Shooting for success
Finding the secrets of ‘hockey stick’ growth
WATERLOO — One of the biggest challenges for the startup community and its supporters in Canada is a lack of standardized data around what makes these fledgling companies tick.
Which ones are good bets for prospective investors? Which ones are primed to scale up for potentially global success? And why do some reach their potential while others fail?
A new partnership between the Lazaridis Institute for the Management of Technology Enterprises at Wilfrid Laurier University and Toronto-based Hockeystick aims to paint a comprehensive picture of the Canadian startup landscape.
“We know there is a scaleup problem within Canada, but why?” said Steve Bailey, director of operations for the Lazaridis Institute. “We need to have more accurate information.”
The data platform developed by Hockeystick is already used by more than 12,000 private companies and top Canadian funders. The partnership announced Thursday will extend the platform free of charge for five years to every incubator and accelerator program across Canada.
“Why not do the right thing and remove the barrier to adoption,” Bailey said.
“This really is a quantum leap forward,” said Hockeystick founder Raymond Luk, an effort to amass a considerable amount of data in one place in a standard format. “What we’re trying to do together here is something incredibly ambitious.”
The project is a reality thanks in part to a contribution of up to $2.5 million through the federal government’s Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.
Anything that will better identify the challenges that early-stage companies face and help them succeed is a worthwhile investment, said Bardish Chagger, Waterloo MP and Minister of Small Business and Tourism.
“It’s creating valuable jobs for the middle class and those who are working hard to join it,” Chagger said.
The Hockeystick platform was designed to capture and track growth metrics and data, allowing fund managers and analysts to monitor, compare and predict company performance. This new partnership considerably expands its reach.
Along with standardizing the collection and tracking of data across participating accelerators, incubators and their affiliated companies, the platform will make it easier for startups to find eligible programs and apply for funding opportunities.
It will help accelerators identify potential participants, and provide provincial and federal governments with valuable data.
Companies and accelerators will still own their data and determine how much private information is shared, and will benefit from direct feedback.
The Lazaridis Institute — focused on the need for more globally competitive Canadian technology companies — will use the platform in its scaleup program, which selects 10 promising companies each year and matches them with global experts.
Born in Kitchener, Luk founded Hockeystick in late 2014. It’s named for the socalled “hockey stick curve” in business circles, the point at which a company’s gradual growth suddenly spikes. On a financial chart, that growth line resembles a hockey stick.
With the new Lazaridis Institute partnership and the associated federal funding, “this is definitely kind of a hockey stick moment for our own company,” Luk said in an interview following the announcement. “We expect to grow tremendously.”