By: Andrew Wahl
There goes another up-and-coming Canadian tech company. OZ Communications, a very successful 220-person Montreal firm making software for accessing e-mail and instant messaging services on consumer mobile phones, is being bought by Nokia. Just last week OZ was lauded by Deloitte as the 8th fastest growing tech company in the land—2,815% rise in revenue over five years. Backers include VantagePoint Venture Partners, the Caisse, Solidarity Fund QFL, and the T-Mobile Venture Fund, and Wellington Financial.
Good for the investors, and we’ll see what Nokia does with OZ itself, but at first blush, it’s unfortunate to see another Canadian company unable to grow into being an independent, thriving operation. I wrote about OZ in 2005.
By the way, Waterloo’s PlateSpin, #2 on the Fast 50 with 22,390% five-year revenue growth and 185 employees, was acquired by Novell in February, and last week won the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s Deal of the Year award.
One Response to “ Nokia acquires Montreal’s OZ Communications ”
Since September 2004, Oz Communications published that it raised more than $70 million!
Nokia did not publish the size of the deal which makes everyone wonder how much the investors of Oz really lost.
Very successful? Good for the investors? Doesn’t sound to be like an accurate description of this deal.
By George on Oct 17, 2008