Perspectives

Sonder is a great “Started in Canada” story!

Sonder is a great “Started in Canada” story!

Today's article in the Globe and Mail about Sonder, the San Francisco based travel company tells a great story. Founded in Canada in 2012, they moved quickly to the US where 90% of their 560 or so employees now reside. (Employee data from LinkedIn.) They are heading...

The Narwhal Project

The Narwhal Project

Three years ago, I started doing research at the Impact Centre at the University of Toronto to discover the root causes of Canada’s challenges in creating a world-leading innovation economy. I thought it would be useful at this juncture to summarize our findings. This...

Your Path to an IPO

Your Path to an IPO

Over the last four years, there have been substantial changes in initial public offerings (IPOs) in the software world. Firms tend to wait longer to go public, while raising larger late-stage private rounds and eventually experiencing high public market valuations. We...

Entrepreneurship Education in canada

Entrepreneurship Education in canada

This report on Entrepreneurship Education in Canada was primarily authored by Tihana Mirkovic. Higher education institutions have always played a major role in discussions on R&D and knowledge creation activities that are thought to contribute to a country’s...

Tech Founder Education

Tech Founder Education

This report on Tech Founder Education was written primarily by Tihana Mirkovic. With the recognition of entrepreneurship playing a key role in economic growth and relevance for society, it has climbed up on the governments’ priority lists and a growing interest in...

The Narwhal List 2019

The Narwhal List 2019

2018 was another remarkable year for Canadian Narwhals and we are pleased to introduce the Narwhal List 2019 here. In brief: 17 new companies joined the list last year, replacing others that no longer qualify for the list. 17 new companies joined the list last year,...

Physical Technologies Part 2

Physical Technologies Part 2

This report entitled Physical Technologies Part 2 is a continuation of another report you can access here. In November 2017, we issued a report on the challenges that companies in the physical technologies face in obtaining government support for commercialization....

The Land of Stranded Pilots

The Land of Stranded Pilots

This report on the Land of Stranded Pilots examines the shape of the health technology (health tech) industry in Canada with a focus on three specific questions: Does Canada actually have a problem with health tech commercialization? If so, how extensive is that...

10 Secrets to Scaling Up

10 Secrets to Scaling Up

We've written a report on 10 Secrets to Scaling Up. There are more than 10 but then who's counting? A scaleup is defined as a company with an average annual growth of at least 20% over three consecutive years. The notion of growth is critical to achieving scale, and...