Libbe Englander’s voice mail was a sign that fresh opportunities are brewing in the tech segment in Atlantic Canada.
On Tuesday, Englander called Entrevestor and left a message asking if we have a job board. She wanted to know because her company, Pharm3r (pronounced farmer) is hiring developers in the Halifax area.
Nothing unusual in that. Most companies I speak to are looking for programmers. What caught my interest is the fact that Pharm3r is based in New York City.
The company, which conducts data analysis in the pharmaceutical industry, will remain headquartered in Manhattan. But it has one developer in Halifax, is hiring one more and may hire three people in the next year.
“I’m extraordinarily impressed with your talent pool,” said Englander by phone when we connected.
“I like the type of work you do, the way you think, the quality of talent, the sense of community. I think it’s a huge resource.”
Whereas Englander wanted to get across the message that she’s hiring, there is something more at play here. This is an entrepreneur with no historic ties to Halifax, yet she believes it helps her business set up a development team in the city.
She calls the story of how she stumbled on Halifax a “historical accident.”
In 2011, she set up Pharm3r as a means to help companies that provide services to the pharmaceutical segment, such as insurers or health-care providers, assess the risks associated with drugs or other medical products.
Pharm3r has developed software that draws information from a range of sources, from medical literature and social media to corporate databases, to present clients with a cogent analysis of the risks associated with a drug. So if an insurer is considering underwriting the insurance on a new drug, it could commission Pharm3r to analyze the risks involved.
Englander declined to detail the growth or customer base of her company, but she did say it’s been profitable from Day 1 and has remained profitable ever since.
About a year ago, she was talking to fellow New York entrepreneur Charles Benaiah about the difficulty in finding development talent. He asked her if she’d considered Halifax. Benaiah’s company, Watzan, which enhances searches in e-commerce and media websites, had recently built up a satellite development team in Nova Scotia, and he recommended she look into the city.
Her husband is from Montreal so the thought of a Canadian office didn’t seem out of line. She flew to Halifax and was impressed with the people she met at Dalhousie University and in the community. She’s returning next month to meet prospective hires and deliver a talk at Acadia University.
Pharm3r and Watzan are small companies, and there’s no parade on Main Street because they’re setting up offices here. But the fact that New York startups are building teams here helps get the word out about what’s happening in Atlantic Canada. It helps to develop the local talent pool, will help with mentorship and strengthens the region’s networks. It’s all part and parcel of developing a bona fide tech community on the East Coast of Canada.
Disclaimer: Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support startup companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies and individuals are featured in this column, nor do they review columns before they are published.
