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YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#13

Post by JamilD »

chollida1 wrote: post #8
JamilD wrote: post #3

This is great news for both Canadian and international founders. Is the next step having an additional Canadian office for those that can't get US visas? Canada has a generous startup visa for founders coming from other countries [0]. [0] http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/

The Canadian visa might sound appealing at first blush but won't help for ycombinator founders as far as I know. To be eligible you need to have funding from a canadian venture fund, see below. I guess ycombinator could setup a Canadian fund and apply for the funding eligibility, but with the principles being mostly American and living in the US, I'm guessing it would be a very tough sell. http://www.cic.gc.ca/englis…

I'm sure if YC opened up a Canadian branch they could be one of the accepted incubators. The federal government seems keen on trying to make Canada a home for startups, even if it hasn't been a totally successful effort yet.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#14

Post by ajeet_dhaliwal »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #5

Perhaps a startup founder could exploit "ease-of-travel arbitrage" and offer a service: Remote working from several countries that are easy to get to, accept a wide range of passports, and have enormous bandwidth. Canada is a lot more open than the US at this point in time, but it's not all roses for people even to get to Vancouver. What if there were a hub in, say Dubai? And a few other spots around the world? I ima…

It would be great if they held interviews in a couple of places besides Canada, one place in Europe and one place in Asia. Would be a lot of travel for them twice a year though.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#16

Post by Eridrus »

chollida1 wrote: post #8
JamilD wrote: post #3

This is great news for both Canadian and international founders. Is the next step having an additional Canadian office for those that can't get US visas? Canada has a generous startup visa for founders coming from other countries [0]. [0] http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/

The Canadian visa might sound appealing at first blush but won't help for ycombinator founders as far as I know. To be eligible you need to have funding from a canadian venture fund, see below. I guess ycombinator could setup a Canadian fund and apply for the funding eligibility, but with the principles being mostly American and living in the US, I'm guessing it would be a very tough sell. http://www.cic.gc.ca/englis…

In the medium term, I'm sure YC can find Canadian funding sources if they wanted to do this.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#18

Post by MBCook »

sremani wrote: post #12

May be this is a dumb question, I will ask it anyway, Tijuana Mexico is about 500 miles from Bay Area, where as Vancouver Canada is 1000 miles. Que Canada?

My obvious thought: YCombinator is in English (based on what I've seen, at least as their primary language) and Canada is an English speaking country.
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