Brain drain to Canada

2 responses

  1. Mark,

    Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but Tech Capital (founded in 2001… not that long ago) chose to be based in Waterloo Region because of the opportunities in this Region. And we continue to believe in this region – it is increasingly being recognized as the best place to start a tech company in Canada. Last year, when deal flow numbers were down across the country, ours were up. And the number of VCs who have been knocking on our door is also up.

    For your reference, the report “Making Magic in Waterloo Region”, published by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Communitech, documents the results of this region for everyone to see: http://www.communitech.ca/includes/html/resources/2007-01MakingMagicWeb.pdf. It’s easy to make blanket statements but we have data to back ours up.

    And as for Communitech, the organization has never been stronger and is actively engaged in helping to recruit fantastic people to technology companies based here. In fact, we are attracting a number of folks from Toronto (and Europe and the US) who are recognizing that they can work for strong successful tech companies and have amazing career opportunities — without having to spend a huge chunk of their day stuck in traffic.

    So for those of you out there reading this posting who are not currently working for tech companies in Waterloo Region, we’d love to help you relocate. We’re growing like crazy and actively hiring — http://www.techcapital.com/careers.asp.

    Jacqui.

  2. Mark McQueen says:

    The comment is more of a lament than anything; after all, our fund is called “Wellington Financial” as in “Wellington” County. I’ve been a Communitech member for 7 years, 6 as a Titan sponsor (ie. we’ve sent probably $50k in fees to the association to help improve the community). Have family in the region. We’ve done a deal in the area as well, so our money is where our proverbial mouth is on every possible level.

    Tech Capital has been at the forefront of developing new firms, as highlighted in the original post.

    I just think that the number (numerator) of new great companies created in the region over the past three or four years, when compared to the number of engineers/entrepreneurs/funders/lawyers/advisors (a demoninator, let’s say) isn’t good enough. Something isn’t gelling, and we need a call to action.

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