Toronto’s booming Tech scene is drawing the largest startup exhibition in North America
Published on March 21, 2019 on LinkedIn
USA? Canada!
A major milestone for any Non-US startup is when it breaks into the US market. It is a critical milestone in its path to globalize and scale the company.
For international startups, America has always been the holy grail. The place where startup dreams come true. However, North America is not just the USA. Indeed, Silicon Valley is the world's best powerhouse for unicorn production. Other cities like NYC, Boston, and LA are also great destinations for scaling your startup in specific verticals. But there’s also Canada, ‘The great white north’, that ‘tiny’ country that is colder than your fridge during the winter...and Canada’s Tech scene is booming right now.
Many startups ignore Canada in their path to conquer the world. Americans sometimes would joke about Canada that it is like your attic - you never go up there but when you do, you actually find very cool things up there. In fact, Canada could actually serve as a great platform for expansion to North America and beyond.
Toronto’s booming Tech scene
With a population of over 6M people, Toronto is a Financial, Business and cultural center. It is one of the most multi-cultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world, and increasingly it is becoming a massive Tech hub. AI, Fintech, Autonomous vehicles, Med-tech, and Quantum Computing are only a few ‘Hot’ verticals flourishing in the Toronto- Waterloo area.
Here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about Toronto’s bustling Tech scene:
A recent report has found Canada to be the third best startup ecosystem in the world, following the US and UK in first and second places respectively. Israel was 4th. The same report ranked Toronto in 11th place among 954 cities that were assessed.
Toronto’s Tech Scene is booming. A recent study has shown that Toronto has been creating more tech jobs than any other city in North America.
The Tech Giants are investing heavily in Toronto. Microsoft, Uber, Intel, Instacart, Pinterest, and Shopify (who is Candian) all announced massive investments in Toronto last fall.
Toronto is becoming a test bed for the Urban living of the future - Google is designing a whole district in Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront to tackle the challenges of urban growth, working in partnership with the City of Toronto and the local community. This joint effort, called Sidewalk Toronto, aims to make Toronto the global hub for urban innovation.
Canada has the highest density of AI researchers per head of population of any country in the world and is the world’s third-biggest AI talent pool overall. In 2017 Geoffrey Hinton, one of the leading AI figures in the world, led a partnership with the University of Toronto, Canadian banks and Google to create a new AI lab in Toronto, the Vector Institute, that is dedicated to supporting the development of AI talent and innovation, and the commercialization of AI ideas. Today the Vector Institute has become a hotbed for AI talent and attracted corporate AI research and development activities from Samsung, Uber, Microsoft, and others to Toronto.
And now ‘Collision’ is moving to Toronto
Collision the fastest-growing tech summit in America and the ‘sister’ conference of the European Websummit, is moving from New Orleans to Toronto for the next three years.
Collision will take place in May 2019 and will be hosting ~30,000 participants in 17 different tracks, and will be showcasing the largest startup exhibition in North America.
Collision is a massive event that will get your startup exposed to global (not just Canadian) clients, partners and investors. It’s worthwhile checking it out!
