Think Calgary and big skies, a Rocky Mountain playground and energy come to mind. But there’s now a new kind of energy that is creating Canada’s most adventurous tech city.
Calgary is home to a robust tech and innovation ecosystem. Entrepreneurs are embracing the disruption brought on by digitization, taking risks, and creating startup and scaleup companies in a city focused on resolving global challenges in energy, transportation, food and health.
A report by Startup Genome this year ranked Calgary as a top five ecosystem for connectedness among 50 cities globally. Innovation has long been the hallmark of the energy sector, but the report singled out Calgary’s new strengths in cleantech and life sciences.
Calgary has the highest concentration of head offices in Canada and that creates opportunities for new businesses to do industry-disrupting work. Calgary also has among the highest concentrations of small businesses in Canada with three out of four tech companies in Calgary being a startup.
The city is home to more than 60 per cent of Alberta’s tech companies. A number of Calgary startups and scaleups are attracting significant funding, support and international attention, while many of the one-time small businesses aren’t so small anymore. Solium Financial and Parvus Therapeutics, for example, were both part of billion-dollar investment deals in 2019 in fintech and life sciences.
ATTAbotics – a company revolutionizing supply chains for modern commerce with its robotics-based fulfillment system – got a special mention on TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions 2019 list.
Symend recently closed one of the largest Series B rounds in recent Alberta history, funding its customer engagement platform designed to better connect financially at-risk customers.
From software to hardware to services, digital transformation is a driver of tech investments by Calgary industries. A study by Calgary Economic Development and IDC Canada forecasts that Calgary companies will lead the $18.4 billion spend on digital transformation in Alberta through 2022.
It’s projected that Calgary’s creative industries sector will spend $1 billion on digital transformation from 2019 to 2022, and virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), AI systems and machine learning have been identified as key engines of growth. There are over 60 companies working on video games and/or immersive media products and services. A 2019 Nordicity survey found that over 200 people were working in the video games and immersive media industry in Calgary
From cloud computing and artificial intelligence to robotics, tech is now the way to do business; for all businesses.
Calgary is a prime market for change-makers of all sizes, from all industries. It has competitive costs to do business, is rated the most livable city in the Western Hemisphere, and has a tech ecosystem that’s transforming our industrial sectors. There’s a lot more happening in Calgary than might be expected. In fact, it is the only place in Canada to truly live tech and love life.
