Sandvine, a company that creates intelligent broadband networks for communication service providers (CSPs) to gain business intelligence, traffic optimization, and network security, is receiving $15 million from the provincial government.
According to a report from The Toronto Star, the money will be dedicated to research and development of the company. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said the funding, in turn, would create 75 jobs and retain 267 existing positions.
“The Waterloo region is home to more than 1,000 tech companies and they generate $20 billion in revenue every year,” the Premier said. She mentioned that the area has the second highest concentration of startups after Silicon Valley.
The Star reported that six years ago, the provincial government gave the company up to $25.5 million, which they said was “creating up to 75 new positions, and retaining 195 high-value jobs.”
STORY: Waterloo's @Sandvine to expand by 75 thanks to $15M grant from province https://t.co/gI9YexZ8Jq #wrtech pic.twitter.com/b45PAHD0RO
— 570 NEWS – Kitchener (@570NEWS) March 16, 2016
“Look, we’re competing in a fiercely competitive global economy,” said Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid. “The days when you could just sort of spread out through a tax credit to everybody a little bit of help to help businesses rise — and not be investing in your fast runners — are gone.”
While Wynne had to assure the public that this was not the government picking “winners and losers”, Thalmic Labs co-founder and CEO Stephen Lake said this week that this is the exactly what the government should do: spend less time spreading money equally, and betting on the areas that are more likely to succeed.
“It’s very hard for the government to pick winners. We like to spread resources thin and make voters happy. But it doesn’t work like that when building an innovative economy — when you think of innovation in the U.S., you don’t think of Nebraska, you think of the Valley,” Lake said during an event which included Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains. “We have an innovation centre in Timmins, but we need to place bets and see where we can win at, and the Toronto-Waterloo corridor will probably make these wins.”
