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Canada Start-up Index - July 2008

Posted by Greg Andrews on Tue, July 1, 2008 9:00 AM · Filed under Calgary , Edmonton , Montréal , Ottawa , Toronto , Vancouver , Victoria , Web 2.0 , Start-up Index · 24 Comments

Canada Start-up Index The Start-up Indexes are a monthly ranking of start-ups based on an average of Alexa and Compete rankings. Originally inspired by Marcelo Calbucci's Seattle Startup Index, I've been producing Techvibes' Start-up Indexes for half a year now. First started as an offhand post idea, the Indexes were well received, appealing to every geek's inner motivation to appear on high score lists. Starting with just two, Vancouver and Toronto, we responded to demand and suggestions and last month posting Indexes for nine cities/regions. A Canada-wide index had been requested a number of times, so coinciding with today, the one hundred and forty-first anniversary of confederation of the Dominion of Canada, I'm pleased to post our first Canada Start-up Index. The criteria for companies to appear on the list:

Located in Canada
Less than five years old
Not a public company
Is a tech company; either hardware, software, web app/service, or mobile

The Index is intended as a jovial comparison of Canadian companies. Comprehensive traffic data is difficult to obtain, and neither Alexa or Compete’s numbers are perfect; we average them to smooth out bias. Further, web traffic isn't necessarily a relevant measure of success, nor is it even an indication of having a practical business model. I'm sure many Seattle web companies experience feelings of inadequacy in ranking below the Seattle Index's #3 site, I Can Haz Cheezburger. If you know of a company that would qualify for the list, please post a comment and we'll see to including it in the next edition (and relevant local editions). Enjoy, don't make lose sleep or make financial decisions over it, and Joyeuse Fête du Canada!

Rank	Site	Alexa	Compete	Average	City/Region
1	MetroLyrics	492	381	437	Vancouver
2	Suite101	2,350	491	1,421	Vancouver
3	AbeBooks	6,274	2,428	4,351	Victoria
4	Wikitravel	4,596	4,925	4,761	Montreal
5	b5media	7,071	4,080	5,576	Toronto
6	NowPublic	7,954	6,396	7,175	Vancouver
7	TravelPod	7,997	7,384	7,691	Ottawa
8	Weblo	11,647	10,809	11,228	Montreal
9	amung.us	5,914	20,427	13,171	Alberta
10	iBegin	28,861	13,086	20,974	Toronto
11	Unyk	7,226	38,238	22,732	Montreal
12	Nexopia	4,339	42,620	23,480	Alberta
13	Neverblue Ads	21,908	25,827	23,868	Victoria
14	Podbean	27,231	25,257	26,244	Montreal
15	ProductWiki	32,074	26,534	29,304	Waterloo
16	TagTele	54,086	7,606	30,846	Montreal
17	Terapeak	31,542	47,465	39,504	Victoria
18	Shopster	48,323	34,232	41,278	Alberta
19	Shopify	68,719	32,226	50,473	Ottawa
20	everystockphoto	38,791	64,466	51,629	Vancouver
21	CoverItLive	91,808	16,502	54,155	Toronto
22	TVDuck	36,131	76,753	56,442	Toronto
23	Cell Phone Etc.	60,027	54,635	57,331	Alberta
24	FreshBooks	95,925	22,570	59,248	Toronto
25	AideRSS	83,250	49,403	66,327	Waterloo
26	WatchMojo	75,210	61,504	68,357	Montreal
27	DabbleDB	70,279	69,006	69,643	Vancouver
28	Standout Jobs	95,818	56,391	76,105	Montreal
29	Cambrian House	69,048	83,667	76,358	Alberta
30	Shoptoit.ca	73,920	81,085	77,503	Alberta
31	WildApricot	96,094	59,115	77,605	Toronto
32	ZipLocal	58,070	97,297	77,684	Toronto
33	SharedReviews	61,048	104,502	82,775	Toronto
34	YubNub	62,028	108,346	85,187	Victoria
35	Mobivox	60,950	122,478	91,714	Montreal
36	CounterPath	55,966	134,243	95,105	Vancouver
37	Techvibes	104,027	89,769	96,898	Vancouver
38	Sillysoft Games	145,142	60,877	103,010	Vancouver
39	MyTripJournal	146,017	65,744	105,881	Vancouver
40	Yotophoto	105,697	112,780	109,239	Vancouver
41	Viigo	131,401	104,066	117,734	Toronto
42	Enquisite	111,883	125,733	118,808	Victoria
43	MyYogaOnline	90,745	150,658	120,702	Vancouver
44	NewsletterArchive	160,560	84,051	122,306	Montreal
45	Radian6	166,897	78,606	122,752	Atlantic
46	BountyFishing	123,030	123,693	123,362	Montreal
47	Sneakerplay	86,057	169,188	127,623	Toronto
48	Eqo	27,756	231,205	129,481	Vancouver
49	WowJobs	127,370	132,617	129,994	Alberta
50	OurFaves	122,759	143,847	133,303	Toronto
51	ScienceHack	166,207	105,299	135,753	Atlantic
52	Carpages	120,692	152,396	136,544	Toronto
53	Splice	122,653	151,207	136,930	Alberta
54	ConceptShare	129,323	155,519	142,421	Toronto
55	Awareness	166,779	122,297	144,538	Toronto
56	Learnhub	153,180	139,007	146,094	Toronto
57	Idée	125,105	168,405	146,755	Toronto
58	Ajaxwhois	136,134	168,321	152,228	Montreal
59	Babe vs. Babe	184,528	141,977	163,253	Vancouver
60	Oprius Software	98,843	230,515	164,679	Victoria
61	Bryght	170,967	160,720	165,844	Vancouver
62	Bitstrips	105,346	227,240	166,293	Toronto
63	MediaScrape	206,380	127,032	166,706	Montreal
64	Immersive Media	112,972	230,945	171,959	Alberta
65	Mixpo	236,533	122,368	179,451	Victoria
66	MovieSet	144,630	228,662	186,646	Vancouver
67	Forum Warz	49,422	329,519	189,471	Toronto
68	Onaswarm	187,343	193,436	190,390	Toronto
69	Omnidate	184,467	198,576	191,522	Toronto
70	Memelabs	275,632	108,365	191,999	Vancouver
71	Moxy Media	370,742	15,998	193,370	Waterloo
72	HomeStars	290,414	108,044	199,229	Toronto
73	Project Opus	227,984	172,988	200,486	Vancouver
74	Scribblewiki	137,307	271,902	204,605	Vancouver
75	GigPark	284,027	127,998	206,013	Toronto
76	ScribbleLIve	316,555	97,411	206,983	Toronto
77	Quotiki	280,280	161,516	220,898	Toronto
78	Groovle	70,423	389,124	229,774	Toronto
79	Zerofootprint	263,623	196,998	230,311	Toronto
80	Fit Brains	248,026	213,841	230,934	Vancouver
81	Strutta	251,641	215,067	233,354	Vancouver
82	Tungle	293,236	177,283	235,260	Montreal
83	Protagonize	169,054	305,520	237,287	Vancouver
84	OfficeZilla	144,662	332,331	238,497	Toronto
85	MadWhips	208,199	275,800	242,000	Toronto
86	Advanced Publishing	279,769	220,126	249,948	Atlantic
87	Zigtag	314,117	190,174	252,146	Alberta
88	WiderFunnel	332,142	175,709	253,926	Vancouver
89	Well.ca	354,739	184,455	269,597	Waterloo
90	Pokerspace	149,569	394,441	272,005	Waterloo
91	ClutterMe	387,971	157,764	272,868	Toronto
92	Overlay.TV	243,688	305,211	274,450	Ottawa
93	Keyword Envy	328,004	226,734	277,369	Toronto
94	ChickAdvisor	304,149	251,764	277,957	Toronto
95	FileMobile	286,848	283,566	285,207	Toronto
96	Calgoo	318,512	253,935	286,224	Vancouver
97	PlanetEye	312,558	261,515	287,037	Toronto
98	Defensio	208,039	367,908	287,974	Montreal
99	TeamPages	352,484	230,888	291,686	Victoria
100	Deensoft	216,421	367,231	291,826	Ottawa
101	Fivelimes	233,122	355,211	294,167	Toronto
102	Rouxbe	349,395	259,814	304,605	Vancouver
103	Indochino	402,152	211,515	306,834	Victoria
104	Headplay	297,424	356,824	327,124	Alberta
105	Qumana	263,025	393,290	328,158	Vancouver
106	Gimme20	352,117	314,767	333,442	Vancouver
107	Sxip	462,170	241,519	351,845	Vancouver
108	Rezgo	215,074	496,107	355,591	Vancouver
109	Sweetspot.ca	367,325	346,647	356,986	Toronto
110	BumpTop	321,996	431,131	376,564	Toronto
111	Refresh Partners	750,396	26,013	388,205	Toronto
112	Thoughtfarmer	464,598	317,021	390,810	Vancouver
113	GiveMeaning	488,332	350,922	419,627	Vancouver
114	Data Unison	443,451	422,181	432,816	Victoria
115	I Love Rewards	648,218	244,471	446,345	Toronto
116	FlashcardDB	363,020	530,448	446,734	Toronto
117	LingQ	201,352	700,728	451,040	Vancouver
118	IGLOO	518,305	389,517	453,911	Waterloo
119	Octopz	564,093	360,702	462,398	Toronto
120	Ubertor	273,368	662,232	467,800	Vancouver
121	Roll A Name	241,722	701,883	471,803	Montreal
122	LyricFind	674,123	275,799	474,961	Toronto
123	Akoha	609,140	342,760	475,950	Montreal
124	Cakemail	348,726	605,134	476,930	Montreal
125	Mob4Hire	657,628	310,344	483,986	Alberta
126	JobLoft	472,172	510,982	491,577	Toronto
127	ParkingSpots.com	732,860	263,615	498,238	Toronto
128	MoboVivo	751,945	251,741	501,843	Alberta
129	Cozimo	214,467	793,114	503,791	Montreal
130	Cozimo	214,467	793,114	503,791	Toronto
131	LavaBlast Software	579,186	434,268	506,727	Ottawa
132	mDialog	680,491	380,065	530,278	Toronto
133	Podcast Spot	639,986	431,431	535,709	Alberta
134	Active Conversion	302,411	779,669	541,040	Alberta
135	Semacode	456,246	637,651	546,949	Waterloo
136	Sitemasher	519,712	642,209	580,961	Vancouver
137	Coolite	423,601	745,965	584,783	Alberta
138	Smibs	760,386	415,339	587,863	Alberta
139	SmartHippo	727,131	448,894	588,013	Montreal
140	Audiobaba	775,631	445,623	610,627	Vancouver
141	Domainer	642,912	591,717	617,315	Toronto
142	BlackLine GPS	574,004	671,818	622,911	Alberta
143	VizThink	690,619	588,496	639,558	Toronto
144	Collectik	838,041	442,875	640,458	Montreal
145	Udutu	789,472	529,194	659,333	Victoria
146	Inpowr	902,701	416,516	659,609	Montreal
147	Userful	436,569	886,457	661,513	Alberta
148	Kinzin	789,691	537,322	663,507	Vancouver
149	HerFabLife	916,349	427,191	671,770	Vancouver
150	CommunityLend	737,171	635,549	686,360	Toronto
151	Vintage Pixels	935,673	442,339	689,006	Vancouver
152	YowTRIP	527,212	892,094	709,653	Toronto
153	Lypp	601,023	828,308	714,666	Vancouver
154	Streem	573,984	867,952	720,968	Ottawa
155	FundFindr	1,000,221	491,571	745,896	Vancouver
156	SomethingSimpler	950,761	549,062	749,912	Vancouver
157	myhood.ca	584,800	953,262	769,031	Toronto
158	Crypkey	653,813	890,825	772,319	Alberta
159	ClearSky Media	939,548	611,641	775,595	Toronto
160	Ipartee	622,117	934,406	778,262	Toronto
161	YikeSite	876,107	682,602	779,355	Victoria
162	MailChannels	1,020,321	554,693	787,507	Vancouver
163	ChompChompDead	996,362	742,783	869,573	Vancouver
164	Homecourt	975,249	820,705	897,977	Toronto
165	Jiibe	1,343,684	470,692	907,188	Vancouver
166	AdHack	1,312,829	559,194	936,012	Vancouver
167	CellClients	1,012,620	912,037	962,329	Toronto
168	Apricado	1,780,897	262,387	1,021,642	Victoria
169	LibriVox	1,490,360	569,623	1,029,992	Montreal
170	Smart Love	1,303,992	799,363	1,051,678	Vancouver
171	Earideas	1,377,954	833,741	1,105,848	Montreal
172	YourTeamOnline	1,585,941	718,290	1,152,116	Atlantic
173	DailySplice	1,361,520	954,598	1,158,059	Victoria
174	Randomate	1,382,653	983,800	1,183,227	Toronto
175	Chatroll	1,461,318	930,574	1,195,946	Toronto
176	ClixConnect	1,525,138	897,026	1,211,082	Montreal

