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Comment by kitcar | Hacker News Reader

If anyone is seriously considering applying and needs assistance meeting the Canadian angel / VC requirement, feel free to reach out to me, I am based in Canada and active in the angel/VC community. Contact info is in my profile.

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I actually want to set up a startup. But undecided on location, my current location will not do. I really want to go to valley, ideally get into YC itself, but the barrier to entry is high. How would you say is the startup culture over there in canada? How does it stack up against places like valley, london or NYC? Other and more accessible option for me is Banglore, no visa required (I am from India).

Ask yourself this: if you've never heard of startup culture in Canada, what is that indicative of? :)

(Saying this sadly, as I'm a Canadian)

The nearly 500 tech startups in Waterloo was pretty big news a year or two ago, even on HN. Startup success seems to be the problem in Canada. I'm not sure I could name a single one of those companies, even after considerable time has passed since that media exposure.

It will be interesting to see if bringing in new cultural perspectives can change that.

How about:

Vidyard (http://www.vidyard.com/), Pebble (http://getpebble.com/), BufferBox (https://www.bufferbox.com/), Couple (formerly Pair) (http://couple.me/), or Thalmic Labs (https://www.thalmic.com/myo/)

All the above are also YC alumni.

Pebble is the only one I've heard of on the list and their website claims they are in Silicon Valley, so I guess that reenforces my point?

Additionally, I think it is quite reasonable to argue that Kickstarter is the source of their success, but Kickstarter is still not yet available to Canadians. Not until later this summer.

I was just trying to point out some of the big name startups that came from the Waterloo area (Disclosure: I am part of BufferBox and live in KW).

I live out in the country, but KW is nearby, which is why I find it so interesting that I cannot really name a single startup operating within. I feel like I have a closer connection to Silicon Valley, even though I've never been there. Is there something like HN for local startups?

techvibes.com for canadian startup news.

Thanks!

- Pebble is in the Valley, after going through YC.

- Couple is in San Francisco.

- Vidyard is based in KW.

- BufferBox is based in KW, and got acquired by Google.

- Thalmic is in KW.

So two out of five have Canadian founders who left for the Bay Area. Three out of the five stayed, one of which has succesfully exited.

Vidyard's first round of financing came from exclusively American sources. Canadian investors did not join until they were well underway.

Thalmic's first round of funding came from angels that I can't find any info on, their series A came from exclusively American sources.

I'm not sure if these companies really support the notion that Canadian VC firms are ready to create success and nurture extremely early-stage startups.

We (iNovia) funded Vidyard and Bufferbox as part of their seed round.

Shopify, which is headquartered in Ottawa with an extra office in Toronto, is doing really really well.

There's also Freshbooks in Toronto.

It's not that Canada lacks a startup culture, it's just a smaller playground then SF or NYC.

But besides all this, there are popular and noteworthy startups based in Canada, like HootSuite, Shopify, 500px, UrtheCast and Freshbooks.

Jobber, is doing fairly well out of edmonton.

Agreed. Other very successful start-ups include: Wattpad, Frank & Oak, Indochino, Clio, Unbounce, Top Hat.

I wonder if that's proportional per capita.

I get the impression that it is not, though I have a small sample size.

You people forgot the games industry in Canada...

Beside canadians participating in some large game jams and having cool events there, Quebec state is the second largest games producer in the world (behind US, and above the entire Japan)

Maybe pedantic, but Quebec is a province, not a state. A lot of game development happens in Montreal especially.

Or just call it Quebecistan. Nobody will bat an eye.

Ever heard of Flickr?

They did quite well.

Shopify

Startup ecosystems are thriving everywhere in the world IMO, but Canada is doing especially well. Here are some world rankings from 2012 [1].

#8 - Toronto

#9 - Vancouver

#16 - Waterloo/Kitchener

Also worth a mention are Montreal, Ottawa, and Hamilton.

[1] http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/startup-...

My guess is that trying Amsterdam, or Berlin is a safer bet.

Apart from mature startup culture, for you as an Indian, these places also have an advantage of being relatively close, timezone-wise, to both U.S. (at least East Coast) which will be most probably your main market, and India where you will probably hire people.

How's the startup culture in Amsterdam and Berlin?

In Amsterdam there is a famously strong one, best in Europe (while nothing compared to the Valley). Berlin is also a nice place in this respect, i know a few guys in Eastern Europe who worked in startups there. Berlin is a very unusual city because while being a capital of one of topmost tech countries in the world, it enjoys cheap rent and cost of living/doing business (because it's not overcrowded yet, legacy of the separation era, quite opposite to say, London).

I don't have a large sample size, but my small set of second-hand reports suggests that trying to live-and-work in Berlin can be problematic if you don't speak at least passable German. Not for the startup scene itself, where everyone speaks English, but for practicalities like interacting with the civil service, health-care system, housing, and banks, where German is expected. (This is a difference from Copenhagen, where everything can be done in English if you prefer. And Danes often prefer it, too, because they don't understand foreigners who try to speak Danish.)

True. There are very few places in the world where you can go without local language. It is a pleasure to see how this improves over years, pace of the change is dramatic, but we are far from there as far as Central and Eastern Europe is concerned.

But what about Visa? From what i know there is no alternative like Europe Startup Visa.

You can always open a company and apply as a company manager. Also, you can get a Blue Card if you pay yourself at least 1.5x the average salary in a given country, which in the case of a funded startup should not be a problem. German immigration system is very kind to tech founders.

Quick question; what would kind of person would you imagine would successfully secure funding from an angel/VC as a person trying to immigrate to Canada.

I guess one would have to have more than an idea and a MVP.

Also, any differences between Canada's angels and VCs than the impression one would get from Hacker News stories which is probably more U.S. focused?

It's tough to generalize across all VCs and Angels in the country, but a few high level items to consider:

- Canada is somewhat unique in that there are federal and provincial subsidies for specific sectors related to technology (I.e. Video Game development tax credits, scientific research and develop credits - see http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site//cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/... for some of the big ones at the federal level). Most of these incentives don't require your business to make a profit. Some Angels and VCs have a preference to invest in businesses which are eligible to receive these incentives, and in rare cases will even ask you to relocate in order to a specific location in Canada to maximize incentives.

- There aren't THAT many VCs in Canada, and of the few that there are, some of the more active ones are are operated by pension plans (http://www.omersventures.com/) and arms-length government organizations ( https://www.bdc.ca/EN/solutions/venture_capital/ , http://www.marsdd.com/aboutmars/partners/iaf/, etc... ) . As can be expected, this affects the types of companies most likely to get funding in Canada.

- IMHO, the cliche that Canadians are conservative with their money is mostly true - historically the majority of the big money in Canada was made in resources, banking, real estate & manufacturing, which are all (for the most part) much less risky than early stage technology investing. Yes, there have been a few big tech winners - but they are almost rounding errors compared to the amount of cash made in these other industries. My personal hypothesis is the "conservative" cliche is somewhat self-enforcing, as the Canadians who like early stage technology end up moving to NYC or SF, have success there, and then rarely return. This has resulted in the creation of informal Canadian clubs in those locations, as well as formal organizations like http://www.thec100.org/ .

Some general links for more info: - http://www.cvca.ca/ - http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_02772.html

I might be biased as I run a venture fund myself (Version One Ventures) but I think there are a handful excellent investors up here in Canada, most of which invest across North-America. Here is a good overview: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/state-of-venture-capital-in-ca...

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