Quick Takes: The strategy of growth through acquisition

Who is Nuvei?

According to Wikipedia, Nuvei is a global payments technology company with headquarters in Montreal.

Nuvei provides businesses with pay-in and payout options including card issuing, banking, risk, and fraud management services, and enables them to accept more than 570 alternative payment methods.

What else should I know about Nuvei?

They went public on the TSX in 2020 and were the biggest tech debut in the history of the TSX. Nuvei has historically used acquisitions to grow its top and bottom line.

Who did they acquire?

Paya Holding is an American competitor that focuses on different sectors, health care, education, nonprofits, and utilities.

What is interesting about this deal?

Nuvei paid all cash.

We have seen a few acquisitive Canadian companies over the past couple of years and in most cases, they have used their shares. The fact that the deal was for cash either indicates Paya did not want shares or Nuvei thinks their shares are underpriced in the current market.

What is the takeaway?

Everyone expects mergers to increase in this current market but there are two headwinds:

The first is that the largest tech companies are under more scrutiny than ever from anti-monopoly regulators.

The second is that the value of acquirer stocks has fallen making acquisitions more expensive. This may create an interesting environment for bold large startups to acquire companies on the cheap to improve growth and margins. Nevertheless, given the current market conditions, founders and employees should not count on mergers to save their businesses, and when they do they will be at lower valuations than they expected.

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Profile: Dear Life

What is Dear Life?

We make it fun, simple, and social to make videos with friends and family for any occasion. By inviting people to add media to a shared gallery together, your group effortlessly gains access to a multitude of photos, videos, and perspectives. From the gallery, each person can easily create a different video output, deciding which media to include, as well as the filters and music that will be applied, before publishing and sharing their creation.

What was the insight/inspiration that led you to launch it?

As a veteran marketer and editor, I found it insanely difficult to manually get people to collaborate, follow simple instructions, and share and output videos that commemorate life moments. It’s currently an extremely painful process to instruct, collect and output amazing videos. I have done it dozens of times and felt that in the digital age (and with AI and ML), the process should be much easier and fun.

As a result, memories are fragmented and lost. Storytelling is out of reach for the vast majority of people. We will make the process of collaboration fun and allow each person to create their own outputs based on the collection of media pooled by friends, family or those with shared interests.

How has it been received by the market? Why do you think it has been so well received?

We’re currently at MVP stage and in Q2 we’ll have an open Beta.

How did you know you were ready to found a company?

I’m a serial entrepreneur having founded, bought, or invested in over 20 companies in the past 30 years. I’m also a veteran marketer having founded one of Canada’s largest and most awarded independent advertising agencies in Canada.

How did you meet your founders/know they were the right people to start a company with?

I scoured the region for only the top co-founders and settled for nothing less than the best and most invested people to drive our vision forward.

What has been the hardest thing on your journey so far?

Getting product/market fit and feeling 100% the opportunity is real, frequent, and scalable. Additionally, ensuring we have a strong technical moat to ensure replication is difficult and getting first movers advantage has been our top priorities. The journey of a startup invites a myriad of perspectives... some valuable and some, not so much. Many of these inputs have the potential to change the trajectory of the business. Filtering out good advice from the distracting is a challenge and feeling convicted about our vision is imperative.

What has been the most pleasant surprise?

Having Damien Steel, Managing Partner of Omers Ventures, believe in our team and vision so much that Omers made an uncommon Seed placement in Dear Life. What is even more amazing is the fact he joined our board and is extremely active in our business.

His expertise and insights have been incredible.

What is your super strength?

Our super strength is storytelling. Having a 25-year history of advertising and marketing has added rocket fuel to Dear Life’s vision of creating incredible collaborative moments with professional-grade video outputs that will ensure everyone who uses Dear Life will enable them to be the best storyteller possible.

Who is the unsung hero on the team? Why?

Our young designer is wise beyond his years, Having dealt with creative people my whole career, he is not only the best designer I have ever encountered but his passion and insights for our vision are mature and crystal clear.

What are you trying to achieve over the next 12 months?

In the next 12 months, we’ll have our app available for public use and over 200,000 users with viral growth built in due to the emphasis on collaboration, giving our app far-reaching exposure.

What advice do you wish you had been given prior to launching?

We spent too much time trying to be perfect before launch.

What is your proudest accomplishment outside of your startup?

Building one of the biggest and most awarded independent marketing agencies in Canada with offices across the country.

In 2021 I sold “Arrivals + Departures" to my management team who have taken the business even further since.

Who are the Canadian startups you like right now?

• Frenter

• The Rounds

• Talkatoo

• BLOXO

Who are the two Canadian companies you admire outside your market?

• Hopper

• DuckDuckGo

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*TechTO: Together returns to Montreal to kick off 2023 with the local ecosystem.

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Thanks to our friends at Planned for hosting and partnering with us on this event. We'd also like to thank Mission for their continued partnership as well.

Headlines and Content

• #ICYMI - Catch up on past newsletters if you hadn't yet subscribed!

• Canadian startup news of the week - READ HERE

• Every Google vs. OpenAI Argument, dissected - READ HERE

• The battle begins. Shop Pay vs. Pay with Prime - READ HERE

• Women's tech collective Toast launches with the aim to diversify hiring and tackle wage gaps - READ HERE

TechTO Talent

Quality Assurance Automation Engineer, Deeded (Canada, Remote)

Why is this cool? Want a position where you can help build the business, work on difficult problems, and have a massive impact? Join a fast-growing startup with an incredible team, founders with successful track records, and a product that people can’t stop raving about. Join as a Quality Assurance Automation Engineer to be the quality champion for the product. APPLY HERE

Sales Development Representative, SkyHive (Vancouver, BC)

Why is this cool? At SkyHive, their purpose is to democratize labor opportunities around the world so that we can all benefit from a more capable workforce and a more efficient global economy. We’ve built the world’s only Quantum Labor Analytics platform to optimize human economies in real time for companies, communities, and countries. As a Sales Development Representative, your role is to lay the foundation. APPLY HERE

Customer Support Specialist, QuoteMachine (Canada, Remote)

Why is this cool? QuoteMachine offers a new way of selling powered by interactive and transactional microsites all along the selling process to never lose touch with the customer from the first interaction to the last payment installment. They also support hundreds of Retail stores around the world. APPLY HERE

Events and Links

Check out the interesting content, events, and happenings for the community here:

• TechTO Together | Montreal: January 31, 2023 - Join us LIVE from Montreal and kick off the year with the Montreal tech ecosystem - REGISTER HERE

• Lessons Learned: Newcomers Growing Tech Businesses in Canada: February 2, 2023 - Learn how 3 tech companies owned by newcomers led their businesses to success. How did they create and grow their businesses? REGISTER HERE

• TechTO Together | Toronto: February 6, 2023 - Announcements coming soon! - REGISTER HERE

• TechTO Talent | Virtual | February 22, 2023 - Meet and mingle with top tech talent and employers hiring now! REGISTER FOR FREE

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