Our multi-faceted media strategy positioned Ottawa as a leading destination for tech startups. This has won for L-SPARK features in not only Ottawa Business Journal, VentureBeat and Entrepreneur but also a place in the annual SaaS North conference.
Since the beginning of our relationship with L-SPARK, it has grown into the largest SaaS accelerator in Canada, having accelerated 47 startups and raised $37M in follow-on funding. It has also launched two new corporate accelerators with Canada’s largest technology and telecoms firms, BlackBerry and TELUS.
L-SPARK is Canada’s leading accelerator for Software as a Service (SaaS) startups. With a network of established relationships with key venture capital firms, angel investors, and the investment community at large, L-SPARK’s goal is to scale Canada’s best in SaaS to 10X revenue growth.
In addition to its SaaS accelerator program, L-SPARK also hosts SaaS North in Ottawa, Canada’s largest SaaS conference for scaling up.
When L-SPARK came on board with us in October 2016, its SaaS accelerator program was only two years old.
The team was tired of Ottawa-based SaaS startups relocating to Silicon Valley, so they wanted to position themselves as the best place in Canada to grow and scale SaaS companies, to keep more homegrown talent in the country.
Growing L-SPARK’s exposure both inside Ottawa and throughout Canada through targeted media wins in local, national and specialist media was the first piece of our strategy. We identified that outlets like Ottawa Business Journal and leading Canadian tech title mobilesyrup would be our primary targets. and Canada’s largest circulating broadsheet The Star.
After winning L-SPARK some valuable earned media, we needed to position its leadership team as thought-leaders within the SaaS industry. Our editorial team alongside Sygic then drafted potential topics and pieces that would demonstrate the company’s SaaS authority and credibility in the eyes of industry reporters. Our account executives successfully made tailored pitches to select journalists from the likes of VentureBeat and Entrepreneur, allowing our senior writers to convey L-SPARK’s SaaS knowledge with clear prose.
