Hitchhiker's Guide to Vancouver Tech

These are some of the biggest tech companies in Vancouver (based on those that have the most employees in town and market cap for locally based public companies).

Just to give an idea of the dynamism and scale of the recent growth in the Vancouver Tech industry, here are some local companies that have recently seen massive recent growth.

Vancouver also has local offices of quite a few international tech giants (in addition to those listed under the Pillar Companies section). Here are just a couple (I should probably add a few more, but it's often hard to determine how big a branch office of a big company actually is).

Check out this article

Here is an interesting list of 100+ Innovative Vancouver Startups and Tech Companies .

Brainstation has written a review of the key stories in the Vancouver tech scene during 2015-2018.

This article is an entertaining history and perspective on the rise of tech in Vancouver .

	The Vancouver Tech Journal by William Johnson is an excellent local newsletter		Techcouver covers local tech news (led by Rob Lewis, formerly of TechVibes)
	Vancouver page at Digital (I think this is what's left of TechVibes after it was acquired).		Business in Vancouver's Tech Section is the local business paper
	T-Net BC has an excellent newsletter and an event board for BC tech (also leading job board)		BetaKit Vancouver has tech start-up and innovation news
	Spring has a newsletter with pretty broad coverage.		BC Tech Association has a good newsletter
	Startup Digest Vancouver has a good local event board		StartupNorth - Canada-wide tech news

William Johnson has created an epic directory of many newsletters .

	WeAreYvr is a Vancouver innovation community discussion and sharing site		Vancouver Technology Network on LinkedIn
	Startup North discussion group on Facebook (Canada-wide)		Startup604 is Slack discussion group for entrepreneurs and startups in Vancouver.

I could use some more suggestions here!

I haven't had a chance to organize this list yet. I could use some suggestions here!

For a better list, take a look at the one on vantechjournal.

	Vancouver Tech Podcast
	Vancouver Entrepreneur Podcast

There are a lot of events and meetings happening all the time. I haven't yet tried to list them all here yet. For calendars of events, check out the links in the News section of this site.

	Vancouver Entrepreneurs Forum holds about 8 well-attended events every year.
	This links to a pretty good listing of Vancouver tech oriented Meetups
	Startup Grind - Vancouver puts on events for the start-up community
	Tech Vancouver holds meetups for the tech community
Startup Drinks	Startup Drinks is a end-of-the-month, casual event, over drinks in Gastown. (I can't find a permanant link so just google it to find the next one.)
Full Indie	Full Indie is a meetup for individuals who make games and/or play them.
HackerNest	HackerNest Vancouver Tech Socials are "unpretentious & agenda-free" bring developers, designers, and other technologists together.
VanVR	VanVR is meetup for VR enthusiasts, evangelists, and creators.

• BC Tech Summit (a big annual conference first held in 2016)
• Traction Conference
• Vancouver Startup Week
• TEDx, Pecha Kucha, etc.

It can be quite difficult to separate these organizations into categories like accelerators, incubators, foundries, etc. The definitions of the categories are not even completely clear (there are lots of blog posts on these topics). I haven't tried to separate them here. There is also overlap with some Venture Capitalists (VCs) which are listed in separate section. I've included a couple of organizations that span both areas in both lists.

	Launch Academy is an early stage accelerator (a "pre-accelerator")		HighLine is a major accelerator
	Founder Institute is a global pre-seed startup accelerator.		Spring is an accelerator with an emphasis on purpose driven companies
	LightHouse Labs is a developer bootcamp (i.e. pre Launch Academy)		Rocket Builders offers a well-regarded go-to-market program
	Accel-Rx is a heath sciences accelerator		Foresight is a CleanTech Accelerator
	Venture Labs is an SFU sponsored accelerator		Entrepreneurship@UBC is a UBC sponsored accelerator
	Invoke Labs / Invoke Media (most famous as the incubator that gave birth to Hootsuite)		Full Stack was a mini-VC that is no longer active, but I've left it here since they had some great resources in their web site.
	Foresight CleanTech Accelerator (in Surrey)		BC Venture Acceleration Program - a BCIC program that provides help for startups province-wide
	Creative Labs is a startup studio on companies for next generation media and entertainment experiences.		BCTIA The Hub
	Alacrity Foundation is a non-profit organization that trains entrepreneurs and helps them find funding.		The Next Big Thing is a non-profit organization that empowers youth with the tools and skills they need to succeed as entrepreneurs.
	Building Technology Innovations helps companies in the real estate and construction industry.		Expa Labs is a six-month program for early stage companies accompanied by a substantial equity investment.
	DDBignite is a communications agency that offers programs for startups in Brand building.		Tricelerate is a support community for startups in the Tri-Cities (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody)
	Stanley Park Ventures is a company foundry focusing on FinTech and HealthTech.		Frontier Foundry is a company foundry focusing on Blockchain, Mixed Reality, and Emerging Markets.
	OneEleven, the technology startup accelerator backed by OMERS Ventures, has expanded to Vancouver.		The Creative Destruction Lab is a seed-stage program that offers mentoring and opportunities to raise funding.
	adMare BioInnovations helps companies in the life sciences.		Praxis Spinal Cord Institute helps and funds companies involved in spinal cord injury innovation.
	Founders Boost is global pre-seed startup accelerator with a branch in Vancouver.

