Boy, would I love it if Japan would do something like this!
Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
21–30 of 45 posts
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If a company was founded elsewhere and was that far along, why would the team move it to Canada? " Good question. But I'd also ask why, as an American, would you love to found a startup in Canada? What advantage over starting it in the US?
I assume it would be the obvious one: getting to live in Canada :)
Correct. I think it's a wonderful country in a great many ways and it would be a pleasure to live there. I was recently in Toronto and was surprised to find that it has a solid startup scene. I'd never heard that about the city, I'd just assumed it was full of back-office banking jobs for techies like me. I met some potential partners there and if/when something clicks, I'll still enjoy zero rights to be colocated with a Toronto-based team. There's the possibility of getting TN status I suppose but that's intended for employees, not founders.
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#23"...and intends to initiate a visa that would be issued to people identified by venture capital funds as candidates to create startup firms in Canada." Anyone else find this to be an odd way to go about it? VC firms have distinctly different goals when funding companies than the people actually running the company. I guess it raises some questions for me: (1) Is there a floor to how much funding is required? For lack…
Last I looked a few months ago, the minimum investment was $750K CAD. Now it is $800K, with a $1.6MM CAD net worth. Citzenship and Immigration Canada "will return your C$800,000 investment, without interest, about five years and two months after payment." [1] I think it is important to note that their foreign-invested business programs have become backlogged in processing, and have been holding onto the life savings…
Here are the BC requirements, bit different from Federal government.
$400,000 investment and at least a 33.3% stake in the company. Plus a net worth requirement of $800,000.
http://www.welcomebc.ca/wbc/immigration/come/work/about/busi...?
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#24"...and intends to initiate a visa that would be issued to people identified by venture capital funds as candidates to create startup firms in Canada." Anyone else find this to be an odd way to go about it? VC firms have distinctly different goals when funding companies than the people actually running the company. I guess it raises some questions for me: (1) Is there a floor to how much funding is required? For lack…
Last I looked a few months ago, the minimum investment was $750K CAD. Now it is $800K, with a $1.6MM CAD net worth. Citzenship and Immigration Canada "will return your C$800,000 investment, without interest, about five years and two months after payment." [1] I think it is important to note that their foreign-invested business programs have become backlogged in processing, and have been holding onto the life savings…
> It's also difficult to acquire citizenship without several years of residence.
You need a spend a certain amount of time living in Canada as a permanent resident (3 years, non-contiguous, although this figure may be out of date) to be eligible for citizenship, but if you have permanent residency you have almost the same rights as a citizen. It's getting the permanent resident status that's hard. There is no requirement to live in Canada under another visa to obtain permanent residency - you can apply for and obtain permanent residency status from your home country before arriving in Canada. That's how the majority of non-family sponsored people immigrate to Canada.
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#25As an immigrant and entrepreneur in Canada, I'm less than impressed by this new visa class.
This visa means you can work for your own company, in Canada, provided it has funding from a VC. Lets reword that a bit and it sounds like "You can work for a specific company, in Canada, provided you have an offer letter"
Honestly if Canada wants to do something truly innovative, they should look at the track record of applicants rather than simply saying "get a VC to sponsor you". Things like: have they received funding previously, do they have relevant experience, have they got any revenue or "traction" on their current idea, how have they validated their current idea and whats the chance of it getting funding...are all great places to start.
The bottom line: there are plenty of people without VC funding who Canada should welcome, and this visa offers no assistance to. Sadly if Canada doesnt let them in, someone else will, and with VCs in the US getting more comfortable with non North American investments, maybe this doesnt change anything?
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#26"...and intends to initiate a visa that would be issued to people identified by venture capital funds as candidates to create startup firms in Canada." Anyone else find this to be an odd way to go about it? VC firms have distinctly different goals when funding companies than the people actually running the company. I guess it raises some questions for me: (1) Is there a floor to how much funding is required? For lack…
I guess the whole point for the government is to make more jobs for locals. So i doubt they will easily allow bringing more people than the founders, and of course floor of funding will be required. Don't forget the government has its own interests, in addition to founders and VCs.
Government should be very careful to not create a loophole for de facto illegal immigration, so limiting funding to some set of established VCs is natural (or people will start providing fictional funding to themselves on paper, never spending it, their 'startups' will go nowhere, and they will bring in whole villages of 'early employees' to work on gas stations and clean floors). You can't imagine how tricky the desperate people who want to escape their unfortunate countries are, and they have a lot of time to figure out the paperwork, and the government knows it, so expect a lot of red tape, and expect limitations that will seem stupid.
Also most likely, after N years (2..4) the visa will automatically expire and they will have to apply under the already existing entrepreneural category, meaning startup will have to take off by then, having certain turnover and N+ full time jobs in existence, or leave.
To me, this is natural and positive. Good countries are like good clubs, they are good only as long as they are hard to get into. Lift the barriers and there will be no place in the world you'd wish to go on a vacation.
Own experience: i have immigrated to several countries, and i can tell a strong positive link between difficulty of getting through paperwork and quality of living.
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#27Reality Check
Canada's backlog of (immigration) Visas is huge, and they are apparently not keeping up with it
Check the website and see the average delays in processing.
Apparently Canada has almost everything that is needed to have great startups, except the culture (and maybe the drive).
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#28"...and intends to initiate a visa that would be issued to people identified by venture capital funds as candidates to create startup firms in Canada." Anyone else find this to be an odd way to go about it? VC firms have distinctly different goals when funding companies than the people actually running the company. I guess it raises some questions for me: (1) Is there a floor to how much funding is required? For lack…
I read an interesting report (I think it was from McKinsey) about different tech clusters around the world, and which had succeeded or failed. One major theme (as the report was mainly aimed at policy makers) was government support; was it helpful or harmful?
One finding was that when it came to financial support for startups, government acting alone (ie allowing some random beauracrats to decide which startups to give grants to) was counter-productive. But working with VC firms (ie governments investing in VC firms or some kind of matched investment scheme) generally saw good results. (Passion Capital in the UK and various initiatives in Israel were both given as examples IIRC).
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#29As a Canadian now living in Silicon Valley I think this is a perilous idea. The main problem is that Canada doesn't have near enough active VC investors. Hardly anywhere does, even Silicon Valley. Having them be the sole gatekeepers will fall far short of what's possible.
>The main problem is that Canada doesn't have near enough active VC investors.
A trend that is certainly changing. Vancouver, for instance, has a growing and vibrant VC community, from which this very bill was initiated.
Re: Canada designs new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs
#30My boss was involved in preparing the draft proposal that this bill is based on. He has over a decade of experience on both sides of the VC/start up fence. His experience bringing the team that created Summify to Canada from Romania was a catalyst for this bill. Like all things, it is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.