Europe is rising on the radar of Canadian tech

For nearly a decade, Vena Solutions, Opens in a new window focused squarely on North America.

Founded in 2011 in Toronto, the company built software to help businesses plan, budget, and forecast, tools meant to replace bloated spreadsheets with something structured, cloud-based, and collaborative. By the end of the decade, its corporate performance management platform had become a fixture in North American finance departments.

Then came a pull from across the Atlantic.

Resellers in Europe began asking for access. Prospective customers, including banks, consultancies, multi-market corporations, wanted demos. Hunter Madeley, Vena’s new CEO at the time, recognized a market opening already aligned with Vena’s strengths.

“Most companies based in Europe operate in a number of countries and markets within the region, and that makes for a more complex operating environment than comparable Canadian or US organizations primarily serving their own shared market,” Madeley said. “Our platform easily scales for planning in complex multi-market environments, so we saw Europe as a wonderful opportunity to grow.”

Across Canada’s tech sector, it’s no longer unusual for companies to prioritize Europe. With over 450 million consumers and $20 trillion in gross domestic product, Europe’s size and sophistication have long been attractive, but recent global tensions are now accelerating Canadian interest.

Read more: Europe is rising on the radar of Canadian tech, Opens in a new window (link only in English)