Hockeystick has made its first acquisition in Waterloo-based LaunchSpot, a platform that allows accelerators and startup funders to track their startups.
Hockeystick acquired the company to add new capabilities to its platform, which is working to be an all-encompassing platform tracking the progress of Canada’s startup ecosystem.
“With the acquisition of LaunchSpot, Hockeystick will now offer a suite of operations and data tools for innovation organizations,” said Raymond Luk, Hockeystick’s founder and CEO. “LaunchSpot is a proven product with a similar customer base and we look forward to expanding its reach and scale through our network.”
In April 2017, the company partnered with the Lazaridis Institute to share research data and build a national scale-up platform for incubators, accelerators, and startups.
Following its partnership with the Lazaridis Institute, Hockeystick later announced a partnership with the CVCA to become its official data platform. Luk says it’s an example of their capability to connect angels, VCs, and government funders onto one platform. “That, plus growing this internationally, is our next big step.”
Hockeystick will continue to offer LaunchSpot as a stand-alone service and will take over its development and maintenance. The company will also be added to Hockeystick’s backend infrastructure, while the core LaunchSpot team will be joining Hockeystick. Canadian accelerators working with Hockeystick will get access to LaunchSpot for free.
“This acquisition is a great win for innovation organizations. I am confident that LaunchSpot will thrive in its next phase with Hockeystick,” said Rob Darling, LaunchSpot founder and CEO. “By leveraging Hockeystick’s market leadership, expertise and partnership with the Lazaridis Institute, LaunchSpot’s technology will be quickly utilized by more innovation organizations across Canada and around the world.”
While this is the company’s first acquisition, Luk said that the company is more interested in growth through acquisitions. We’re looking for products and technology we can connect to the Hockeystick ecosystem to create value for our companies and funders,” said Luk. “We’re also interested in anyone with unique data about the private market that isn’t just scraped from public sources.”