St. John's startup set to double in size thanks to $21M investment
CoLab began the pandemic with 18 employees, looking to reach more than 120 by 2022
A St. John's startup that grew out of Memorial University's engineering department is set to see large growth after an injection of $21 million in investments.
CoLab, the brain child of Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews, made the announcement at the St. John's Conference Centre on Tuesday during TechNL's Innovation Week.
"It's exciting," Andrews said.
"Adam and I care a lot about the local tech ecosystem, the province and proving that this can be done from here."
CoLab formed in 2017 following the co-founders working together on the Paradigm Hyperloop team that finished second in SpaceX's Hyperloop competition in 2017.
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Since then the company has continued to grow and is set to embark on a hiring spree.
In March of 2020, CoLab had 18 employees, which seemed like a massive company to the founders at the time.
Today the company has 54 employees working from their office in St. John's and remotely from around Canada. It also has 25 job postings on its website and plans to add more in the new year.
"It's always been a dream to build a company in Newfoundland and Labrador, especially a tech company," Andrews said.
"We're going to take that money and we are going to grow from about 50 people now to 125."
Finding the right people will be a challenge for the St. John's company, as it's a field with high demands and not a lot of workers.
"I think it is great that there is a stretch on the companies because we will do things to make it work, we will train people, we will take people from other industries and help them transition," Keating said.
"Then you inspire the next generation so that five years from now when you ask me this same question there are so many people that we have a different problem."
TechNL CEO Paul Preston, who was among the crowd that gathered to watch the CoLab announcement, called the investment "fantastic news" for the province and its tech companies.
"One of the things we are trying to dispel is the myth that we can't do it here and this just showcases … that it can happen here and we can compete globally around the world."
The multimillion-dollar infusion is called Series A financing, led by New York-based venture capitalist firm Insight Partners.
The new money means CoLab will soon need more staff to meet the needs of their clients, which include Fortune 500 companies Johnson Controls and Hyundai Mobis as well as a few folks closer to home like locally owned Genoa Design International and Kraken.
Keating said the company finds ways to make it easier for companies to focus on the work while CoLab handles the back end administrative stuff.
The company is another success story for Newfoundland and Labrador's tech industry, which has been enjoying growth over the past few years.
Four years ago, when Andrews and Keating lived together in California, they were told they needed to be based in Silicon Valley to get the kind of money they announced Tuesday.
On Tuesday, they proved doubters wrong, Keating said — something they plan to do repeatedly.
"It's not so much about this announcement but six to 12 months from now and what comes next," he said.
"That's what I am excited about."
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