These 14 Companies Set Up Shop In Halifax During The Pandemic
HALIFAX — Covid-19 dealt a massive, short-term blow to Halifax’s economy. But that hasn’t stopped companies from around the world from flocking to the city.
According to the Halifax Partnership, at least 16 companies have relocated or expanded to Halifax over the course of the pandemic.
As CEO Wendy Luther told Huddle in July, the “natural assets” Halifax already relied on to attract new businesses have become even more prized in a post-Covid-19 business landscape.
Talk to any of those new Halifax companies and they’ll tell you a similar story: the city’s post-secondary institutions are churning out a pool of talented graduates; its aggressive immigration strategy makes it easy for firms to bring in international talent; its cost of living is still relatively low; its east-coast location makes it a good fit for companies looking to serve both North American and European clients.
Many were also enticed over the finish line by the network of organizations tasked with attracting talent to Nova Scotia. Most took advantage of financial incentives offered by the Nova Scotia Business Incorporated or were impressed with Halifax Partnership for always having the answers they needed.
The list below covers 14 of the companies that came to Halifax over the past year. It includes testimonies from small, AI-based startups and multi-million-dollar global corporations. In it, you’ll find many of the sentiments talked about above, as well as some other surprising tidbits about why companies set up shop in Nova Scotia.
CPQi
CPQi is a fintech company based in Canada, with offices in the U.S. and in several South American countries.
Deborah Boyland, the company’s marketing director, said CPQi came to Halifax because it wanted a location closer to its North American clients.
Although the pandemic means its team is working entirely from home, the company plans to eventually expand its physical Halifax office.
Right now, CPQi is hiring for 17 roles in Halifax. The company hopes to expand to 50 people by the end of 2021 and several hundred within the next five years.
That team will work on a range of projects across financial markets for some of the largest financial institutions in the world.
CPQi was considering several U.S. cities for its expansion but Boyland said Canada’s health care system, as well as the ease of doing business in Halifax, its immigration policy, and low cost of living made the city a “clear winner.”
Boyland also said Halifax’s “bustling bank economy” is helpful for a fintech company and its “excellent universities” make the city a “great place to find talent.”
On top of that, Boyland said, the province helps with financial incentives for new jobs the company creates, as well as new graduates they recruit.
The Atlantic Immigration Pilot also lets the company efficiently move qualified talent into Halifax.
“We have been delighted with the support from all levels of government, with a particular mention of the help from Mayor Mike Savage and his team,” Boyland said.
Arcurve
Arcurve is a full-service technology, advisory, and software development company. It delivers professional services across a range of industries (telecommunications, oil and gas, gaming, financial, hospitality) from offices in Calgary, Halifax, Houston, and Vancouver.
The company established its Halifax office in September. It’s looking to hire 10 people in its first year and more than 50 over the next several years.
Jay Gohill, Arcurve’s president and CEO, said the company wanted to extend its reach to the east coast for better access to the region’s businesses. The move also allows the company to create a development centre for delivering services to the eastern US and reduces time zone differential to European clients.
Gohill said Halifax was the company’s “first and only choice” for that expansion.
“With an abundance of tech talent nurtured in the local universities and colleges and an immigration center for skilled workers, we feel Halifax is an excellent place to add to our highly skilled team,” Gohill said.
He said Halifax was also a city “we felt our team would want to work in,” which proved to be more than true during the pandemic, “as remote working has allowed folks to move back home.”
Jonas Software
Jonas Software is a software conglomerate that acquires, manages, and builds industry-specific software companies. It’s part of the larger Constellation Software, with employs more than 20,000 people across the globe.
The company set up a Halifax office last year and began hiring in August. Right now, the Halifax team is 27 people, but Jonas’ Tim Richardson says it could grow to as much as 100 as the company is looking to bring on “the whole gamut” of roles.
Richardson said Jonas was enticed to set up shop in Halifax thanks to the work of government agencies like NSBI, Digital Nova Scotia, and the Halifax Partnership.
Those agencies’ work combined with several of Halifax’s qualities Richardson said made the city attractive.
He said Halifax’s quality of living, cost of living, ease of doing business, and the great resources available like partnerships with colleges and universities were all selling points.
Richardson said many of the people Jonas is hiring originally left Nova Scotia because of a lack of opportunity and are eager to return now that they can find the kind of job they want.
“People leave here and look at [a place like] the GTA and having lived through that commute and all that stuff and the way the housing market is, Halifax really is a breath of fresh air,” he said.
HuMetis Technologies
HuMetis Technologies is an IT consulting firm that develops software and provides IT support for organizations like Cisco, Covendis, and the State of Nebraska. It employs about 150 people in offices across the U.S., Canada, and India.
In July, CEO Kumar Rangarajan told Huddle HuMetis is launching a significant expansion with its new Halifax office and that he hopes to hire 150 people here.
He explained the company is in the process of restructuring and wanted the right location to anchor its expansion. The goal, he said, is to use Halifax as a software development and quality assurance centre for HuMetis.
He said the company chose Halifax for its expansion for several reasons.
“Number one is good schools and access to good students we can train or hire. Number two we have a government that’s willing to help us,” Rangarajan said.
He said Canada in general, and Nova Scotia specifically, have policies that are “pro-growth” and governments that are willing to “help us bring in the right personnel from anywhere in the world.”
