Bode Canada founder believes Alberta’s entrepreneurial culture could attract more tech startups — and talent

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CALGARY — Art Price says he’s never used a realtor when buying a house and while he might be in the minority, the Calgary-based real estate startup he founded with his son Rob two years ago is betting more people will try to follow his lead.

Price, the former CEO of Husky Energy and current chair of real estate tech startup Bode Canada, is aiming to tap into Alberta’s nascent startup scene and shake up the province’s real estate market given Canadians’ rising comfort levels with making large purchases online.

“It took 10 years for people to believe that the Amazon model was actually viable and Jeff Bezos kept saying, ‘When is the best service for the least amount of money going out of style?’” said Price, who has founded multiple companies in Alberta outside of the oil and gas industry since leaving Husky in the 1990s. Price, who is also chair of upscale grocery chain Sunterra Market and previously the founder and CEO of fibre optic company Axia NetMedia, which was bought by BCE Inc. in 2018, said the province’s competitive business culture made it a logical place to launch Bode.

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Founded in 2019, Bode offers a platform for house hunters to browse, buy and sell properties using automated tools online for a fraction of the price a typical realtor would charge to sell a home. In its first year, the company’s platform has helped clients with 130 transactions and Bode is now planning to expand into Vancouver’s pricey real-estate market in April.

“There is a big gap between what the customer could get for how much money,” Price said, adding that he believes the savings Bode’s platform offers will entice people in the housing market to give the service a chance. Bode collects a flat 1 per cent fee from the seller once the deal is closed.

Alberta has this sort of, pioneering, can-do, entrepreneurial, risk-taking attitude because it’s kind of taking risks in the market all the time

Art Price

The company is eyeing rapid growth similar to other recent Alberta tech companies such as Calgary-based fintech firms Symend and Neo Financial and Edmonton’s Jobber — all of which have successfully attracted investment and are growing tech teams in the province, which is better known for its oil and gas and natural resources talent.

The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association released full-year 2020 data Wednesday, which showed venture capital investors had pumped $4.4 billion into Canadian companies in 509 deals last year, which was down from a peak reached in 2019 but still above the five-year average of $3.8 billion raised.

Doug Schweitzer, Alberta Minister of Jobs Economy and Innovation, called 2020 “a record shattering year for venture capital in Alberta, most notably in Edmonton and Calgary.”

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“While Canada’s venture capital investment was down 29 per cent last year, Alberta’s more than doubled with $455 million in deals. Announcements of Symend, Neo Financial and Jobber raising record amounts of money helps to drive innovation, grow our tech sector and most importantly, get Albertans back to work,” Schweitzer said in an emailed statement.

With Calgary and Edmonton real estate markets showing signs of increased activity, Bode president and CEO Rob Price is working to grow his team in Alberta, which he said is home to a burgeoning tech sector and a deep talent pool of programming talent — though he said he’s looking outside the province for some skillsets.

“We’re looking at Eastern Europe, we’re looking at India, we’re looking at all these global hubs to expand our engineering team because we are growing and hiring and that’s been very difficult,” he said, adding that additional government supports for the tech sector and for bringing talent into the country would help accelerate growth.

The province is attracting its share of tech talent. Data from the CVCA shows that 2,123 people in Calgary are working at companies backed by venture capital investments. The city is well behind Toronto, which has 8,203 people working at venture-capital-backed companies, but is surprisingly ahead of Kitchener-Waterloo.

A handful of tech companies have also either moved to Alberta, like Vancouver’s mCloud Technologies, or increased their headcount in the province like Infosys, which plans to add 500 jobs in Calgary.

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In the face of disruptive new technologies in the marketplace, Calgary Real Estate Board president and CEO Alan Tennant says his industry embraces “new technology and competition,” but added real estate agents provide the “most direct insight into the housing market.”

“Doing business in real estate is not a one-size fits all model for our members. We recognize consumers have different preferences and that there are different models to accommodate those needs,” Tennant said.

The elder Price believes the presence of the oil and gas industry in Alberta is actually a help, rather than a hindrance, for building competitive companies.

“The oil and gas guys are all competing in global markets. The agribusiness guys are competing in global markets,” Price said. “That creates a culture of risk taking and entrepreneurialism that, in my experience, is more prevalent in Alberta than anywhere else in Canada.”

In other jurisdictions in Canada, Price said the corporate sector is dominated by oligopolies such as the telecommunications or banking sectors, which are less competitive and less willing to take major risks. Indeed, Calgary is already home to 99 startup life sciences companies and 16 clean-tech firms, while Edmonton is the location for 59 life sciences firms and 26 agritech businesses, CVCA data shows.

“Alberta has this sort of, pioneering, can-do, entrepreneurial, risk-taking attitude because it’s kind of taking risks in the market all the time,” Price said.

Financial Post

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Learn more about why investors and businesses are bullish on Alberta’s economic future at Postmedia’s free virtual event Advantage Alberta (April 7 and 14). Visit: AdvAlberta.postmedia.com.