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by jjohansson 2318 days ago
In 2019, PDFTron, a Vancouver-based tech company, received a USD $71 million investment from Silversmith Capital Partners (a Tier 1 growth equity firm).

Vancouver’s tech scene is exploding, with a number of top tier tech companies being based here (like Clio) and majors setting up dev offices (Shopify, Amazon, Microsoft).
1 comments
Sytten 2318 days ago
That's really good news and we need more of it for sure. But looking at objective total $ invested (and growth), it does not paint the same picture. Those examples are still exceptions rather than the new norm, we just don't have that many (would-be) unicorns/fast-growing companies. Even if we did, I am still unsure the salaries would go up and most companies don't give equity... I am rather pessimistic about this tech boom narrative that the medias try to sell us. What I see is some large firms taking advantage of a low CAD while most tech companies are still at low/zero growth and offer very mediocre salaries. Maybe it's only in Quebec though.
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blaser-waffle 2317 days ago
The QC is notably bad for salaries, but part of that is also the highest taxes in Canada and corresponding social services. Low housing prices, too.

> What I see is some large firms taking advantage of a low CAD while most tech companies are still at low/zero growth and offer very mediocre salaries.

Absolutely. You could throw around $120-150k yearly rates in CAD and you'd have applications from all over the country. Currently CAD-USD is around .77 so they're looking at a 25% discount.

Vancouver, however, has seen a crazy high influx of foreign capital -- way more $$$ coming from China than from a $71 million dole via Investment Firm -- and the price of housing in Vancouver is absurd.

For the HN crowd, imagine San Fran housing prices with East Oregon salaries. A deeper dive: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-yet-again-most-expensive-pla...

I've been to Vancouver a lot, it's a great place to be, but in terms of climate, culture, and activities you can get mostly the same in Seattle. If Seattle is too expensive work remote or commute from Mt. Vernon or Bellingham.

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jjohansson 2317 days ago
True, but Canada has roughly the same population as California. So objective total may not be the best metric.

Clio raised $330 million last year.

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