	The Hive - a co-working space with some programs		VanCubers is a co-working space in downtown Vancouver.
	Zen LaunchPad - North Vancouver co-working space		MakerLabs (classic makerspace)
	CoLab maker lab (larger stuff, wood / metal etc...)		HackSpace (software and electronics)
	Discovery Parks (office space)		Suite Genius - co-working space in Kitsilano and Mt. Pleasant
	The Cranium - co-working space in Mt. Pleasant		Network Hub offers co-working spaces
	WerkLab is a coworking space in Strathcona East Vancouver		The Profile is a co-working space in downtown Vancouver
	L'Atelier is a coworking space in Gastown		Creative CoWorkers is a coworking space for creatives in RailTown.
	The Aviary is a coworking space for creatives in Vancouver.		WeWork offers office and co-working spaces.

Also, check out this guide to co-working spaces.

They are too numerous to try to sort out here for now. This a good place to start: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Here is interactive site to help uncover government programs and services.

Here are some other links:

• Innovate BC (formerly BC Innovation Council - BCIC)
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
• Export Development Canada (EDC)
• Genome Canada
• Mitacs
• National Research Council (NRC)
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
• Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC)
• Vancouver Economic Commission
• Western Economic Diversifcation

	Vancouver Film School (VFS)
	Centre for Digital Media (CDM)
	LightHouse Labs is a developer bootcamp.
	Visual College of Art and Design of Vancouver (VCAD)
	CG Masters School of 3d Animation & VFX
	Art Institute of Vancouver
	Vancouver Institute of Media Arts (VanArts)
	Brainstation offers courses and workshops in Coding, UX & UI Design, Marketing, and Product Management.

Melissa Sariffodeen‏ has created a comprehensive list of Groups in Canada Teaching Computational Thinking, Coding & Digital Skills.

	T-Net Job Board
	TechVibes Who's Hiring Section
	Association of Professional Engineers job board
	@BestJobsinVan twitter feed of jobs managed by Lesley Chang

LinkedIn and AngelList can also be good resources.

	Vantec is a long-standing angel organization with monthly meetings (main meeting downtown, as well as pitch-practice meetings in Burnaby and Off-Broadway)
	Vancouver Angel Forum holds all-day events twice a year as well as training courses
	Keiretsu Forum is an international angel group with meetings in Vancouver also
	The Capital Investment Network is a Victoria-based non-profit organization dedicated to connecting, growing, and strengthening the local angel investor community.
	Valhalla Angels started a Vancouver chapter in 2019 and holds monthly pitch events.
	TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) is an investor forum that holds demo days with opportunities to pitch to investors.
	Canadian Financing Forum is an annual event that brings companies and investors together.
	The annual BC Tech Summit includes an investment showcase that connects companies with investors.
	E8 is a group of angel investors that facilitates investments in clean tech companies.
	Women's Equity Lab is group of female angel investors.
	Vancouver Open Angel used to hold events 2-4 times a year (currently on hold)

See also the list of "Events and Competitions" above under "Help for Startups" since all of those offer the chance to get funding. UBC and SFU both hold events to help connect their student entrepreneurs with investors.

It's hard to make a useful list of VCs since it's hard to know how active a firm is at any point in time. The list here is intended to include local firms and ones that are quite active in the Vancouver market. I didn't include Eastern or US VCs that have made one or two local investments.

• A list of VCs
• Another big list of VCs
• A good list of major angels and VCs from Founder Institute
• Hockeystick's list of active funders in Canada
• An article with good lists and pointers to VCs

	Yaletown Venture Partners		Chrysalix Ventures
	Vanedge Capital		Scenario
	Garibaldi Capital Advisors		BDC Venture Capital
	Version One		10X Venture Partners
	BC Renaissance Capital Fund & BC Immigrant Investment Fund		B.C. Advantage Funds
	Victory Square		500 Startups has set up a fund and team to invest in Canadian startups.
	Hardy Capital Partners		Conconi Growth Partners
	Kensington Capital Partners - are managing the BC Government's $100 Million BC Tech Fund		Campfire Capital
	Relentless Pursuit Partners		Northmark Ventures gets involved with building and nurturing tech startups as well as investing in them.
	Varshney Capital		Pyfera Growth Capital
	Pangaea Ventures focuses on advanced materials.		Quark Venture focuses on biotechnology and health sciences companies.
	Pallasite Ventures is a Vancouver based early stage VC.		Telus Ventures is a part of Telus that invests in smaller companies.
	Voyager Capital is Seattle based VC that has also invested in Vancouver companies.		Mobio is publicly traded fund investing in technology start-ups (particularly B2B SaaS)
	Stanley Park Ventures is a company foundry focusing on FinTech and HealthTech.		Frontier Foundry is a company foundry focusing on Blockchain, Mixed Reality, and Emerging Markets.
	ScaleUp Ventures has recently expanded into BC.		Renewal Funds invests in early growth stage companies in Canada and the United States.
	Nimbus Synergies is investing money from Discovery Parks into BC Health Tech companies.		Framework Venture Partners
	Rhino Ventures (formerly Vancouver Founder Fund)		7 Gate Ventures
	Vistara Capital Partners		Pender Ventures is part of a long time local investmentment firm.
	Shred Capital is an early-stage equity fund for technology.		Lumira Ventures is a BioTech VC with an office in Vancouver.

Debt, bridge financing, mezzanine debt, etc.

	Espresso Capital offers revenue based financing and tax credit based financing.
	TIMIA Capital offers revenue based financing.
	VanCity - Growth Capital offers financing to small companies (with a special program for social impact companies).
	BDC has various financing programs.