] cci has been tracking, prodding, analyzing for a while
] cautiously optimistic on budget2017,
] gov.ca is showing a strong understanding of what needs to happen, if they wish to see their innovation agenda move from paper to policy
] >DS: whats demonstrating that understanding?
] renewal of VCAP (aka VCCI)
] first budget thats focuses on needs of "scaleups", high growth firms trying to go from 10M - 100M to 1B in sales, companies that will grow to be global competitors
] we have a theme for = ] #access to capital, ] #access to talent, ] # access to customers
] on the talent side, the global skills strategy, up to 10K co-op positions, up from 3750 previously
] access to .gov services, trade commisioner, BDC, eDC, # of regional development offices, this helps firms with 2-300 people, constant contact with the .gov
] ( EX gov procurement program, a us style program(SBIR) to buy canadian, gov is allocating 50M to create a program to help gov procure products and services
] gov is largest procurer/purhaser in the country, could result in sales of 100's of M to Billions
[05:00] DS: you said 'smart first steps', what about their commitment level, monetarily or is this policies light or ... ?
] this budget is 'outlining' pretty broad, __ has to happen
] thats where i think 'my company' can help the gov play a role in helping then understand the needs of ...
] IP strategy - IP is the oil of the new economy, gov needs to figure out an 'IP strategy',
] there is "language" in the budget but in order for them to get going, the need to start, to begin engaging with CEOs
] gov needs to move quickly or we wont see a return on these investments
[07:30] @mattroberts Partner at ScaleUP Ventures
] holistic sense, cautiously optimistic, nails the major pieces, the gov would have heard from the tech sector
] lacking in detail, which is fair, gov will roll it out in its own time, its like a 'draft'
* matt has history of .gov involvement
[08:15] educate us, this current gov, it sees like and endless series of 'were working on it', showing their work as they go, maybe too much(ex vcap), when do we get the final implementation
] different govs, different ways, sometimes a budget is fully costed, fully modelled, sometimes not,
] I dont think their is 1 program that solves the innovation agenda , so you have a wide variety of programs across a number of different departments
] global skills strategy is a good example, announced in fall economic statement, still rolling out, june 12 is the day
] weve been involved in .. , its not
] other govs have put more into budgets, there is < in this 1,
[10:00] @gerit
] does gov take a backseat because of whats going on in the US, current political environment
] oversharing, iterative model,
[11:00]
] prev high level 'promises' from industry minister Bains, last march, when they 'kicked off' their strategy
] 800M incubaters/superclusters, ] 2B over 3 years for uni infra, ] 130M/5 cleantech r&d, ] 73M coop integrate learning
] what actually came about, in the budget, numbers were bigger
] LIST = ] 950M supercluster growth strategy, ] 50 M procurement program, ] 400M VCCI, ] 7.8m global skills talent(fast track visa program), ] 221 M coop program, ] 125M pan canadian ai strategy , ] 50M digital skills initiatives - training for k-12
] CC table-001 (below)
[12:30] @gerit? Gerrit De Vynck, Tech & telecom reporter at Bloomberg;
- more specificity then expected
- why does it need to be the pan canadian AI vs the canadian AI
- ths govs concern is whats going on south of the border
- going forward there may be a need to prop up an auto sector that gets blindsided by nafta renegotiation,
- does specific $ amounts hurt them,
- if anything happens, they wont lose an election because the AI strategy didnt work out
- its a gov that has pulled back on many things
> [15:00] @matt
- overall there is not a lot of "new" spending in this budget, 100 - 200 m new money
- intrigued by rolling up of sector specific supports, into this 1.26B innovation fund
- taking stuff that was dedicated to automotive or aerospace sector
- lets you invest in companies that are going to get the actual best return
- hoping its the return of tech partnerships fund, really helped bb, sandstorm accelerate their growth
- current gov is modernizing their past programs
- global skills strategy is not just for tech workers,
[17:00]> bains was on power and politics, framing our economy as one around "innovation", is this beyond a "buzzword", core to their thesis ?
- it has to be, lets face it, we are still a resource economy
- i was @ #bctech conference, PM clark says something like- tech as the core of where bc goes, it is central to our strategy and it has to be
- the reaction from the western crowd, was that we've never had a premier say that before
- gov is recognizing where the economy has to go, with tech at the forefront and its important that there doing it.
[17:45]> thoughts on 'gov procurement' program, integrated learing program, commitment to workers
- gov procurement - cant think of any other body that needs improved 'digital services' more then gov
- why wouldnt cdn tech startup be the source of purchases from innovative cdn startups
- any potential blowback,( neighors to the us, )
- not sure that the US is too focused on/concerned with a trade war with canada,
[20:00] > @gerit - reaction in the US to budget?
- they dont know that we had one(budget), they know who Trudeau is
- good policy, good branding, ex promoting women in code
- angst and concern if your from another country
[21:00]> msft and google prior to this budget, were looking to snap up as much AI talent as possible from Canada, will these changes make Canada even more compelling for these companies?
- yes, better then creating a branch plant office sales only office here,
- even 'development lite' here, is good, creates jobs here, is providing opportunities here, for employees now and perhaps after they will stay on with other canadian companies
- attract talent, more companies, american, chinese
- and y not with our dollar, our eduction
- BUT they havent touched options or capital gains, follow up is that they are not going to, commentary in the budget that they will continue to look at it, positive
- interested in the 225M for skills agency, - lot of good ideas in there, money to provide training for companies, EX - sales training, ladies learning code
- small high growth companies dont have the capacity to do internal training
- looked at the gender focus - tech will be better with more women involved an aggresive move in the right direction
[25:00] Saadia Muzaffar, founder of Tech Girls Canada.
] choosing to be cautiouslyoptimistic about this all to nascent gender focus. so far just intentions,
] promises mean very little in the abscence of solid, consistent, continued actions. we have seen a lot of "politicians promises"
] its 2017, were already late in the game
] concerned about - lot of talk about innovation, intersection of innovation and supporting women, not a lot of solid action plans. there is a line that says more coming
] who is going to do that work?
] seen a lot of programs - started well intentioned, the wrong people at the helm, not doing what they set out to do, end up as FAIL
] # of women in STEM careers in Canada is NOT getting better, its getting worse
] hoping the gov is serious about putting money where its actually neede
] hoping they will invest in areas where they do have expertise, not in being VC's
] DO create conditions where people who are not white, not straight, not male, can also access opportunties and capital, their solutions can be procured at a government level, ex civic tech, investment in creating civic opportunities,
[29:00] @matt roberts, VC partner @, former BDC employee
] lot of things we can jump into, to her point, we are now 4 white men talking about this, so wont go to far on the focus of commitement to women
] as she said, its a lot promises right now, but who is going to do the work?
] so we will TRANSITION to her what she said about "the gov not trying to take the role of venture capitalist"
] they are better "creating conditions" then running the show on their own
] VCCI funding announcement of 400M over 3 years, dedicated to BDC
] vcci is being called the new VCAP by some, which was the previous program
] amazing back and forth across canada from the VC community about VCAP, its value, good or bad
] christian investor - comment - putting BDC in charge, more strings, lower returns, never took any vcap money
] @matt scaleup - also dont take vcap money, took 25M ont money
] mckenzie program, put in place, bc NOT ENOUGH VC money in canada
] why is this - low returns, less lps want to get into market
] VCAP money is to incentivize LPS, this in turn should encourage them to bring in more money
] creates a virtuous cycle of ... eventually self sustaining
] @chris
] 400M with matching money should inject about 1.5 B
] @matt - reason the money is on the BDC books, looks bad in the beginning, as some companies fall away, J curve, eventually money comes back, but takes about 5 years to know if fund is successfull
] dont want that on books of gov, looks better on books of very profitable bank the gov owns
[33:00] VCAP
] doesnt BDC already exist to do this? how does it help the people that there trying to get the money too?
] will have to submit proposals to get access to capital
] BDC doesnt do this type of investment,never has, does fund to fund, their an LP
] this is investments into LP's
] kensington, terrales, northleaf, one more
] there is not going to be a massive change
] concern was barton, wiseman didnt like it
] might just be naming change, bc VCAP was a successfull Harper program
] my reporting would indicate possibly otherwise, we dont have the details on this now
] to get to entrepeneur, it took a long time, maybe it will
] everyone agrees, we need more capital, compared to any other ecosystem, canadian investment is woefully low, it is trending up
] important thing is that its 400M more $ in the ecosystem
[40:00]
] this .gov is consulting with many people, but who are they hearing from, what do the players want?
] created a council of economic advisors, + bains talking to everyone,
] in contrast to previous gov, operating behind closed doors
] but you end up with some crazy ideas, like we dont want to do 'fees on fees'
] but somebody has to 'manage' the money, so you end up with fees on fees
] with VCAP it was very difficult to deploy those $
] only 10 firms applied in Canada to deploy VCAP $, show how little interest there was
] of the 4 that were done, some were from the states, 2 were already here ( aka not really anything new )
> at that era, what was it like to get the $
] initially we had approx 100 firms approached, only 9 of those pitched the gov,
] all info availabe in the auditors report - publicly available
] 4 firms chosen, BDC managed the investment after the 4 were chosen