Having already completed the vaunted Y Combinator accelerator in Silicon Valley, you’d think a startup would have little to gain from a Canadian accelerator.

But as demonstrated by PiinPoint, a Kitchener-based real estate analysis company, you’d be wrong.

Less than two-years old, PiinPoint has developed a platform that allows property owners – from REITs to retailers – to assess the commercial viability of a location in seconds. With its ease of use, constantly updated database and analytic capabilities, PiinPoint has already secured such blue chip clients as Tim Horton’s, the real estate agency Collier’s International, and Riocan REIT, Canada’s largest real estate investment trust.

CEO Jim Robeson and his Co-Founder Adam Saunders could have developed the company in California, but they chose instead to return the Kitchener-Waterloo region, where they had attended the University of Waterloo. And now they’re taking the company through Communitech’s Rev program, which teaches growth-stage companies to scale.

“We made the decision to come to Waterloo,” said Robeson in an interview. “The calibre of talent both within Waterloo and Canada is great, and I believe the ecosystem that exists here is thriving and people want to work here.”

He added that being in KW, he’s been able to hire “some of the most talented people in the world in development” and that the Rev program is helping the company accelerate its growth.

Robeson and Saunders previously took PiinPoint through the university’s Velocity accelerator.  They have closed one round of funding from such investors as Michael Litt, CEO of Vidyard, though Robeson declined to say how much money they raised.

PiinPoint addresses pain felt by a range of companies that need to make investments in strategic locations. The platform analyzes a location in terms of its vehicular and pedestrian traffic, the nearby businesses and facilities, the number of people who live nearby. The data is in many case historic but the technology provide a predictive analysis of a location’s growth potential.

The platform means any property specialist visiting a site can instantly assess the prospects of a site, receive a full report on his or her tablet, even print it out and share it with colleagues.

Robeson said too many companies today still use analytics systems that were developed in the 1990s. They may require a technical background to use, or they offer fragmented data that has to be stitched together. It’s a big problem, given that a company like Starbucks opens two locations a day, and makes a substantial investment in each.

PiinPoint now covers office, retail and greenfield sites across Canada and the U.S. In the near term, Robeson said the focus will remain on the North American market, though he and Sanders have an eye on overseas markets for the long term.

In terms of developing the product, they want to improve the analytics in commercial estate and in new buildings, and include such information as zoning restrictions in the databank.

One big event on the horizon is the completion of Rev in late September. It’s the type of event that makes Robeson glad he came back to the Kitchener-Waterloo region.

“We’re getting a tremendous amount of mentorship from individual who have built company and with sales expertise especially,” he said.