Winnipeg tech sector recognized in article

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This article was published 06/04/2017 (3108 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the tech world, it is somewhat of a rite of passage to get mentioned in TechCrunch, Silicon Valley’s must-read on startups and breaking news in the industry.

Winnipeg just had its own TechCrunch moment.

The city’s technology sector gets some time in the limelight in a story posted to the website Wednesday with the headline, How Winnipeg focused on local strengths to create a tech hub in central Canada.

Local companies including Farmer’s Edge, Skip the Dishes, Sightlines Innovation, Invenia and Bold Commerce got mentioned and author Ben Fischberg did a good job noting how Winnipeggers’ collaboration serves to leverage existing talent.

“Winnipeg, while home to 600,000 people, still manages to retain a small-town feel. Founders can easily speak with experts in any number of fields just by seeing who they went to high school with and who those people know,” Fischberg wrote.

Marshall Ring, the CEO of Manitoba Technology Accelerator, said Winnipeg is the now the envy of many other centres trying to grow their tech sectors — now key to any community’s economic development.

“For Winnipeg to be profiled in that website is incredible value,” Ring said.

Jason Myers is one of four founders of Bold Commerce, the largest app developer for Shopify, which is already outgrowing its year-old Winnipeg location.

It now has 140 employees — 40 per cent more than it had eight months ago.

“I think it’s really good for Winnipeg,” Myers said. “Also, it’s officially the first time we’ve ever had our name mentioned in TechCrunch, so that’s cool.”

The 10-year-old digital publication now reaches more than 12 million unique visitors and has more than 37 million page views per month.

Ring and Myers were both impressed with the article’s suggestion the city’s success in nurturing the tech sector could be a model for other communities.

Fischberg wrote, “Aiming to become a tech-friendlier city, not the next Silicon Valley, and solving brain-drain issues by encouraging tech entrepreneurship that leverages historical capabilities fuelled Winnipeg’s success and provides a replicable model for other cities to follow.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca