Vancouver fintech Beanworks to be acquired for $105m
Summary
French enterprise services firm Quadient SA ADR revealed Monday it’s buying a 96% stake in B.C.’s Beanworks Solutions Inc. for what it describes as “slightly above” €70 million. "By combining our expertise with Quadient’s global reach, R&D firepower and investments in artificial intelligence technology, we will continue to live out our mission to support accounting teams everywhere," Beanworks CEO Catherine Dahl said in a statement. Raffa noted Vancouver’s proximity to tech hubs like Silicon Valley and Seattle, its access to top-tier universities and the large talent pool paid in Canadian dollars at lower comparable salaries than their American counterparts has been drawing attention from firms. So those things – plus the opening up of the credit markets and continued low interest rates – those are the macro levels that are going to drive M&A,” he told BIV last month. Andrew Petter, the former president of Simon Fraser University, said on Friday top priorities facing the province’s tech sector include attracting talent, scaling startups into larger firm and then retaining those anchor companies so that “they can see a future in British Columbia and not simply be acquired and taken offshore.” “If we can knit together some of the capacities we have in our universities in our business community and amongst the startup community … we can make real headway,” he told BIV.