Innovation is so much more than a buzzword. The official definition is “the action or process of innovating” or creating a new method, idea, or product. Fast Company has put together an extensive list of what its calling “The Most Innovative Companies of 2015.”
The in-dept report goes into detail and showcases the top 50 companies, of which Warby Parker, Apple and Alibaba top the list. However, digging through the content reveals a couple Canadian connections. First, Slack shines on the list at number 10, followed by Montreal’s Frank & Oak as honing in on being the 10th Most Innovative Company of 2015 in Retail.
Slack, the communication tool that aims to remove email, was started by Stewart Butterfield, the Canadian entrepreneur who previously founded Flickr who sold to Yahoo in 2005 for a reported $35 million. In an interview with Fast Company, Butterfield noted that “At this point, maybe the majority of venture-backed Bay Area tech startups use Slack. But it’s obviously interesting for us to get beyond that.”
Slack recently raised $120 million (which puts the post-funding valuation over $1 billion) and currently has 500,000 daily users, 60,000 teams who use the service for 10 hours a day.
As far as retailer Frank & Oak, FastCo. says they were “never just an online shop.” The Montreal-based company raised $15 million last year and opened up a physical location in Toronto, along with a cafe and barber shop. What is even more impressive is that Frank & Oak has amassed 1.6 million members and 30% of their sales arrive from its mobile app.
Read More: Frank & Oak’s new reality: stores, stories, brands and beards