There was the 6 million man. Now here is the 10 million company. With its Stage V program, the Québec Tech organization wants to help up to 15 young companies annually to increase – within five years at most – their turnover to 10 million. The ace up his sleeve: export.
Posted at 10:14 a.m.
Québec Tech unveiled on Wednesday the first five companies that will be supported as part of Stage V: Biointelligence Technologies, Ferreol Technologies, Flovver, Lime Santé and Maket. Like the Quebec new technology sector, these companies are spread across different regions of the province and occupy sectors such as artificial intelligence, financial and health technologies as well as the materials of tomorrow.
Like many companies in their situation, these five SMEs also fall between two chairs, notes the general director of Québec Tech, Richard Chénier. “There is a kind of no man’s land for young companies with strong growth potential, before having access to services like those of Export Economic Development Canada (EDC) and company,” he said in an interview with The Press. $10 million is a magic number. There are services that become accessible at this stage, such as those from EDC. We will take care of bringing companies to this level. »
The objective of Stade V is therefore to support around fifteen companies per year over the next few years. This means that there are more companies in the province than one might imagine whose turnover already reaches a few million dollars per year, and which is likely to grow rapidly.
Québec Tech’s first survey found 54 potential candidates.
A sorting was done to select the first participants in the program, but the pool seems promising for the future, even if Richard Chénier does not set a firm target.
“If there are fewer companies that meet our criteria, we will have fewer than 15,” he said. We want companies whose products are already on the market, which requires a certain level of maturity, but we keep room for others, which attract large strategic partners, but whose market launch will be later. »
The Montreal businessman cites as an example Ki3 Photonics, which works on quantum photonics, a technology which, as one might suspect from its simple name, is not yet at its commercial peak. Ki3 still works with prestigious clients, starting with the American army.
From champions to flagships
Québec Tech was created during the summer from the ashes of Startup Montréal. The organization has redefined its mission to insert itself a little further than its predecessor in the chain of support for new Quebec technologies. After the young shoots, often nicknamed start-upare the young, high-growth companies, which we call scale-up in industry jargon.
This is where Québec Tech sees an increased need for support. Not necessarily financial, given that at this stage, businesses are already generating revenue. But for everything else: networking, export assistance, developing a business strategy. In any case, these are the tools that will be offered as part of Stage V.
Richard Chénier hopes that at the end of this support, these young companies will be able to continue to increase their revenues “beyond 100 million or even a billion” of dollars. “We want to find our future champions. These will be our future flagships, perhaps not the next Couche-Tard, but we may have future Lightspeed, Hopper and others. »
An ambitious objective, while Quebec, like Canada, is going through a major entrepreneurial crisis: there is a lack of entrepreneurs in the country, both to develop new projects and to take over already existing businesses. We see this in the small number of new Quebec companies attempting to list on the Stock Exchange, among others.
This is something that Québec Tech hopes to correct. “Our objective is to make entrepreneurship an engine of growth for the entire economy of the province,” concludes Richard Chénier.
