Regional tech centres

One of the things I keep talking about is how regional centres are taking off across Canada and North America in general when it comes to start-ups and early stage investing.  Capital, connectivity and above all the ability to live in small scale and affordable towns with great natural surroundings are contributing to growth in all of these places. With our fund we now have invested in Victoria, Nelson and Squamish and I see more places like that coming into our portfolio. 

Over the past two weeks I have visited Whitehorse, Victoria and Lethbridge, all places with lots of entrepreneurial activity and emerging investor networks. I did a few talks, met with entrepreneurs and discussed their plans and challenges while also trying to get a handle on how to support new angel investors in getting into this rapidly growing and exciting asset class.  The short of it is: you can start a successful tech company anywhere. I am also discovering there is lots of capital and government support to help these efforts in the right direction. Here is a summary of the event I helped organize in Victoria, the photos above from left to right: the NorthLight Innovation center in Whitehorse, Yukon, the great group of attendees in Victoria and the University of Lethbridge.