Success breeds success, they say. Increasingly recognized internationally, Quebec universities, private investment firms and the great fortunes of Quebec inc. are in the process of creating a Quebec model of entrepreneurship and innovation that is unique in its kind… and which is starting to pay off big.
Last week, the Dobson Center and Centech, incubators that welcome dozens of young companies with a strong technological character associated respectively with McGill University and ETS, received excellent news. For the first time, two Quebec start-up incubators are at the top of a world ranking recognizing the best organizations specializing in this crucial stage where an idea from the mind of a future entrepreneur becomes a business project.
UBI Global has placed the two Montreal centers among its 10 highest ranks in the 2022 edition of its annual ranking.
The firm has handpicked more than 1,800 entrepreneurship assistance programs spread across the planet and identified 120 places where it is good to launch your own start-up. The ranking excludes a few private organizations and certain notorious ecosystems, notably those in Silicon Valley and the Boston area, in the United States, which would probably have beaten the two Montreal centers, but this is a downside that does not bother Richard Chénier, who heads Centech.
A concrete impact
“One thing is certain: our university incubators are better than those found in China or Germany,” he told the Duty. UBI does not only count the size of the portfolio in its ranking. It also takes into account the supply of services and our more general power of attraction. »
The Centech should not be ashamed of its portfolio, however. Year after year, the center welcomes around a hundred young shoots. About twenty SMEs, most of the time exporters of Quebec innovations, come out of it every year.
Le Québec inc., we no longer feel its presence, but it is not yet materializing sufficiently
Rather discreet, the Dobson Center is even more imposing. The 250 start-up who made it up last year raised $2.2 billion in investments. We owe Dobson billionaire companies like Stingray, Paper and Sonders. The manufacturer of electric snowmobiles Taiga Motors also came from it, as did the start-up CarbiCrete, which found a way to produce cementless concrete with a negative carbon footprint.
“At the beginning, the center was a more limited program. National Bank’s involvement has allowed it to evolve, and today we have added a pre-seed fund. It’s one thing to develop innovation, it’s another to present it well to find funding, “summarizes the professor and former leader of Google in Quebec Marie-Josée Lamothe, who is one of the leaders of the Dobson Center. .
Private fortunes involved
The mention of the National Bank is not accidental. Historically, Quebec inc. has always been perceived as cautious and unwilling to get involved in innovation and the creation of new technologies. But that is changing.
In fact, M.me Lamothe nuances this impression. Quebec business people are more involved than you might think in helping young businesses, generally by managing their family portfolio. “Quebec Inc. encourages innovation a lot, but it is done in a more discreet and indirect way, through specialized funds or wealth management,” she says.
“We work with a lot of family offices [bureaux de gestion de patrimoine] at McGill, by the way. »
Marie-Josée Lamothe, who also sits on the board of directors of Alimentation Couche-Tard, underlines the presence on the McGill University campus of a “convenience store of the future” precisely created at the initiative of the multinational Laval.
This does not prevent representatives of the Quebec technology sector from hoping for more direct involvement from local business people. “Le Québec inc., we no longer feel its presence, but it is not materializing enough yet. We are in a learning period, the culture is changing,” notes Richard Chénier.
In this era of energy sobriety, the leader of Centech would particularly like to see a company like Hydro-Québec get more involved, he says. The state-owned company has just closed its subsidiary InnovHQ, which it had created in 2019 to get closer to young Quebec shoots.
Support from large local companies would be welcome in the coming months, as fears related to the global economy are slowing down investment in several industries. “The next few years are going to be difficult. We have had good years since 2020, but we feel that it will slow down. It will depend on whether there is a recession or not,” continues Mr. Chénier.
Quebec inc. or not, there will always be incubators like Centech and the Dobson Center to help new entrepreneurs.