Nurse Next Door
Location: Calgary and Edmonton
Green shoots: New Edmonton franchise operated by Jay and Jen Kuzie
Canada’s aging population is creating unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs who deliver services to seniors. Nurse Next Door Professional Home Healthcare Services Inc. has seized the day and quickly grown to 24 locations across Canada. The company, which provides a full spectrum of home care services ranging from simple companionship to 24-hour nursing care, is still receiving about 100 franchise enquiries each month and recently established its first location in Edmonton.
“More than 80% of seniors want to stay in their home and our services make that possible,” says Nurse Next Door co-founder John DeHart, who started the business with Ken Sim seven years ago and rolled out the first franchise only two years ago. “We’ve been growing tremendously through the recession and it was just a matter of time before we launched in Edmonton and expanded to other centres in the province. The reality is we provide an essential service to seniors.”
CoolIT Systems
Location: Calgary
Green shoots: Secured $6.2 million in financing earlier this year to develop technology and acquire another company
Armed with a powerful liquid cooling system for computers and a strong track record of development and sales, CoolIT Systems didn’t have trouble winning over nervous investors and putting together a $6.2-million financing deal with a group led by iNovia Capital Inc. The financing served two purposes: to help the company further develop its technology and give it the financial muscle to purchase Delphi Thermal Liquid Cooling at the end of April. With the acquisition, CoolIT is now servicing computing industry giants like Dell and Apple and staking out a position as the global leader in advanced liquid cooling for computers.
“Investors with private equity are just like anyone else – they have money, they want to put it into something they feel strongly about and our story fits the bill and continues to gain momentum,” says CoolIT CEO Geoff Lyon. “Being in Alberta has been a big advantage for us because there are investors looking to potentially diversify out of oil and gas.”
Dilawri Group of Companies
Location: Calgary
Green shoots: Opened Alberta’s first Aston Martin dealership in April
It will take more than a few months of slow economic growth to shake Tony Dilawri’s bullish confidence in the Calgary economy. The owner of the Dilawri Group, with 28 car dealerships across the country, recently invested $1.2 million in a new, 6,123-square-foot showroom to offer British luxury cars to a high-end clientele. “The majority of our customers are in their 50s and 60s, and they have all gone through economic downturns and know things will come back. At the end of the day, they don’t want to be like their parents and have a big nest egg and not enjoy their life,” he says.
Scotia Capital
Location: Calgary
Green shoots: Acquired assets of UBS Energy in March
Rattled by last fall’s stock-market meltdown, multinational investment dealer UBS AG opted to sell its energy division in Calgary and found an enthusiastic buyer in Scotiabank’s investment banking subsidiary. Along with the all-important client list, Scotia Capital took on UBS Energy’s trading infrastructure and technology as well as 60 key staff members. “Scotia is very much an energy bank. We’ve been lending money to the oilpatch for many years in a fairly significant way,” says Matt Giffen, managing director and head of Scotia Capital’s Global Energy Solutions. “Economic conditions might be tougher now than a year ago but things will come out better and we are well positioned for the future. This was a perfect fit for us and will take us to the next level, to become a full-service energy trading platform.”
BigSteelBox.com
Location: Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary
Green shoots: Relocated to larger site in Edmonton
Based in Salmon Arm, B.C., BigSteelBox.com has opened three locations in Alberta in the last two years and intends to grow across Western Canada, regardless of economic conditions. The moving and storage company has quickly grown to 16 franchises, due in part to its unique door-to-door delivery service (the company parks a secure shipping container outside the customer’s home or business, allowing them to load or unload it at their convenience). “Our business has been growing 80% a year for the last three years and we plan to grow and have a thriving business through the recession. Our business model works in the good times when people have too much stuff and it works during the bad times when people are either taking that stuff away, or downsizing,” says company director Jason Siebenga, one of the original family owners.
Follow Alberta Venture On: