Communitech this month unveiled the first ever Team True North.
The Kitchener-based hub for entrepreneurship created the list to spotlight “the best of Canadian tech”—which by their measure is defined as high-performing tech firms “tracking to $1 billion in annual revenue with growth rates that match the top 1% of companies in the world.”
“Why did we form Team True North? Because it is Canada’s time,” the company believes. “This is the best place on the planet to work in tech, invest in tech and build amazing things.”
The list was determined through data from Silicon Valley Bank using a model developed by New York data science firm Two Sigma designed to assess company potential.
While roughly half the companies hail from Ontario, there is geographical diversity, including six from BC. You can break down the list by industry, such as financial technology.
Whichever way you slice them, these companies are all white-hot. Most have raised capital within the last year or two. And if they’re not actively hiring today, they will be soon. Many have already been recognized for their growth or won awards as employers.
Here are just a few examples of the inaugural Team True North companies.
- Vancouver’s Elastic Path Software powers mission-critical digital commerce for top leading brands. They raised $60 million earlier this year.
- Toronto’s ClearCo provides equity-free capital solutions to e-commerce businesses. ClearCo raised a big round of funding last year.
- Burnaby’s Cymax Group is an e-commerce technology and services platform for furniture vendors and retailers. They have been bolstering their executive team in response to growth.
- Toronto’s Flexiti Financial provides flexible financing at point-of-sale to help customers finance purchases through instant approvals. Flexiti was last year ranked The Globe and Mail’s top fintech startup to watch.
- North Vancouver’s Jane is an all-in-one health and wellness practice management platform. They closed $2 million from CIBC Innovation Banking in 2019.
- Toronto’s Ledn provides financial products for digital assets to help customers build wealth for the long term. The cryptocurrency lending platform raised $30 million last year.
- Langley’s FT Synthetics is a fully integrated manufacturer of synthetic roofing underlayments and associated construction products.
- London’s Paystone provides integrated payment processing, customer loyalty programs, and reputation marketing software. The company has made several acquisitions of Canadian startups.
- Vancouver’s Klue is a competitive intelligence platform that allows businesses to collect, curate, and deliver data.
- Toronto’s FreshBooks has helped transform the field of business accounting through automated cloud software. With a staff of nearly 400 FreshBooks was recently named one of the best Canadian fintech employers.
- Burnaby’s Clio is a pioneer in the legal-tech and cloud spaces. They recently achieved centaur status.
