[neptunespear]

Combined with Expa Labs opening an office in Vancouver, it seems that President Trump is the best thing that could ever happen to Vancouver's tech scene. Our anchors historically have been companies like IBM, HSBC, Nokia, and Ericsson, which are all shells of their former selves and have long since closed down their presences in Vancouver. The few existing long-term anchors include MDA and Vision Critical, and SAP's BI division (SAP BusinessObjects and BusinessObjects Cloud, which originated from a local startup called Crystal Decisions which was purchased by SAP in 2008 by way of some Seagate M&As), along with gamedev and film/TV VFX studios which are all feast-or-famine. Just look at the fate of Radical, Roadhouse Interactive, United Front Games, Pixar's office in Vancouver. Sony Imageworks, A Thinking Ape and Animal Logic might go the same way if the loonie increases in value. HootSuite is set to go under eventually as CRM suites integrate social media management; they waited too late to IPO. So this might be the kick in the ass the Vancouver tech scene needs in the eventual post-HootSuite landscape.

So, I say, with all sincerity, "thanks, Trump."

[vecinu]

Expa's founder is from BC so I think them opening up an office there is mostly due to an excess of cash they have from Uber's success, not that it necessarily makes sense from a VC perspective.

I hope I'm wrong since I would love to see Vancouver / Toronto have the same earning power as SV.

[neptunespear]

> Expa's founder is from BC so I think them opening up an office there is mostly due to an excess of cash they have from Uber's success, not that it necessarily makes sense from a VC perspective.

The founder of Slack grew up on Vancouver Island and went to UVic, the co-founders of Tableau is an SFU comp sci alumnus; so is the founder of Buddybuild[1] (the first genuine mobile-first CI provider, raised a series A round from KPCB (!) for $7.6M which is unheard of for a Van company, let alone they managed to find an SV VC firm which was okay with the company keeping the company local).

The way I see it, it matters less why they came (whether it makes sense from a VC perspective, the founders are homesick, or as a response to shifting political tides in the United States) and matters more that they're here.

[1] Further reading:

https://www.sfu.ca/computing/newsandevents/archives/2007/sfu...

https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2016/sfu-in-the-news-janu...

[milunt]

We're opening up Vancouver because there's a massive untapped potential of talent in the area that we can help bridge with SF.

I've met and seen many amazing entrepreneurs, developers, designers and all other roles of a startup in this city who are very capable and talented. Our goal is to give them a platform and a opportunity to realize success without having to move south.

[neptunespear]

Protip: Listen to this guy. He's Milun Tesovic, the Expa Labs co-founder and SFU Beedie alumuns.

While I have your ear, Milun, I was curious why Expa didn't open in K-W or Montreal first. They're much closer to east coast tech hubs.

[vecinu]

Thanks for the response.

I agree that on the Canuck side we have a lot of untapped potential and people working very hard for very little money.

I figured Garret was homesick :)