Name two of the most beautiful unicorns in Montreal today. Those who answered Sauteur and Paper are fine connoisseurs of the city’s technological scene, but, in addition, they obviously took care to Frenchify their answer, since their names are actually Hopper and Paper.
Before Christmas, a French company established in the education technology sector came to visit Quebec in general and Investissement Quebec in particular to see if there was any interest in the province for its products. These appear to be of the highest quality. Seen from Quebec, they have the added advantage of being designed by people from the French school system. The company’s leaders obviously know that there are significant cultural and linguistic differences from one region of the planet to another, including in Canada.
The cultural proximity between France and Quebec makes the Canadian province a logical base for a company that hopes to internationalize as quickly as possible. Her name ? Unowhy. His newest product? Sqool TV. This is a television channel dedicated to education and topics related to the world of school.
names and names
France and Quebec are not special cases of this all-out Anglicization. The Skype video call service was established in 2003 in Estonia. Spotify is a global music service that originated in Sweden. TikTok, for those who haven’t realized it yet, is a Chinese social network. In short, the list is long.
Quebec also has several examples of start-up to success. Hopper and Paper are among those referred to as unicorns, as they are in an accelerated stage of revenue growth. We could also mention AppDirect and Sonder, although these two are not headquartered in the province. Their founders are from Quebec. There was of course the Montreal Lightspeed before them.
Hopper brings together a package of services associated with travel, especially tourism, but also business: its application allows you to determine the best time to get your plane tickets at the best price. Added to this is a series of insurance tools that protect the traveler from the possible cancellation of a connecting flight, or others. The company is clearly on a roll, and its value has just recently been pegged at around US$5 billion.
Paper is a start-up in the education sector that offers remote monitoring tools for primary and secondary school levels. Its activities currently take place almost exclusively in the United States and in English, of course. The company is extremely successful there and has seen its turnover explode over the past two years. Paper just completed a US$270 million funding round, which pegs its valuation at over $1.5 billion. Again, the list of young Quebec shoots baptized in the language of Shakespeare is constantly growing.
silver tongue
Innovation has no borders, but does it have a language? The question arises, but it annoys.
Three well-known personalities from the Montreal innovation sector preferred not to answer when The duty asked them the question. Basically: there is no right answer. Either the defenders of the language are angry that Neil Young is preferred to Gilles Vigneault, or the keen on innovation are exasperated to see their planetary ambitions hampered by their language whose international scope is less than another.
Montreal entrepreneur Philippe Beaudoin was kind enough to answer the question, and he did so even after being warned that the exercise was perilous. In the spring of 2020, Mr. Beaudoin created a reading recommendation application called Waverly. Do not panic: it is in homage to the Montreal street of the same name. Honor is safe.
Philippe Beaudoin, therefore, replies that innovation has no language, strictly speaking. But when you start a new business with very little money in your pocket, it is natural to bet on the formula that will have the greatest chance of achieving rapid success. “Creating a website or an application is expensive. It is sure that we can break through internationally in French, but it is more difficult when we start from nothing. »
Limiting yourself to a narrower market when you don’t have the means to do so dampens ambitions, he adds. “Finding a good business name is quite difficult, but it’s also the first point of contact you have with the world. And when this world signs the check that will sustain the business for the next two or three years, you might as well go to them first.
There are very few, if any, private Quebec investors who will require the companies they finance to conduct their business exclusively in French. They too dream of becoming greater investors and prefer returns to cultural baggage.
In innovation as elsewhere in the business world, money indeed speaks louder than anything. And the money in tech companies, it’s in Silicon Valley. In New York and Boston. Maybe in Toronto. A bit in Montreal. For innovation to be done more in French in Quebec, it should be a requirement of institutional investors. Better: entrepreneurs would like us to help them rather than adding obligations to them, nuance Philippe Beaudoin.
We have to ask the question differently, he adds: how can we make Quebec shine better internationally? “Otherwise, this debate will never end. »