Waterloo Canada is the home to Research In Motion (RIM) the creators of the Blackberry. For nearly twenty years the Canadian company was the leader in the smartphone space, basically because there were no decent challengers. Palm/Handspring tried to compete with their Treo line and then the Pre line. Several companies tried to implement the original Windows Phone into some kind of Blackberry contender but time and time again Blackberry prevailed.
Until 2007.
Depending on what sites you read, or who you ask, many people believe that RIM felt unstoppable. There was no way that this “smart phone” with a touch screen was going to be able to displace the top seeded Blackberry. Once Google released Android on several different OEM’s the writing on the wall was clear, RIM needed a new game plan. RIM stuck to their guns though because they thought they had the enterprise market cornered. They didn’t.
But this isn’t the story of a falling tech giant. It’s the story of a great city in Waterloo Canada. It’s the story of an incredibly solid startup eco-system that until a few short years ago, lived in the shadows of RIM.
Sortable published an amazing infographic (below) that highlights some of the amazing things going on in Waterloo Canada. You’ll probably read this article and look at the infographic and be just as surprised as we were.
Waterloo serves as the Canadian headquarters for technology giants; Google, IBM,McAfee, Oracle and Electronic Arts (EA). From that, and Waterloo’s thriving tech startup community, over 30,000 people in Waterloo are employed at tech firms. All of that combined is good for $25 billion in revenue from Waterloo’s tech sector. Wow!
- 550 tech startups call Waterloo home
- 850+ tech firms call Waterloo home
- 531 new companies started in the last three years
- 1,000 open tech jobs
- VC and private equity investments have gone from $7 million in 1997 to $300 million today
Shocked?
Canada has great entrepreneurial pockets throughout the country. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and of course Waterloo have all graced the pages of nibletz.com with startup news stories and interviews. That’s why Waterloo is known as Canada’s innovation hub.
While it wasn’t cited in this particular infographic, RIM has served as a breeding ground for great startup founders, similar to the way Google does for Valley startups. It’s apparent though that solid people in the tech industry should have no problem finding work as RIM continues to crumble. It was reported back in August that RIM is laying off 3,000 employees.
Sortable Waterloo Region Tech Infographic
Linkage:
Thanks for the great coverage. As you noted, Waterloo Region’s tech community spreads far beyond RIM, and now hosts more than 400 active startups, including four Y Combinator grads who returned from the Valley to build their companies. As Alexis Ohanian told us during a visit to Waterloo the other day, great startup communities can grow anywhere there is talent and entrepreneurial spirit, and the myth of Silicon Valley’s supremacy “needs to be dispelled once and for all.” (see: https://www.communitech.ca/alexis-ohanian-praises-waterloo-startup-community-at-techtoberfest/)