Our hats are off to Wave Financial, a Toronto-based startup that has just been acquired by H&R Block for $537 million CAD. Full story on Betakit.
Wave’s acquisition is being heralded as one of the top ten (or better) all-time acquisition (or IPO) values of a Canadian tech startup. Coincidentally, another great company that should also sit on this leaderboard – Successfactors – is another former Page Zero client that gained early customer growth through targeted PPC ad campaigns and hitting cost-per-acquisition goals.
As many agencies and consultants are aware, tech startups can be challenging as clients. They may pivot, or strategies may evolve at a head-spinning pace. If the growth plan is successful, a Series B or C round of funding can further accelerate the pace. New executives and in-house marketing teams are parachuted in. Third parties may have trouble fitting into the culture, or may be deemed redundant.
Still, the ride can be exhilarating, and the access to data makes that ride granular and highly informative. And we’ll take those unicorn (“looniecorn”?) feathers in our cap any day.
Our role with Wave came down to powering growth (if memory serves…) from the time just prior to Series A, up until just after Series B. Taking a startup through that part of the alphabet… one of Page Zero’s superpowers! Some of our team members that have excelled with these business models include: Dean, Jon, and Mona.
These announcements – of increasingly successful and scaled startups growing out of Canadian headquarters – are going to keep coming. The tech scene in Canada has become so vibrant and deep as compared with a decade or two ago, and new funding sources seem to be coming from all directions.
