Montreal Tech Watch

Welcome to Silicon Island!

By Heri Sep 5th 2007 in Business, entrepreneurship

I just read an unexpected article from La Presse, titled Bienvenue A Silicon Valley, PQ. The article from Alain McKenna states that Montreal is now Canada’s Silicon Valley. He interviewed Tom Sweeney, general partner from Garage Canada, who now believes Montreal is the first place in Canada to launch startups. Tom Sweeney talks about entrepreneurs, local bloggers, investors, universities and events like DemoCamps and Barcamps, which all contribute to create a startup culture. The article also confirms one thing I was unsure of, which is Garage Canada prefers to invest in local companies.

About VCs and investing, the article mentions that Montreal has the highest concentration of risk capital in Canada, to the point that entrepreneurs from Ontario are now settling in the metropole. Tom Sweeney also announced that they will create this fall a seed fund, which lacked in the city. It will enable entrepreneurs from Canada or other parts of the world to start their company, as long as they do it in Montreal.

What do you think? Is Montreal Canada’s Silicon Valley?

Comments

  • Carl Mercier September 05, 2007

    Vancouver seems to be much more active that Montreal startup-wise. I could be dead wrong because I’ve never been there, but the number of success stories from Vancouver is much more significant than those from Montreal.

    Montreal is slowly but surely improving, however. I’m really starting to feel the vibe: I wasn’t feeling it 6 months ago.

    Comparing Montreal to the Valley is still a huge overstatement, however.

  • Mat September 05, 2007

    Hmm… Interesting comment Carl — I moved from Vancouver to Montreal about 6 months ago. Guess I brought the vibe with me.

    ;)

  • Heri September 05, 2007

    Carl: I think that if Vancouver had Montreal’s size, it would be Canada’s Silicon Valley. Although as you say, things are accelerating

    Mat: Montreal has confident entrepreneurs, that’s for sure :-) you nearly fell from my chair when reading your comment

  • Carl Mercier September 05, 2007

    The point is that Vancouver is smaller than Montreal, yet has more startup activity. That’s in number, not just in percentage.

  • Fred September 05, 2007

    Geez, I can’t *not* comment on any post that contains the title Silicon Island. ;-)

    Anyway, we’re definitely not there yet, but we’ve certainly got a start now that we’ve all found each other since nearly a year ago.

    Now, we just have to do everything we can to make one (or more) of the newly launched startups a success! I think the moment that Montreal produces a Flickr-like success story, *then* we’ll have arrived as a player.

    Fred

  • Mat September 05, 2007

    I think Fred is entirely right. Montreal needs a big score to establish its legitimacy.

  • Carl Mercier September 05, 2007

    Fred, Mat: I can only agree.

  • heri September 05, 2007

    Tom Sweeney from Garage Canada tells the press that Montreal is Canada’s Silicon Valley http://tinyurl.com/3xjnyw

  • mcken September 05, 2007

    For the record, Heri, the article doesn’t «state» Montreal is Canada’ SI. It asks the question, though.

    I’ve had feedback this morning from local entrepreneurs. They basically say that if Mtl is to become a larger tech hub, it will need better support from the government.

    Isn’t always the same complaint again and again?

  • Heri September 05, 2007

    mcken: the title of the article was “bienvenue a Silicon Valley, PQ”, which i don’t found ambiguous. although there was a question though on the first lines.

    can you elaborate about “local entrepreneurs”? what is their market and also what is their size? i think you should redirect them to ressources that are already avalaible.

    fred: Silicon Island is a great blog name. mcken had the direct allusion to silicon valley so i made the link.

  • Mehdi September 05, 2007

    I think the fact that the cosmopolitan spirit has indeed a major effect on Montreal becoming a city for entrepreneurs. People coming from different horizons (inside or outside Canada) are a driving force to this movement. They settle here to find a better place to live and have that entrepreneurial drive that Montreal needs. There are more factors to explain the attractiveness of Montreal, “entre autres” its very active (yet small but growing!!) tech community, but I wanted to talk about that point that I think is essential.

    P.S.:80% of people in silicon valley were not born there.

    Mehdi

  • Max September 05, 2007

    Why we just don’t simply call Vancouver: Silicon Delta and Montreal: Silicon Island. ;-P

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  • Heri September 09, 2007

    max: silicon island all the way.

    mehdi: yes i agree, that’s Montreal’s main strenghts (like vancouver). i belive most of Montrelal’s innovation potential is still untapped

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