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Canada's Start-up Visa

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Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#121

Post by analyst74 »

elchief wrote: post #89
icco wrote: post #80

Pretty interesting. Is there an equivalent to 500 or YC in Canada? What are the best tech cities in Canada? I know Vancouver and Quebec have universities with good CS programs, but that's about it.

Ottawa is a tech hub, as that's where the federal gov't is. Waterloo is also important, as that's where our "MIT" is, and Google etc have offices there. All the easy money's in Calgary due to oil.

Unfortunately all that easy money in Calgary is not going into startups, its sister city Edmonton has a much better and rapidly growing startup scene.

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#122

Post by jessaustin »

vijucat wrote: post #100

This might seem a bit superficial, but one of the reasons I fear a move to Canada is the weather; not the weather per se, but whether someone like me born in a tropical country would adjust well to the cold? I'm concerned that I would relapse into a depression ushered in by the winter blues (used to be depressed in my 20s, not sure why, it went away after 30, not sure why either), and lose my productivity. As a separ…

Having lived high in the Rocky Mountains and in Singapore (and various intermediate climes), it's my personal impression that "hot" people have a harder time in cold weather than "cold" people have in hot weather. Aircon is great! The thing is, you can adjust. When I visited central India with an Indian-American friend, both of us were in short-sleeved shirts the whole time, while his family were bundled in all the sweaters and coats they had and were still cold. (It was late January I believe.)

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#123

Post by foobarbazqux »

cgh wrote: post #117
vijucat wrote: post #100

This might seem a bit superficial, but one of the reasons I fear a move to Canada is the weather; not the weather per se, but whether someone like me born in a tropical country would adjust well to the cold? I'm concerned that I would relapse into a depression ushered in by the winter blues (used to be depressed in my 20s, not sure why, it went away after 30, not sure why either), and lose my productivity. As a separ…

Temperatures in Canada are measured in Celsius, not Fahrenheit. So that could be the source of your confusion.

However there's no confusion about how cold -40 is!

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#124

Post by rdouble »

jessaustin wrote: post #122
vijucat wrote: post #100

This might seem a bit superficial, but one of the reasons I fear a move to Canada is the weather; not the weather per se, but whether someone like me born in a tropical country would adjust well to the cold? I'm concerned that I would relapse into a depression ushered in by the winter blues (used to be depressed in my 20s, not sure why, it went away after 30, not sure why either), and lose my productivity. As a separ…

Having lived high in the Rocky Mountains and in Singapore (and various intermediate climes), it's my personal impression that "hot" people have a harder time in cold weather than "cold" people have in hot weather. Aircon is great! The thing is, you can adjust. When I visited central India with an Indian-American friend, both of us were in short-sleeved shirts the whole time, while his family were bundled in all the s…

I think because in most "cold" places the summer still gets pretty hot.

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#125

Post by karamdeep »

aren55555 wrote: post #102
randomdata wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#126

Post by goatforce5 »

turar wrote: post #65
goatforce5 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and there's a very clear and easy path to get from Permanent Residency to Citizenship.

Timeline for citizenship is 5-6 years: 3 years of residency, after which you can apply for citizenship, which currently takes additional 2-3 years to get. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/canada/cit-pr...

FWIW my Permanent Residency came in way faster than the time that was published at the time.

The estimate is based on "processing time from receipt of application to final decision for 80% of cases".

The rather excellent British Expats (not just for Brits!) forum users keep track of the various processing times of Canadian immigration applications.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33

British Expats forums is a great resource for anyone trying to move within the English speaking world.

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#127

Post by kitcar »

xtrumanx wrote: post #73
kitcar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#128

Post by guyzero »

vijucat wrote: post #100

This might seem a bit superficial, but one of the reasons I fear a move to Canada is the weather; not the weather per se, but whether someone like me born in a tropical country would adjust well to the cold? I'm concerned that I would relapse into a depression ushered in by the winter blues (used to be depressed in my 20s, not sure why, it went away after 30, not sure why either), and lose my productivity. As a separ…

There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#129

Post by reledi »

Achshar wrote: post #77
kitcar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

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-...

Re: Canada's Start-up Visa

#130

Post by frankcaron »

geoka9 wrote: post #60
frankcaron wrote: post #53

While this is great in theory, it's likely not going to lead to anything other than one marquee Toronto Star story about the foreign entrepreneur who found success in Canada. Canadian VCs are far too risk averse and conservative; that's why the uptick of start-ups in all areas of the country, even Toronto's own would-be "Valley" of Liberty Village and the Junction, hasn't fielded much in the ways of success. Until To…

> much like YComb itself AFAIK, YC doesn't invest anywhere close to $200k; so it's probably not fair to compare.

I was referring to the fact that there aren't as many (or even a handful of significantly noteworthy) incubators in the GTA / Canada at large.
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