Montreal Tech Watch

The Startup Festival was scheduled from wednesday to friday last week, and for those who have been there, it’s the best technology conference for Montréal, an event that no-one couldn’t miss

The International Startup Festival is Phil Telio’s vision, who after the successful StartupCamp series, dreamt about gathering entrepreneurs and investors from all the world in Montréal. It’s the first of its kind in Montreal, and we hope it’s not the last!

Andy Nulman, an iconic figure in Montréal, got the Just for Laughs festival to work with the Startup Festival. Having a “fun moment” was a big part of Phil Telio’s vision, and a great match for Montreal. If entrepreneurs had to travel to the city, they might as well (re)discover the city’s fun, creativity and uniqueness in North America.

Sponsors could buy Startup Patrons tickets, which gives entry to one starving entrepreneur of their choice, the case of many web entrepreneurs here in Montréal. Not many had a few hundreds of dollars to spare for a conference, even if it’s invaluable, preferring instead to invest the precious dollars in developing their product.

Here, Fasken Martineau (center) sponsored Mike Sabbagh (right), founder of sellyourelectronics.

Of course, the festival was a unique opportunity to re-connect. Investors, directors of incubators, entrepreneurs, crossed and talked in the corridors, or during the cocktails & the parties scheduled during the 3 days.

Enterprising companies could get a booth to advertise their product. Here, Phil Gauvin, matchFWD founder, tries to get the job referral app online.

Tandem Launch also had a booth to present the “university incubator” but also present at the same time their own companies

Thanks to Christian Perron from SDEVM for being a Patron Patron :)

Talks were targeted to new & operational startups, with topics ranging from “creative” marketing, to venture hacks, to keynotes about the entrepreneurship mindset.

Here, we’ve got Jeff Clavier, Charlie O’Donnell in a session about micro-funding (on a VC perspective), how it changes the VC landscape, and how entrepreneurs should view accelerator programs like FounderFuel.

Interactions between keynote speakers and the audience are a big part of the Startup Festival, and many took the opportunity.

We also had a film crew from Los Angeles who stayed for 4 days in Montreal, interviewing top entrepreneurs, and trying to document startup-ing. Ondi Timoner, the director, won an award at the Sundance film festival about online privacy, and now aims her camera once again at the Internet.

Seen here is an art project during 3 days, where attendees were asked to colorize each a small square. If you had 5 minutes to spare during sessions, it was a great way to do something creative.

A few local startups were represented at the festival, such as Qidiq, a discussion app, localmind, another year one labs startup, and enterprising.ly, which offered a bundle for the event.

Here, Phil Telio thanks all the volunteers, the organizing comittee and all the sponsors.

The festival continued in spirit Friday pm, with off events such as the Entrepreneur camp organized by Sylvain Carle from Needium

As you can see, EntrepreneurCamp continued in the evening with an open BBQ at the Notman House. Startup founders such as Laurent Maisonnave (@seevibes) or Kateline Jean-Pierre (@TouiTouiTV) took the opportunity to hustle their startup to anyone in the crowd.

We had well over 180 people registered for the event!

See more Startup Festival pictures