March 10, 2023: Why Do Companies Get Acquired?

Tell us about what POAP Inc. does.

The Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP) turns precious moments into collectibles.

Using blockchain technology, POAP tokenizes your memories, so they can last forever and be truly yours. Making memories durable has deep implications for how people organize. From entertainment, to direct funding, to fostering belonging, we're building a better world with POAP.

Each POAP is created to tell a story, connect collectors to shared history, and ultimately make memories last forever.

What was the insight/inspiration that led to launching it?

Overall, it was a huge opportunity for us to shape the POAP ecosystem.

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

People love their POAPs.

POAPs are made to preserve the things that are important to individuals.

What are your strengths?

My tenacity and desire to work on solving problems and capturing opportunities.

Why did you decide to join the company?

Sometimes you just have to jump with both feet in, to see the fit. POAP intrigued me enough to do just that.

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

This may sound funny to some; coming from a very corporate world, I've had to adapt to work conversations on every communication channel available out there. eg: Discord, Twitter, Telegram, etc.

What has been the most pleasant surprise?

The overall community response to POAPs globally.

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

Unlocking the world of possibilities for POAPs

What is your proudest accomplishment outside of your startup?

Serving on the board of Pathways to Education Canada. An amazing team doing really important work across the country.

Nisita will be joining our upcoming Web3 Special event series on March 22.

Learn more about Web3 and its continuous evolution from the leaders and innovators who are currently building and creating within the space.

What is the news?

Barley, which launched in 2021, announced that they have raised $4m USD to date from Golden Ventures and Union Capital.

What does Barley do?

Barley helps small to medium-sized companies determine how to compensate employees by bringing more structure and technology to the process.

Why is the company notable?

The co-founders of Barley are Jafar Owainati and Billy Mainguy both are successful founders. Jafar previously co-founded Loopio, a successful SAAS business, while Billy co-founded Reelhouse, a direct-to-consumer film distribution platform. Unlike most companies at launch or post-raising, they didn't make much noise. Instead, Barley had a private beta to work with design customers to get the product right and test assumptions.

What makes this market appealing?

Every employer spends time on salary compensation, the market is huge and regulatory changes in the US mean that current processes have to change. While there are several high-profile, well-funded US startups and a ton of legacy incumbents, the biggest competitor for Barley is spreadsheets.

When VCs look at this market it is easy to see why the company can scale to venture-sized outcomes.

The question becomes, can they crack a go-to-market that provides strong unit economics?

What is the takeaway for our community?

The takeaway is not that you have to be a repeat founder but that if you see a large industry where the largest player is paper or Microsoft or google office it is most likely an enticing market to enter. What you can learn from these repeat founders is that instead of making noise when you launch, it is better to find a few customers and build a great product and better understand the market.

Finally, we will see a lot more rounds get announced late in the market. With less need to convince employees to join your company, there is less need to announce a raise right after it closes.

Learn more:

Jafar (one of the founders of Barley) previously spoke at a TechTO event on all things education and why we should stop stereotyping individuals based on their educational backgrounds.

Listen to the newest episode of Quick Takes

Quick Takes returns LIVE with a brand new episode on March 23 at 12:00 pm ET/9:00 am PT across the TechTO platforms.

Catch up on past episodes here, and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Back for its third year, Intuit and Highline Beta announced the 2023 cohort of the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator: Toronto.

The group of eight fintech startups across the GTA are bringing together their solutions to help solve today’s most pressing economic and societal challenges faced by consumers and small businesses.

From homeownership to low-interest loans, meet this year’s promising early-stage entrepreneurs to learn more about how their solutions are helping improve the financial prosperity of Canadians.

Meet the Cohort:

Supporting Small Businesses & the Self-Employed

• Carbonhound is an all-in-one platform that helps small businesses simplify carbon management by consolidating measurement, reduction, offset, and marketing services in one place.

• NetNow is a buy-now-pay-later and checkout platform for B2B transactions, focusing on companies in the construction industry.

• Requity Homes is a real estate platform that’s modernizing the path to homeownership through a rent-to-own program.

• Spruce is an AI-powered loan origination and decisioning software that can collect, analyze, underwrite, and monitor small business data.

Supporting Consumers

• Chexy is a payments platform that allows tenants to earn rewards and build credit on rent, leading to potential home ownership.

• goPeer is a peer-to-peer lending platform that provides low-interest loans to borrowers while generating interest for investors from excess capital.

• LenderBidding is a licensed platform that offers salaried agents for consumers who seek to borrow from a private lender.

• Parachute offers loans and supports consumers to improve their financial wellness through debt management, financial literacy education, savings strategies, and more.

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

• Why OpenAI is everything it promised to be >> READ MORE

• One of the best posts on fundraising you'll ever read >> READ MORE

• Firehood hands out prizes and announces Woman of the Year >> READ MORE

• ZenHub closes $10m >> READ MORE

• Why do companies get acquired? We discuss on the latest episode of Quick Takes >> LISTEN HERE

• *NEW CONTENT* Check out our latest episode of 'The Founders Journey' where we learn more about the challenges, successes, and lessons learned on building a successful business from the Top Founders in the country. This episode features Solon Angel of Fresh Founders and Mind Bridge >> LISTEN HERE

Top Takeaways from our recent episode ft. Solon Angel

1. "Try to develop as much self-awareness as possible. It's an ongoing thing and it'll help you be a better leader."

2. "Do all the jobs that no one wants to do, it forced me to learn a lot."

3. "If you're catching a lot of fish using one boat, imagine what happens when you use two boats."

4. Keys for Success: Step 1, get your customers. Step 2, you need to get employees to service those customers. Lastly, you need capital. You can't delay the growth of potential business most importantly."

5. "Remember, there's a big difference between having an idea, opening the door, and seeing an army of people putting blood, sweat, and tears into making it happen."

6. Tips for Entrepreneurs and building: "It's going to be harder than you think and take longer than you think. Don't forget why you do it and be super clear on your comfort level with certain things."

7. "It's sometimes better not to be the CEO. I've told Founders before, they will be wealthier, happier, and people will discriminate against them less often if they were not the CEOs of the company."

Senior Back End Engineer, Klue (Vancouver, BC)

Why is this cool? Klue’s mission is to descale huge amounts of data to the human level, so people can process it and make use of it. Klue is that trusted intermediary, right now it’s proven for sales enablement, but tomorrow it’s all teams enablement. You'll join the team to work and deliver high-quality products in the most efficient way >> APPLY HERE

Autonomy Engineer, Waabi (Toronto, ON)

Why is this cool? Waabi, founded by AI pioneer and visionary Raquel Urtasun, is an AI company building the next generation of self-driving technology. With a world-class team and an innovative approach that unleashes the power of AI to “drive” safely in the real world, Waabi is bringing the promise of self-driving closer to commercialization than ever before. In this role, you will contribute to the autonomy stack for self-driving initiatives by bringing innovative state-of-the-art deep learning models that will enable safe self-driving at scale, and much more >> APPLY HERE

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

• Toronto Jam for Good: March 17, 2023 >> REGISTER HERE

• TechTO Special: Web3: March 22, 2023 - Learn all about one of the hottest topics in tech from the top innovators in the business >> REGISTER HERE

• Best of TechTO Returns! April 3, 2023 >> REGISTER HERE - Limited early bird tickets available!

Want to showcase your company, events, and opportunities to 60,000 subscribers across the Canadian Tech Eco-system? Reach out to [email protected] to learn more!