24 Comments

Chris Clarke said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 7:58 AM

My friend John Wiseman in Ottawa has something launching in the fall called EasyListings.ca - keep an eye on it!

» b5media: #5 on TechVibes’ Start-Up Canada Index » The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century : Joey deVilla’s Personal Blog said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 9:19 AM

[...] b5media, where I hold the position of Nerd Wrangler, has the #5 position on TechVibes’ Start-Up Index Canada for July 2008. [...]

Global Nerdy | b5media: #5 on TechVibes’ Start-Up Canada Index said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 9:25 AM

[...] b5media, where I hold the position of Nerd Wrangler, has the #5 position on TechVibes’ Start-Up Index Canada for July 2008. [...]

Jeremy Wright said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 10:50 AM

Coolness, thanks for doing all this work guys, I'm sure it wasn't easy!

Are the plans to do this quarterly? Annually? Certainly monthly seems like too much work...

dm said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 1:52 PM

Why bother using Alexa ranking information? It's a dated practice based solely on data extracted from browsers with the Alexa toolbar installed. Who has that installed? I honestly don't think i know a single person who does.

Jeremy Wright said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 2:38 PM

As of 3 months ago, Alexa totally changed the way it counted data. It's now basically as accurate as Compete.

BW said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 8:04 PM

Congrats to Alan & Milun from Metrolyrics for taking Canada's top spot!

Milun said on Wed, July 2, 2008 at 10:57 PM

Thanks Greg for putting the list together and I'm glad to see so many Canadian companies getting higher in ranking. A lot more green arrows than red in almost every city!

Also a congrats to b5media for their rapid growth!

Unknown Tech Guy said on Thu, July 3, 2008 at 4:03 AM

Hi:

Bitching Media is a small company based in Toronto with one site at the moment called www.bossbitching.com.

UTG

Jeremy Wright said on Thu, July 3, 2008 at 6:23 AM

Hah, thanks Milun! Pretty sure we won't catch you next year, but maybe we can snag the #3 spot ;-)

Great to see what you guys are doing as well! Next time you're in Toronto, give me a shout!

Gregg Oldring said on Thu, July 3, 2008 at 10:11 AM

We have a few sites to throw into the mix. industrymailout.com, mymailout.com, advisormailout.com and groupiecorral.com. I'd love to see where we sit in the next go round.

Cheers!

ComScore’s Top Start-ups in Canada | Techvibes Blog said on Thu, July 3, 2008 at 12:15 PM

[...] inaugural Canadian Start-Up Index on July 1st received the usual anti-Alexa comments, so we decided to consult with a recognized Internet [...]

TeamPages, Movin’ up the Charts said on Thu, July 3, 2008 at 4:00 PM

[...] It is not too often here at TeamPages that we concern ourselves with site traffic and web rankings, but we couldn’t help notice that we recently squeaked into the top 100 of TechVibes’ Canadian Start-up Index. [...]

Just something I noticed about Canadian Startups | Domain Name News said on Thu, July 3, 2008 at 7:18 PM

[...] Previously they were doing it on a city-by-city basis, but this month opted for the Canada Startup Index. [...]

Tim said on Fri, July 4, 2008 at 6:35 AM

How about Freshdaily?

Paul Neto (Crowd Science) said on Sat, July 5, 2008 at 9:03 AM

Good to see this list. Hopefully we'll (Crowd Science) will show up on the radar soon. We launched last month, based out of Toronto + San Fran.

Cheers,

Paul

Richard Reiner said on Sun, July 6, 2008 at 5:49 AM

Very cool, very useful... not to add more workload for you guys, but is there any way there could be just a 3-word description of each startup and what it does? Maybe it's just me, but I'm not cool enough to be familiar in advance with 283 startups...

Cheers!

Richard

Agoracom said on Sun, July 6, 2008 at 11:32 AM

Hey, gang. You did some big time work here, so easy to see how things can fall through the cracks. AGORACOM has an Alexa ranking of ~ 45,000 and a Google PageRank of 7.

Hopefully, we can be included next time around.

Thanks and keep up the great work.

Regards,

George

Florian said on Mon, July 7, 2008 at 2:30 AM

Wow, really extensive ranking, thanks for this list!

John said on Mon, July 7, 2008 at 5:20 PM

Some of these sites are much older than 5 years. Abebooks.com for example is over 10 years old. They have a great service and wonderful website but do not meet your criteria to be on this list.

MetroLyrics hits #1 in Online Lyrics | Techvibes Blog said on Tue, July 8, 2008 at 12:16 PM

[...] is the Techvibes Canada Start-up Index undisputed Champ, has a daily traffic rank among the top 500 sites according to the global Alexa rating, and now [...]

Sarath Samarasekera said on Wed, July 23, 2008 at 4:16 PM

I like the idea of the index and happy to make it on the list. I would propose that perhaps the methodology needs some work. For websites which ARE the product then traffic to the site makes sense... for Shopster, most of the traffic is on our customers websites -which is where the Shopster product sits - and the true measure of success - Shopster.com is just a maketing site where you find out about our product, but never need to go back to, even ifyou use the service daily.

Jeremy Wright said on Wed, July 23, 2008 at 4:46 PM

Sarath: We have the same issue, but the reality is it's just way, way too much work for the TechVibes crew to do this for our hundreds of sites just to do this ranking (as it would be for your customers). The methodogy's flawed, but it's still fair.

That said, it *might* be nice to get an asterisk next to the company's where either traffic isn't a factor in their success and others (llike ours and yours) where the "real" traffic is off-domain.

Digg.com co-founder diggs TravelPod | Techvibes Blog said on Mon, July 28, 2008 at 9:23 AM

[...] of Alexa.com, TravelPod was #7 on Techvibes inaugural Canada Start-Up Index on July 1st. Look out for the August update later this week and be sure to add your start-up to the appropriate [...]