I an unvalidated theory about early-stage software companies in Toronto. Unlike Austin, Boston or the Valley, Toronto suffers from a lack of an entrepreneurial community (this of course is a generalization, with groups like Toronto Venture Group and the Exceler@tor this is a growing start-up community). Most start-ups are really just consulting groups and management consultants formed from ex-employees of the big industry sectors. However as I create a list of industry clusters, I begin to see that Toronto has a wealth of software companies both new and old.
- banking/financial institutions (CIBC, BMO, Royal Bank, TD Bank, CanadaLife, etc.)
- media and broadcasting (CityTV, CTV, CanWest, CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, etc.)
- marketing and design (Ogilvy & Mather, Cossette, BBDO, iStudio, Taxi, etc.)
- biomedical (University Health Network, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, SickKids Centre for Computational Biology, Apotex, Toronto Biotech Initative, etc.)
- educational (University of Toronto, Ryerson University, York University, George Brown College, Centennial College, Humber College, Ontario College of Art and Design, etc.)
- communications (Rogers, Telus, Bell, etc.)
- animation (Alias, CORE Digital Pictures, ATI Technologies, IMAX, Roxio, Pseudo Interactive, SideFX, Nelvana, Scene7, etc.)
- professional services (KPMG, Deloitte Consulting, Accenture, IBM Global Services, etc.)
- software (Roxio, IBM, my previous list, etc.)
I really need to put together a more comprehensive list of companies using on of the cluster maps (City of Toronto Key Economic Clusters, Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance). This might make a good introduction to SVG or Flash programming for me. Something to do in my copious amounts of spare time 😉