reaching a large valuation, or unicorn status, is simply one step along the way to building a market-leading company but is ultimately an arbitrary marker in a company’s journey. The unicorn label itself has not added any pressure, but the funding has enabled us to accelerate our goal to become the world’s leading end-to-end identity platform.
Wong
Luckily for us, we have very patient investors, and we have been meeting our plan. Raising US$125 million has certainly given us plenty of new opportunities for growth and expansion, but it does also naturally place additional expectations from our investors on the growth of our business. It also shone a spotlight on our organization as the leader in our space, so we have to continue to innovate and show value to our current, and future customers, to remain at the front of the pack.
Hess
There’s a larger spotlight on us now because of our status, but we have always set the bar high and continue to focus on long-term value creation for our clients.
Baratz
If pressure was ever an issue and if we’d ever listened to the naysayers, we wouldn’t have built a quantum computer. With our ongoing growth, we are energized by the opportunity to bring quantum computing to more industries, and more customers. We continue to focus on practical solutions, and we’ve seen that approach resonate with a variety of industries, such as life sciences, manufacturing, logistics and financial services. Other industries, such as energy and telecommunications, are also beginning to engage with quantum computing.
Schultz
I’ve since “semi-retired,” meaning I’ve joined five boards. And while the pressure is one step removed from that of the CEO, the opportunity is one of leveraging the experience gained at Galvanize to incubate unicorns in the businesses I am involved in.
Michael Gilbert, CEO, SemiosBio Technologies Inc.
Bigger cheques and high valuations come with loftier expectations of performance, return on investment and exits and increased drive to achieve and maintain leadership in a category.
What can B.C. do to meet demand for tech talent as the sector continues to grow?
Schultz
We are consciously incompetent around the supply of new talent out of schools. I think we are doing a good job of building relationships with schools, and this has started to shift for the better. Where we could do more is with executive-level talent, especially with the generation recently bred by all of the recent unicorns. We should be more conscious of “buying local” there, recruiting local talent to executive, CEO and board roles versus U.S. transplants. These people know how to do the job, and they know how to do it … from here.
Baratz
B.C. has been doing a good job of partnering with industry and academia to identify gaps and fill those with academic programs. There are programs to connect industry to domestic talent through the Digital Supercluster and Quantum Algorithm Institute, and programs to build a diverse workforce of the future such as UBC’s Geering Up and the Athena Pathways project. Moreover, the provincial support programs for immigration remains critical for talent recruitment.
Sidwell
We need to encourage international talent to come to B.C. from other parts of the world. Some barriers to getting this done continue to be housing supply and affordability. High salaries and stock options are no longer as effective to attract young talent. Especially when we are competing for the same talent with businesses headquartered in states and provinces like New York and Ontario.
Smith
Looking for talent from underrepresented pools of candidates. For example, women in tech. At Thinkific, nearly half our team identifies as female. There is a lot of talent and opportunity among newcomers to Canada. We have many team members who’ve come from around the world. We’re lucky to have them and better off for it. We’ve also started hiring abroad, which of course opens up the talent pool significantly.
Wong
Hiring tech talent in B.C. has always been a struggle, and one of the reasons we’ve taken a dedicated approach to fostering new talent through our long-standing co-op program. Now with remote work readily available, and major offices from competitors like Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN)], competition for talent has become even more demanding. Our local talent supply is limited, and B.C. should relax immigration rules to encourage new arrival of talents from other countries.
Munford
First we need to treat technology and programming as a core foundation of education from a very early age. Secondly, we need to ensure that our children and youth are aware of careers in tech and what the options are. Finally, the provincial government recently announced their commitment to investing in the skills and training people need now and in the future. Having the capacity at post-secondary institutions is critical.
Hess
Continue to expand our local educational institutions to remain world class, focus on immigration to attract the best and brightest and embrace a work-from-anywhere culture.
What needs to happen to ensure anchor companies remain headquartered in B.C.?
Jack Newton, CEO, Clio (Themis Solutions Inc.)
Historically, venture-backed tech companies would move headquarters to say, Silicon Valley, and so went our executive talent stream. That’s changed. Clio’s executive team spans provincial and national borders. Some have risen from within the company, others join us from some of the biggest tech companies in the world. Long term, we have the opportunity to develop and promote the next generation of tech leaders right here in B.C.
Munford
The reality is that all unicorns will not remain independent and some will be acquired. This is not unique to B.C. But it’s a numbers game, and I am confident that among the companies hitting scale and unicorn status, a number will remain independent and remain proudly B.C. headquartered.
Wong
We have a history of having a good startup environment, but having homegrown, large-scale tech organizations is something relatively new for us. We’re looking long term at our ability to continue to hire skilled and experienced talents as we grow up to – and past – 1,000 employees. In our industry, mitigating competition often comes from the promise of share ownership, so having support in the means of favourable employee stock options and tax incentives can help to promote innovation.
Sidwell
We need to ensure that there is continued access to talent, more affordable housing options, and continuing improvement in access to both private and public investment. Affordable business practices have always been an incentive for anchor companies to remain headquartered in B.C., particularly in the growing technology sector. Increasing interest rates and red tape should be avoided as much as possible for as long as possible.
Hess
We need to continue to grow the talent pool, support leadership, and invest in innovation. Supporting the scaling of local tech start ups to become the next anchor companies is also critical
Smith
Keeping the mountains and the ocean for a start. It’s hard to argue with those and Vancouver as an amazing place to live and work. But joking aside, I think companies tend to stay where they build strong roots. Continued programs that support early startups are an ideal way to maximize the pool of potential anchor companies in the future
Schultz
At the end of the day, CEOs and boards have to do what is right for their customers, employees and shareholders. At Galvanize, our sale to Diligent offered our customers (risk professionals) a direct seat at the boardroom table (via Diligent software) and thus was a marriage made in heaven. Possibly, our path to keeping a headquarters in Vancouver could have been swayed by having more relationships with Canadian-based private equity and by having more local M&A opportunities. The good news is – in Galvanize’s case, at least – we’ve now incubated 500 employees (250 local) with the experiential means to participate in the next unicorn in B.C. •
