Tenant Profile: Octopz
Discipline is perhaps not a characteristic immediately associated with the creative minds behind start-up companies. But it’s the critical element that Barry Fogarty credits MaRS with imposing on his fledgling venture, Octopz Inc., just over a year ago.
“The people we worked with at MaRS really understood our space and helped us discipline ourselves: What do we do with this technology? Who’s our audience? What’s our message?” says Fogarty, a one-time photographer who founded and ran a 3D production services company for four years with Octopz co-founder and CTO, Paul Nykamp.
“This was absolutely vital to us, especially in a landscape that is expanding so rapidly. A lot of start-ups miss that and risk being eclipsed.”
The idea for a new venture grew out of a custom “productivity tool” that Fogarty and Nykamp had developed for a national client. They knew their software had mainstream potential as it allowed multiple remote users to easily view, manipulate and track shared rich-media files — text, images, movies etc. — in real-time or anytime.
They had eliminated the need for users to download any plug-in application and had filed patents for proprietary elements of software code around latency and lag times. The question was: What next?
Fogarty admits they didn’t immediately know what the targeted business application would be for their online collaboration software, how the venture would be financed, nor precisely what the sequence of events should be.
“MaRS helped with a business plan and competitive analysis that forced us to define our game plan in a really granular way,” he says. “What we found was that this was the ideal tool for creative clients like ad agencies, people who work with a lot of back-and-forth on projects.”
It would be another 12 months, however, before Octopz would be ready for prime time.
“It didn’t take us long to recognize that the Octopz technology had huge potential,” said Peter Evans, MaRS Venture Group Advisor.
“The team at MaRS was very impressed with how well Octopz embraced many of the strategic frameworks we assisted them with. Much of this work was helpful in developing a compelling investor presentation.”
The Octopz web application went on to be unveiled at the Web 2.0 Expo 2007 conference in San Francisco in April, where it was named one of the Top Five Web 2.0 services by the editors of CNET’s Webware.com.
In July 2007, GrowthWorks Canadian Fund announced its commitment to a second round of investment in Octopz, enabling the company to double its staff and strengthen its management team by bringing in a new CEO (Ron McKenzie). By fall the software had attracted the attention of companies and users from more than 65 countries.
“MaRS has been a phenomenal location for us,” Fogarty added. “In addition to the quality of the people and services, the value of the impromptu interactions with the mix of tenants and events held here is not to be underestimated."
BROWSE PAGES
- MaRS Convergence: Spring 2008
- MaRS Convergence: Fall 2007
- Artists Converge at MaRS, too
- Flagship Program Supported
- Advancing Regenerative Medicine
- Governator Pumps Up Research
- Pain Research Attracts Financing
- Not Just a Pretty Façade
- Phase II: MaRS Goes Global
- Toronto Lures Florida
- Venture Capital Moves to MaRS
- Tenant Profile: Octopz
- Social Innovation Network to be Anchored at MaRS
- MaRS Convergence: Winter 2006/07
- MaRS Convergence: Fall 2006
- MaRS Convergence: Winter 2005
