As part of MTLinTECH’s launch event we wanted to give our readers a more personal account of where we came from and where we’re going. MTLinTECH is the online platform for Montreal’s technology and startup community.

A look back in time

Six years ago, Next Montreal (created by Ben Yoskovitz) and Montreal Tech Watch (Heri Rakotomalala) were the two prime blog/news websites that tech readers in the Montreal community relied on. For years they shared the news about our startup scene. But when Next Montreal wound down in 2011 and Montreal Tech Watch soon thereafter, stories about Montreal were left untold.

The present time

Montreal’s startup and tech community has evolved in the last 10 years from nearly non-existent to thriving. Today the list of supporting resources is long: startup events, investors, service providers, accelerators, co-working spaces, etc.

Each of these organizations play an instrumental role in the creation of an environment for entrepreneurs to succeed, yet amongst them, there existed no platform to share the community’s stories.

In the winter of 2015, we knew we had a chance to make a difference. Our managing editor had recently left his previous job at another tech blog and was freelancing at the time for the National Post, VICE Canada and the Montreal Gazette. We knew it was time to make it happen. Our team (Gabriel Sundaram, Ian Jeffrey and Joseph Czikk) came together to kick off a legitimate news platform where the stories of Montreal startup and tech companies could be told.

How we did it

First we reached out to our friends in the community to gauge interest. Amongst them were LP Maurice, Phil Telio, David Nault, Alistair Croll, etc. Their reaction to the the idea was overwhelmingly positive and the need was as clear to them as it was to us, Montreal needed it’s own platform.

Then we published two to three articles a week to see if we’d find readers and started building our social following and newsletter. Having found immediate demand, we set out to raise funding for more regularly-scheduled content and a small team of writers.

Today, the MTLinTECH team and contributing writers, along with our Founding Partners Rogers, PME MTL, Banque Nationale, Fasken Martineau, Richter, Deloitte, Cloud.ca, Teralys Capital and Shopify, are excited to officially launch the platform that will allow Montreal to shine: here, outside the province, across the country, and around the globe.

The vision

MTLinTECH is a blog run by a non-profit organization, created for the community, because we are believers in Montreal. We hope to make the blog the first of other announcements later this year as together we pursue our mission to increase the visibility of our startup community.

We’re on a mission to reinforce that Montreal is a place where people can build great companies and we hope you’ll come along with us for the ride.

Thanks to our Founding Sponsors for making this possible!