Montreal Tech Watch

What are the top startups in Canada? I need your input

By Heri Jun 19th 2007 in Business, entrepreneurship

I am gathering currently a list of the top startups and web applications in Canada and I am asking you, the reader, to participate in it. The article would be published on a major tech blog. For me, it’s an opportunity to show that tech entrepreneurs can shine in Montreal, in Quebec — and in Canada too.

So far, I have thought of shopify, freshbooks, librivox, wikitravel, clubpenguin, cambrian house and conceptshare. There is also nowpublic.

But of course, this is just a temporary list. If you know of any great web service in Canada, I would be very grateful if you leave a comment.

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Comments

  • Mat June 19, 2007

    dabbleDB man!

  • Mat June 19, 2007

    bubbleshare?

  • Brenden Sherratt June 19, 2007

    CambrianHouse.com 100% agree.

    or

    Robinhoodfund.com

  • Heri June 19, 2007

    thanks for commenting guys

    @mat – yes dabbledb will be on the list. bubbleshare – i have to get their user base

    @brenden sherratt. i didn’t know about robinhoodfund.com. i have just emailed them to get more info.

  • Nick June 19, 2007

    Check out http://www.IdeaStorms.com. Montreal area startup.

  • Alex June 19, 2007

    FLICKR?

  • techguy June 19, 2007

    I’m in support of Cambrian House and Robin Hood Fund. I’ve participated quite a bit in helping create and build Robin Hood Fund. The website has definitely built a thriving community.

  • Ben Yoskovitz June 20, 2007

    Heri – I can put you in touch with Albert from Bubbleshare. I don’t believe he’s involved still, and I know he’s working on a new startup (he’s on the cover of Canadian Business magazine) but he might have some information for you.

    Just let me know if you want me to make the introduction.

    Weblo is Montreal-based, and doing quite well from what I heard the last time I looked at them.

    Mobivox is Montreal-based and recently launched. I’d say they’re quite hot although they get less buzz right now than some of the others you’ve listed.

  • François La Roche June 20, 2007

    Check out Hue Media. New service for companies that want to track their image and brand in a Web 2.0 environment. Quite interesting.

  • François La Roche June 20, 2007

    oops. I meant Hue Agence. (same URL)

  • Geo Perdis June 20, 2007

    Hi Heri, I’m the blog editor for Octopz, a Toronto-based software startup.

    We launched a browser-based online collaboration software service back in April at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. It’ designed for creative and media pros who want to collaborate on documents and digital media including video, and it features integrated text, voice and video conferencing.

    We’ve received good early feedback and reviews on the app, which you can find on our website and blog.

    Best,

    geo

  • Heri June 20, 2007

    @nick thanks for passing by but i didn’t understand ideastorms

    @tech guy, yes robinhoodfund will be in the list. waiting for their feedback

    @alex – i will mention flickr, but they are in american hands now

    @francois la rouche. the product seems intersting but like ideastorms, there is no public versions so i can’t mention it.

    @octopz ok i am trying octopz. have spent 15 minutes trying to signup and still no results

  • Heri June 20, 2007

    @geo perdiz – octopz doesnt support safari. then, i tried firefox but it said multiple octopz windows. this online tool needs to be reengineered.

  • Scott Lake June 21, 2007

    Here are few others from Ottawa. They aren’t giants yet but they may be.

    Devshop.com is a great software project management tool developed by Craig Fitzpatrick in Ottawa!

    Also Kakiloc.com is a location based social network developed by Martin Dufort who is from Ottawa but moving to montreal.

    Lastly, bOKnow.com is a very new startup that allows you to make free calls from any existing cell phone plan.

  • Stirling Westrup June 21, 2007

    Another vote for CambrianHouse.com!

  • Martin Dufort June 21, 2007

    @Scott: Thanks for putting our name there. And yes, I’m moving back to Montreal.

    I would also say the Poly9 guys (www.poly9.com) in Quebec City who are making a very nice FreeEarth product as well. Greg Sadetsky would be your contact

  • Samuel June 21, 2007

    I agree for the initial list and for Poly9 , their stuff is cool. I would add sneakerplay. Also, have a look again at what we do at the Canadian real estate search engine waka.ca. BTW, we have a new Q&A feature coming out next week, plus some more content for English provinces during the Summer…

  • Trevor June 23, 2007

    I’m not arguing with these choices, but there are many, many tech (software) startups that fly under the 2.0 radar, or are b2b concerns, yet are forging ahead with disruptive ideas.

    Startups don’t just mean b2c.

    My shortlist: http://Pvelocity.com (never had a pilot installation fail to turn into a client) http://www.MyThum.com (just won media award), http://www.Opalis.com http://www.Rapidmind.com (mind-boggling cool stuff) and Leila Boujnane’s incredible http://www.Ideeinc.com.

    Agreed with the Devshop addition, Craig has a great product.

  • Heri June 24, 2007

    scott, martin, trevor and samuel, those are great businesses. but i was in fact looking for web applications. ie services that are avalaible to the public via a browser. i know there are great companies like b5media or ideeinc who have great technology and innovating each day but they didn’t fit in the definition – well for me at least.

    keep tuned. the post should be published this week.

  • Sunir Shah June 26, 2007

    Heri, I’m profiling a number of awesome companies I met at Mesh on the FreshBooks blog.

    http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/category/superentrepreneur

    I definitely think you ought to add at least those I’ve done so far (StandoutJobs, ProductWiki, JobLoft) to your list. There’ll be another 15 or so coming.

    By the way, thanks for including FreshBooks on the list! I just joined them, and it’s nice to see others confirm my own gut instinct.

  • David July 06, 2007

    Tungle

    (but I’m very biased)

  • David July 06, 2007

    Great blog, btw !

  • Heri July 06, 2007

    @david ok so I know there were 2 groups who invested 2 months ago in tungle. which one are you from? (desjardins?)

    and by the way, the list was published on r/ww a week ago

    more about it here

    http://montrealtechwatch.com/2007/06/26/top-canadian-web-apps/

  • David July 08, 2007

    Desjardins, yes. Check out my (poor poor) blog, there’s an almost up-to-date list of our pf companies up there.

  • Heri July 09, 2007

    ok. just added your blog to my blogroll. funny way to mix in the same blog video games, travel in albania and finance by the way :-)

  • AJ July 04, 2008

    Canadian startup index compiled by TechVibes ranks almost 300 web sites across the country.

    http://www.techvibes.com/blog/canada-start-up-index-july-2008/

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