Atlantic Canada’s Largest Networking Event Coming To Moncton
MONCTON – Atlantic Canada’s premiere event for both startups and investors is coming to the hub city this October.
Invest Atlantic is Atlantic Canada’s largest networking event for more than 300 startups, entrepreneurs and investors. This year’s event will take place Oct. 5 to Oct. 6 in Moncton.
The conference aims to bring noted investors together with the region’s newest and fastest growing companies for two days of networking and focused discussions on everything from raising capital and collaboration to partnerships and succession planning.
“We were the first in Atlantic Canada and one of the first in Canada to do an entrepreneurial type of program like this,” says Bob Williamson, founder of Invest Atlantic.
The event is open to any interested startup or investor, even those who are just considering becoming one.
“It’s a great opportunity for them to go and hear what other entrepreneurs have done. The peaks and the valleys, the highs and the lows they’ve gone through,” says Williamson. “They will also be encouraged by hearing others and speaking to others directly about taking their idea and helping them move it forward.”
Since its inception in 2010, Invest Atlantic has been held every year in Halifax. Although Halifax is awesome, Williamson says hosting it there every year was never the intention.
“Ideally, we always wanted it to be a pan-Atlantic event. We didn’t always want to host it in Halifax,” he says. “But it was just the market size, timing wasn’t right and our entrepreneurial community wasn’t quite formed yet so we put that idea on hold.”
But with New Brunswick business superstars like Gerry Pond and Nancy Mathis chairing the event in 2011 and 2015, it was clearly time to switch things up.
“It was those two influencers, along with everyone else I spoke to,” Williamson says. “All our sponsors and co-hosts in Halifax supported the move to Moncton this year.”
Williamson says New Brunswick’s startup community has blossomed over the past few years and is making a name for itself in the rest of the region.
“I think in some ways New Brunswick is a very tight community in their entrepreneurial drive. Not sure if Nova Scotia and the other provinces have such a tight community,” he says. “I’m not suggesting that it’s cliquish by any means, but they are very well focused and I think there’s some lessons the rest of us can learn from them and they can learn from us.”
Ultimately, Williamson says the conference is an opportunity to strengthen Atlantic Canada’s entrepreneurial and business community as a whole.
“It’s an opportunity to hear what’s new and to learn from one another about what is needed from both entrepreneurs and investors so that we have a more open relationship about what they both need and what they want so we can help to grow faster the businesses that deserve to grow,” Williamson says.