{"id":75270,"date":"2016-11-15T16:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T21:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techvibes.com\/?p=75270"},"modified":"2017-04-10T18:17:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T22:17:50","slug":"the-evolution-of-canadas-tech-space","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/the-evolution-of-canadas-tech-space","title":{"rendered":"Lightspeed’s Dax Dasilva on the Evolution of His Company\u2014And the Local Tech Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

If\u00a0Dax Dasilva had to start his technology company all over again, he might have tapped investors a lot sooner. Still, the founder and CEO of Montreal-based Lightspeed<\/a>\u00a0isn’t interested in rewriting the history of his company, which\u00a0provides cloud-based point-of-sale software for omnichannel commerce.<\/p>\n

After all, since it was founded in 2005, Montreal-based Lightspeed has grown more than 40,000 customers in 100 countries and employs 500-plus people in seven offices worldwide.\u00a0Dasilva spoke to Techvibes ahead of the TSX Ignite<\/a> conference in Vancouver about the benefits of Canada\u2019s maturing tech scene and company\u2019s plans to potentially go public in future.<\/p>\n

TV: What\u2019s your take on Canada\u2019s tech scene today?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

DD:<\/strong> There is something really special about what\u2019s going on in Canadian tech right now. Canadian tech companies aren\u2019t just growing to a certain size in order to sell to American companies. We are becoming tech anchors.<\/p>\n

Lightspeed’s first investors were from California and they are very bullish on Canadian tech companies. We have this unique value proposition as Canadian tech companies. We have an amazing talent pool \u2026 and we\u2019re building quality companies that are creating really differentiated technologies in all of our cities. There is a big reason for Canada to continue to support this new information economy and our tech scene.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s changed since you started Lightspeed?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When we started in 2005 there wasn\u2019t the network of incubators and accelerators and local VCs that we have in Canada today. You almost had to make the decision to move to Silicon Valley in order to become a “real” tech company.\u00a0 That\u2019s just not the case anymore.<\/p>\n

There is so much more local support in terms of investment at all stages. For someone starting a tech company today, they can find world-class investors right in their own Canadian city. There is also that very Canadian trait of trying to uplift everybody \u2014 and it\u2019s working. We all have pride seeing our companies going public and making waves internationally.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve talked about being “IPO ready.” What do you see as the pros and cons of going public?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We\u00a0have been\u00a0really good at growing our company\u00a0through\u00a0acquisitions. I think going public allows us to further that strategy and\u00a0continue to build and\u00a0grow all around the world. That is one of the definite benefits.<\/p>\n

Obviously, there is a lot more public\u00a0accountability and\u00a0reporting and other things that a company has to consider when going public. But in order to be an international, world-class leader, it\u2019s an important step. In\u00a0some ways, it\u2019s just another way to fundraise. It\u2019s not the end of the story, it\u2019s just\u00a0another\u00a0step in a company\u2019s\u00a0lifecycle. But I think it\u2019s an important\u00a0milestone and a good ambition.<\/p>\n

Our goal is IPO readiness. Whether we IPO or we find another way to continue to fund our growth, it\u2019s a good goal for a company to get its systems and processes in place \u2014 and to professionalize the organization to a level where it could operate as a public company.<\/p>\n

Anything you would\u2019ve done differently at Lightspeed, in hindsight?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We waited seven years to take outside investment. We bootstrapped until then. We\u00a0didn\u2019t talk to the investment community. Maybe that\u2019s because I came from an arts background and not a finance background. Maybe we should\u2019ve done it earlier.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I wouldn\u2019t change anything about the Lightspeed story. One of the reasons why I think Lightspeed has been able to do three different acquisitions in three different countries, other than Canada, is because those seven years of bootstrapping gave us a strong sense of identity.<\/p>\n

What advice do you have for early-stage companies today?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You need pragmatism. A lot of companies are built around an idea, not a business model.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve seen Canadian companies do really well is generate real businesses with real value for customers \u2014 and therefore can get the funding and the revenues from that business to grow into real tech companies.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and condensed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If\u00a0Dax Dasilva had to start his technology company all over again, he might have tapped investors a lot sooner. Still, the founder and CEO of Montreal-based Lightspeed\u00a0isn’t interested in rewriting the history of his company, which\u00a0provides cloud-based point-of-sale software for omnichannel commerce. After all, since it was founded in 2005, Montreal-based Lightspeed has grown more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76167,"featured_media":75275,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[406,55,401,209,31,30,221,405],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[49],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-75270","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-News","tag-ceo","tag-dax-dasilva","tag-entrepreneur","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-lightspeed","tag-montreal","tag-retail","tag-vanguards","magazine-series-vanguards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/75270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/75270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/75275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75270"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=75270"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=75270"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=75270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}