Canada House cultivates creative spark
When Lindsey Goodchild travels to Silicon Valley, she needs a place to park her laptop and get some work done. So Goodchild, co- founder of Toronto- based startup Nudge Rewards, spends her time at San Francisco- based Canada House, a home away from home created just for Canadian entrepreneurs.
She is looking for venture capital in the U. S., and learned about Canada House after connecting with C100, the non- profit organization for Canadian entrepreneurs that runs it. It is one of a range of interconnected programs run by the sponsor- funded networking and mentorship group, which focuses on Canadian tech firms trying to make it south of the border.
“I became familiar with the organization through the tech community in Toronto,” Goodchild says. “Everybody was talking about 48 Hours in the Valley, and why it’s so important to go.” 48 Hours in the Valley is another C100 initiative that takes fledgling Canadian tech firms down twice a year to meet potential investors. She went in December, chasing Series A money.
“It’s a nice introduction, a great way to get acquainted with the opportunities and the people that are part of the network there, but it’s just the beginning. It’s really a launching pad.”
In 2012, Goodchild, a former consultant, noticed that while good ideas came naturally, executing them was more difficult, because it was hard to reach the right audience. She hit on the idea of using smartphone technology to communicate with a community of employees and measure their understanding, and t hat year Nudge Rewards was born.
“It’s designed to engage, educate and reward frontline employees and managers to improve in- store performance,” she says. Companies use it to educate employees on everything from customer service programs to new product lines.
Goodchild and her team designed the app for the millennial generation. Her company’s corporate customers send their employees push notifications — nudges — asking them questions about company programs, f or which they can score points and make their way up a leaderboard. Gamification is a big part of Nudge Rewards’ service proposition, she says, adding that the company uses behavioural psychology to appeal to users.
Goodchild will expand into the U. S. in a big way in 2017, and seek U. S.- led rounds, “so we’ll be spending more time ( at Canada House),” she says. “To have a home base in downtown San Francisco will be a huge asset to us.”
C100 launched Canada House in January 2016, in conjunction with the University of Waterloo’s Velocity entrepreneurship program; RBC; the Communitech innovation centre in Kitchener, Ont.; and MaRS. Housed at co- working company WeWork’s downtown San Francisco space, it is de- signed as a drop-in resource rather than a space for longterm tenants — and it is a free service for accepted applicants, says C100 executive director Laura Buhler.
“C100 hosts physical office and meeting space for any of those partners’ portfolio companies visiting the Bay Area, (which boosts the) possibility of serendipitous connections that can happen in a physical space,” she says.
Other i nitiatives created by C100 include the networking and education events Valley 101 and Canadians in Tech, and Venture North, a 2015 Canadian tech conference. Other f i rms spending time at Canada House include Vancouverbased travel and expense management firm Trippeo, and Toronto- based Kitchen-Mate, founded by former software architect Yang Yu.
Yu’s company i sn’ t yet large enough to make it into the 48 Hour program, but he still takes advantage of Canada House as he chases funding for his consumer electronics play, set to launch soon.
KitchenMate will sell a cooking device that automatically cooks high-quality boxed meals sent to customers. He wants to launch an open marketplace for thirdparty firms to offer their own boxed meals, in what sounds like a foodie cross between the Keurig coffee machine and the iTunes app store.
The emphasis is on higher- end restaurant food for under $ 10, rather than frozen sodium- filled TV dinners, he says, adding that he’s trying to solve a broader problem.
“How do we get people with low incomes access to better quality food and put it in food deserts?” asks Yu, who recalls years of basic culinary subsistence as a student in Edmonton.
He has already scored $ 500,000 in funding, 50 per cent of which came from the U. S. Since applying for access in March 2016, he has spent about 25 days at Canada House drumming up Valley-side interest.
“One of the hardest things in the U. S. is knowing where to start. As a Canadian company, it’s challenging to get access to local networks.” he says. This is partly what makes Canada House so useful to him. “That location has a lot of startups in it, and it’s quite easy to bump into other founders and potential investors. It’s a good way to seamlessly get into the community.”