Montreal Startups

Andrew Lockhead is a serial entrepreneur exploding with passion. When a new idea comes to him, he just can’t get it out of his head. So when Andrew and his co-founder Hamed came up with the idea for Stay22, they hit the ground running. Three years later, Stay22, a FounderFuel alumni,  is re-shaping the way travelers book accommodation for events using an intuitive maps.

In 2006, Ian Jeffrey left Montreal to join the startup world in Silicon Valley. Three years later, his company “Tiny Pictures” was acquired by Shutterfly. The experiences he gained in San Francisco allowed him to reshape the startup landscape in the city he grew up in. Back in Montreal, he went on to become a venture partner at Real Ventures, co-founded FounderFuel and even co-created MTLinTech. Now he’s the co-founder and CEO of Breathe Life, where they focus on providing innovative technologies to the insurance industry while building people-first company along the way.

Financial literacy and personal finance are topics that are widely covered today. Blogs, magazines, and books are quick to offer tips, tricks and lessons to improve your finances. Philip Barrar, however, realized that what Canadians really need is a tangible solution. He conceptualized Mylo, an app that rounds up your everyday purchases and invests the difference. He embarked on the long journey to build the app which included plenty of venture backing, getting around regulations, and even an appearance on Dragon’s Den.

Julien Smith has always been a forward thinker. He consistently adopted new technologies before the masses did and loved envisioning how they can create new business opportunities. In 2014 he set out to change the landscape of private workspace leveraging technology, one location at a time.

While solar energy is notoriously efficient, oddly enough the industry itself is actually quite inefficient. This is an issue Lennie Moreno picked up on pretty quickly working in the industry. His answer: Sofdesk. Sofdesk is a Montreal-based startup developing software platforms that allow roofers and solar installers to scale their business. Lennie Moreno is the eccentric and outspoken entrepreneur leading the charge behind the rapidly growing company.

Felipe Coimbra is a rare bread. He’s a serial entrepreneur who started a non-profit focused on helping Syrian refugees, got featured on Tech Crunch and has lived in 19+ cities throughout his life. Felipe’s latest startup is called Untask, an AI based intelligent task manager designed to help us organize and prioritize our busy lives.

Eamonn O’Rourke made a significant observation in the construction industry that would change his life forever. The serial entrepreneur noticed the incredible man-hours wasted from contractors making material trips to the hardware store. Eamonn, who was born in Dublin, set out to build a platform that would make those material trips obsolete. Expanding rapidly, RenoRun is now operating in 3 major cities and is funded by RealVentures.

It’s fair to say Marc’s never been one to shy away from hard work or a challenge. In 2016, he left the landscaping company he helped build for a new, bigger challenge. His plan was to change the way landscapers and material vendors do business by building a double sided marketplace. The new startup was branded GoMaterials and while the growth is linear, so are the challenges.

At the age of 23, Maxime found himself unsure of his career path. Having spent the million dollars he had just won playing professional poker in Europe, ideas began to unravel on ways he can earn extra cash renting out space in his home as storage. Thus led the birth of Sharebee, a peer-to-peer platform for self storage. Today Sharebee’s platform offers storage space throughout Eastern Canada and Maxime is lazer focused on making his company the leader in the $37B self-storage industry.

In part 2 of this 2 part mini-series, Montreal tech legend Hamnett Hill recounts how his business, as well as the city itself, emerged out of the dotcom crash in the early 2000s. Hamnett also discusses how they spun out their latest venture, Smooch to which he is now Chairman.