BEWARE THE WALKING DEAD: Tax Incentives for Angel Investors Twenty-five years ago, the government of British Columbia introduced the SMALL BUSINESS VENTURE CAPITAL ACT. After a quarter of a century, it’s probably time that we reflected on how effective that program has been. The BC venture capital credit is the granddaddy of all the provincial … Read more
Canada’s Business Development Bank weighs in on the ‘decline in the number of Canadian entrepreneurs’ A few days ago, I came across several articles in the Globe and Mail on a new study by the BDC and the University of Montreal. The study addressed a supposed decline in the number of Canadian ‘entrepreneurs’. “The study … Read more
PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND (HUNTING FOR UNICORNS – PART 3) Government bureaucrats and high-tech CEOs from around the world make their bi-annual pilgrimage to Silicon Valley – DALL-E Image Creator As we’ve seen earlier, many factors probably contribute to a ‘healthy’ startup ecosystem. This article delves deeper into the private equity firms that fund … Read more
The Unicorn Kingdom A SURVEY OF FIVE COUNTRIES (AND THEIR STARTUP ECOSYSTEMS)(HUNTING FOR UNICORNS – PART 2) Hunting for Unicorns – Youtube.com According to CB INSIGHTS there are over 1,200 unicorns around the world. A unicorn company, or unicorn startup, is a private company with a valuation over $1 billion. As of July 2023, there … Read more
BC’s Venture Capital Tax Credits – Do They Make Sense? (Hunting for Unicorns – Part 1) Government Incubators – Youtube.com About ten years ago, I invested in a VCC in the Province of British Columbia. ‘VCC’ is the acronym for a VENTURE CAPITAL CORPORATION as defined by my province’s SMALL BUSINESS VENTURE CAPITAL ACT. BC’s … Read more
This company was featured in a recent article in the GLOBE AND MAIL – Canada’s National Business NewspaperThe headline was: Canadian companies face unexpected tax burdens after going public on stock exchanges “Canada has been the worst-performing advanced economy in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development since 1976. Governments of all partisan stripes have … Read more
Unicorns don’t exist. So why are there so many of them? Unicorns are supposed to be mythical beasts. Yet, according to a 2019 article published in the World Economic Forum, there were 326 of them in 2017. And if the new PM of the United Kingdom has his way, we can expect to see more … Read more
So, How Big is Small?Everybody seems to have a different definition the Globe’s Report on Small Business gets delivered to my inbox While the reports are often interesting, the businesses covered aren’t usually small. One of the latest reports featured MINDBRIDGE ANALYTICS INC. They’re an AI[1] ‘startup’ with between 130 and 201 employees, depending on … Read more
