5 spaces to visit during Montreal’s Startup Open House
With fall in the air Montreal’s startup community is ready to open their doors for the Startup Open House event tomorrow evening. For the third consecutive year, dozens of companies will showcase their offices to eager onlookers.
In Montreal, Sharethebus will be providing a free shuttle bus from four stops around the city, between 4:00 and 7:00 PM. The fun isn’t restricted to Montreal only: for the first year, multiple cities will be hosting their Startup Open House on the same evening, with Toronto and Vancouver also opening their doors on October 29.
Before all the fun tomorrow evening we’ve put together a list of five spaces we recommend visiting, in no particular order. (In reality all of the startups participating in Montreal are set to put on a warm reception for anyone coming.)
Lightspeed - 700 Rue Saint Antoine E
It’s #Castletime at Gare Viger, where Lightspeed is ready to welcome curious onlookers. Led by founder Dax Dasilva and founded back in 2005, Lightspeed is is a point-of-sale software provider.
Tomorrow evening the company will show guests what it’s like to “work in a castle” in an atmosphere loaded with beer, wine, hors d’oeuvres and music. Lightspeed said in its blog that guests will also meet “the most creative and innovative members” of the startup, like Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO, JP Chauvet, Chief Revenue Officer, Jean-Luc Dery, Vice President Engineering, Raff Paquin, Director of Data Science and more.
AppDirect - 279 Rue Prince
Based on Rue Prince in Old Port, AppDirect‘s completely renovated office space in Montreal is ready for the masses. What makes this company especially great for startup job-seekers tomorrow evening is that founder Daniel Saks told MTLinTech this month that he’ll be aggressively hiring in the city. The company wants to go over 100 employees at its Montreal office and with all the work they’ve done re-making the office, Saks feels they’re ready.
“We’re this high growth company that’s investing in the Montreal community and sharing best practices,” he said. “I think that gives street credit to Montrealers working in the Valley because all of our engineers see how great Montreal is, and vice-versa.”
Earlier this month San Francisco-based AppDirect raised $140 million in funding from J.P. Morgan along with the company’s existing investors. Led by cofounders Daniel Saks, of St. Catherines, Ontario, and Nicolas Desmarais of Montreal, Quebec, AppDirect has now raised $245 million since it was founded in 2009.
MAKEACHAMP - 412 Rue Du Champ-De-Mars
An undeniably cool athlete funding platform, MAKEACHAMP was all the talk earlier this year when MTLinTech highlighted how fast the profitable startup was growing.
For those guests tomorrow evening who are keen to check out an original startup with an original idea, head over to 412 Rue Du Champ-De-Mars. Founded nearly three years ago, the company is a sport-specific crowdfunding platform that helps athletes all over the world reach their dreams in various sports, like judo, weightlifting, cycling, ultramarathon, mixed martial arts and dozens more.
The backstory involves two of the team’s founders in David Ancor and Michael Shpigelman, who both represented Canada on the international stage in Judo. They raised about $2,000 on Kickstarter a few years ago and realized a need for an athlete-catered platform in 2012.
Head to the startup’s office tomorrow night to connect with their team.
Notman House - 51 Sherbrooke St. O
Notman House: Montreal’s home of the web. Anytime there’s a big startup event bringing Montreal together, one knows it must in some way involve Notman.
As in previous years, one of Startup Open House’s community partners from the beginning will play a large role tomorrow evening, with dozens of startups set to show onlookers their tech.
“It’s a unique event that connects many major players in Canadian tech. I’m excited to see our communities working together to showcase our collective achievements,” said Noah Redler, Notman House’s Campus Director and Montreal lead for Startup Canada, “If you’ve ever been curious to learn more about startups, to get a peek behind the curtain, I can’t think of a better opportunity to discover the space.”
Frank & Oak - 160 Rue Saint Viateur E #105
Any Startup Open House must include Frank & Oak’s sprawling Mile End office space, which takes up a massive open-concept floor of a Saint Viateur office building. While photographers snap shots of models, programmers code away and busy guys and girls pick and pack orders all under the same roof.
Frank & Oak is an online clothing shop for men, founded by Ethan Song and Hicham Ratnani.
Over the past few years the company has took part in the event and they always seem to be hiring.
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