He also said he believes the Halifax business community will “welcome us and help us be successful. That is a huge thing for a business like us. That will keep us competitive in the industry.
North Bay Solutions
North Bay Solutions is an AWS premier partner (one of only about 100 in the world) that helps companies with application migration and modernization.
The U.S.-based company has several delivery centres in Pakistan and wanted a near-shore solution to anchor a major expansion.
Roger Lynch, North Bay’s president of Canadian delivery centers, says Halifax was the perfect fit.
He said the city offered a “strategic location, cultural fit, economic benefits, all the reasons that employers usually come to [Nova Scotia] with their nearshore models.”
The company came to Halifax in March and plans to open a delivery centre here that will employ 300 people. That Halifax centre will act as an anchor for a broader Canadian expansion to half a dozen other Canadian cities.
But Lynch said the support North Bay received from local organizations and every level of government in Nova Scotia “is ultimately what brought us here.”
He says the company is trying to hire local talent, but that it’s also been easy to convince outsiders to relocate here.
Lynch said North Bay also hopes to partner with the city’s universities and other organizations to help foster talent in the city, and is willing to train people to work in AWS services.
Snowfox.AI
Snowfox.AI is a startup that applies artificial intelligence to marketing campaigns to help clients scale and increase their sales.
The company plans to use Halifax as its North American base. Initially, that will be a commercial office but Snowfox’s Markus Rosa says the hope is to eventually anchor the company’s research and development in the city.
Snowfox plans to hire one or two people in the next six months for business development and a handful of software engineers next year.
Rosa said his decision to anchor the business in Halifax was both personal and professional. His whole family fell in love with the city when his wife got a job here. But he says research he did later revealed that “Halifax was creating an interesting ecosystem” he wanted to be a part of.
He said good universities and immigration programs “provide excellent human capital” and that he likes that the government “has high openness for foreigners.”
“I am here because I share the values and the vision of Haligonians. I want to help to create the bright future of this beautiful city,” Rosa said.
Vigilant Management
Vigilant Management is a Newfoundland-based construction agency run by well-known entrepreneur Terry Hussey.
The company expanded to Halifax in October, after an economic analysis the company conducted showed steady growth here over the last five-to-10 years.
Hussey told Huddle in October he also noticed a positive attitude towards immigration and an overall welcoming environment towards new businesses in the city, which convinced him it was a good time to expand, despite the pandemic.
He said that, in the next 12 months, he’s anticipating hiring “many, many people in the region.”
“I expect my revenue in the Maritimes to exceed my revenues in Newfoundland…in a year,” he said.
NPower Canada
NPower Canada is a not-for-profit workforce development initiative that trains lower-income Canadian youth for careers in the tech industry.
The organization expanded its programming to Halifax last year after it received a hefty grant from the provincial government.
Diana Parks is NPower’s regional director for Halifax. She said the organization already operates in several Canadian cities and was initially looking at Vancouver for its next expansion.
“But I think because of the need, and because when we approached the Nova Scotia government there was a keen interest, we actually moved the expansion to Halifax first,” she said.
The program’s first cohort of students started in February. Over 15 weeks they will get training and receive Google’s IT support professional certificate.
Although much of the learning is right now happening online, NPower has established a Halifax office.
Parks says NPower plans to graduate 150 students per year over the next three years, releasing hundreds of qualified young tech workers into Halifax’s job market.
Planetary Hydrogen
Planetary Hydrogen is a cleantech company that has developed a system that speeds up the natural process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The company was founded in Ottawa in 2019 but recently moved most of its operations to Halifax.
According to Entrevestor, most of the company’s seven employees will move to Halifax, in part because they are working with Dalhousie University on research projects.
The company hopes to set up a demonstration plant in the Halifax area in 2022.
“There are a few things that drew us to the region,” CEO Mike Kelland told Entrevestor. “One of them is we had to pick an ocean because we’re ocean-focused as a startup… Then one of the things that really drew us to the East Coast rather than the West Coast was the support we found here. We had huge support from Innovacorp.”
Axis Capital
Axis Capital is an insurance company that offers various risk transfer products and services through subsidiaries across the globe
According to the NSBI, the company is developing a Business Technology Centre in Nova Scotia. The NSBI says the centre will play “a key role” in helping it advance “digitalization initiatives that are focused on providing customers and partners in distribution with the experiences they expect and require.”
It’s projecting the centre will create 300 jobs in the province over the next five years.
Impactful Health R&D
Impactful Health R&D is a startup developing “sustainable, active packaging to prolong the shelf life of fresh fish.”
Insights Learning and Development
Insights Learning is a Scottish company with offices around the world. The company offers a range of products to help teams, leaders, and salespeople with professional development and self-awareness.
Virtusa
Virtusa Corporation is a Digital Business Transformation provider with offices across the globe.
Using a combination of digital strategy, digital engineering, business implementation, and IT platform modernization services, Virtusa helps clients execute end-to-end digital business transformation initiatives.
Shopify
Canadia’s e-commerce darling Shopify also expanded to Halifax last year, hiring a significant number of remote staff for a team based out of the city.
According to the Halifax Partnership’s Nancy Phillips, at least two more companies have also signed on to come to Halifax, although some are not yet ready for disclosure.
Trevor Nichols is a staff writer with Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].