News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
 9.4K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 40K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 5.3K     0 

This is an attempt to get the product they’ll make inside of the tariff wall which protects most dairy products. It is good it is in Alberta if it is going to exist. It is bad that it will exist at all.
I’m not familiar with the issue at hand. Why would it be bad for Canada, but good for Alberta as long as it’s in Alberta?
 
I’m not familiar with the issue at hand. Why would it be bad for Canada, but good for Alberta as long as it’s in Alberta?
I would assume that the plant would buy from suppliers with existing quota, so really shouldn't matter. Supply Management in general is bad for Canada as it inflates prices, stifles innovation and creates political inertia.
 
I missed that it was "esports" at first. Given the size of the site, that makes more sense than an actual arena
 
Interesting article. BC will probably top Alberta again, but nice to see Albert/Calgary competitive. I don't have the numbers handy, but Calgary has been gaining on Vancouver in recent years, hopefully this is a trend. Also interesting to note is that out of Alberta's $383M, $346M of that (%90) is for Calgary based ventures.
 
Interesting article. BC will probably top Alberta again, but nice to see Albert/Calgary competitive. I don't have the numbers handy, but Calgary has been gaining on Vancouver in recent years, hopefully this is a trend. Also interesting to note is that out of Alberta's $383M, $346M of that (%90) is for Calgary based ventures.
I always wonder about the actual value in these kinds of VC funding numbers broken out by city - how much, if anything does it translate to on the ground in the cities they list?

I assume there’s a few jobs that are supported, but loads of this work is distributed and international, raising money here doesn’t mean jobs or spending here necessarily. Plus funding is spent on all sorts of random things like data storage and processing, so doesn’t really mean anything to the locality in which the money was raised.

These articles are always a bit too boostery- big numbers with arrows that point up to help sell cities, but always stop short of explaining what practical value has been created in jobs or spending or local investments.

Perhaps I’m just too old now and don’t get this part of the economy, but these articles comparing VC funding seem a bit more of a sales pitch than a useful economic indicator. Would appreciate if someone was able to explain this to help change my mind.
 
I always wonder about the actual value in these kinds of VC funding numbers broken out by city - how much, if anything does it translate to on the ground in the cities they list?

I assume there’s a few jobs that are supported, but loads of this work is distributed and international, raising money here doesn’t mean jobs or spending here necessarily. Plus funding is spent on all sorts of random things like data storage and processing, so doesn’t really mean anything to the locality in which the money was raised.

These articles are always a bit too boostery- big numbers with arrows that point up to help sell cities, but always stop short of explaining what practical value has been created in jobs or spending or local investments.

Perhaps I’m just too old now and don’t get this part of the economy, but these articles comparing VC funding seem a bit more of a sales pitch than a useful economic indicator. Would appreciate if someone was able to explain this to help change my mind.
You aren't really wrong about the boosterey part, for Calgary the deals work out to roughly 10mil each, and that isn't necessarily an annual budget.

But each of those startups will employ at least a few local people, and lease a bit of office space. Some of the money will go into things like legal council, or engineering consultants which may or may not be local. Ditto with the data side, though many startups may not fully trust the cloud with their brainchild and decide to use a local data center instead.

Of course some could turn out to be elaborate money laundering schemes, but the bigger takeaway from the article for me is that people don't throw 10 mil at bad ideas, that kind of money goes to creative and ambitious types.

It's no surprise there's more of those in Calgary than Edmonton, but the really exciting part IMO is that Calgary is shaking the oil town reputation and taking on Vancouver for new entrepreneurial activity.

One never knows where the next Amazon may come from..
 
I always wonder about the actual value in these kinds of VC funding numbers broken out by city - how much, if anything does it translate to on the ground in the cities they list?

I assume there’s a few jobs that are supported, but loads of this work is distributed and international, raising money here doesn’t mean jobs or spending here necessarily. Plus funding is spent on all sorts of random things like data storage and processing, so doesn’t really mean anything to the locality in which the money was raised.

These articles are always a bit too boostery- big numbers with arrows that point up to help sell cities, but always stop short of explaining what practical value has been created in jobs or spending or local investments.

Perhaps I’m just too old now and don’t get this part of the economy, but these articles comparing VC funding seem a bit more of a sales pitch than a useful economic indicator. Would appreciate if someone was able to explain this to help change my mind.
Definitely more of a boosterism thing, and true a lot of the money at the start and even down the road will be spread out to other cities or countries, having been involved with a company that was started this way, I've seen how the benefits unfold. The company I was involved with and later worked for, started out with 6 people in a small office in Bow Valley Square, and year later it was about a dozen or so. IIRC a year after that it was still quite small, maybe 20 people or so, but then things started to take off and I remember they were hiring a lot. They ended up taking the whole floor at BVS, and a year or so later took another floor. The benefits aren't immediate, but Calgary would start to see more of the benefits as those companies grow.

I believe (and might be wrong) that small VC companies aren't much different than larger established companies like a TC Energy, Suncor, Shaw, CPKC, Westjet etc.., where the bulk of their/jobs economic benefits are outside of Calgary in multiple locations, but Calgary is the single biggest benefactor .
 
Last edited:

Back
Top