Perspectives
How Much Seed Capital Should You Raise?
We were sitting on one of those lovely Zoom calls the other day at The Happenin Company, debating about how much seed capital we should raise. Of course the simple answer is raise as much money as you need to get to a Series A round in 18 to 24 months. But it helps to...
The Narwhal List 2021
We finally got around to launching the Narwhal List 2021. 2020 was another remarkable year for Canadian Narwhals. In particular, four companies from last year’s list went public. (Nuvei, Chinook Therapeutics, Repare Therapeutics, and Fusion Pharmaceuticals.) Five were...
A New Understanding of Intellectual Property
Technology, government and university leaders need a new understanding of intellectual property. It’s no longer enough to think of Technical IP in isolation. To succeed today, we need to take a broader view in which Marketing IP and Process IP are recognized as...
Scaling up in a Recession
Are you wondering about what to do about scaling up in a recession? We are now nearly two months into a combined health and economic crisis. Many companies will have had a chance to address cash flow and strategic issues. Are you ready to examine your cash flow and...
Innovation Spending in a Recession
Recent recessions in 2001 and 2008 can give us valuable insight into what we should do to optimize the results from innovation spending in a recession. There is a pattern to what successful firms have done in past recessions and it is as follows: Successful firms...
The Narwhal List 2020
The Narwhal List 2020 - 2019 was another remarkable year for Canadian Narwhals. In particular, there were 9 financings of Narwhals that exceeded $100 million (all amounts in $US). Two of these financings were in healthtech and 7 in computer technology. Of particular...
The Myth of a Better Mousetrap
Commonly used productivity and innovation indicators show Canada’s innovation economy declining relative to other countries. Despite large public investments, Canada still trails most of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries on...
Growth or Profit – What is the Market Saying?
This year's crop of IPOs has had lacklustre returns. So much so, in fact that people have begun to suggest that the market is moving away from valuing growth over profit. Of course, given a chance to play with stats instead of working, I picked stats and proceeded to...
Does Canada Have Enough Venture Capital?
In Canada, access to venture capital (VC) is cited as a persistent barrier to the creation of world-class firms, prompting the development of programs and funds to overcome it. Policy is operating under the assumption that availability of VC funding is as much a...