The Montreal Advantage: A recap of Moving North NYC
3 min read
Some of Montreal’s best funding, tax, immigration, and legal experts came together to offer guidance on the often-overlooked topic of establishing a team internationally.
Montreal International, Invest Quebec, and Global Affairs Canada joined us to present the fundamentals of setting up in Montreal. Andersen Tax, Creative Destruction Lab, and Founder Institute provided additional advice to AI and NLP entrepreneurs on the sidelines.
The goal of the event was two-fold:
- Accelerate AI and NLP projects among high-growth companies
- Demonstrate Montreal’s significant cost advantages and abundance of highly specialized talent
So, why an event on Moving North? What’s wrong with New York?
Getting companies to take advantage of Montreal’s favorable business environment is key to enabling their growth and success. Mike Lee, President of R&D Partners, revealed that foreign-controlled corporations in Montreal only incur 46% of labor costs NY- based teams are incurring.
Moreover, the refundable and non-refundable portions of the current R&D tax incentive in Montreal are, respectively, 4.7x and 2x higher than NY’s Excelsior Jobs Program.
Entrepreneurs can even take advantage of a 5-year personal tax holiday available to eligible foreign experts and researchers. It’s an effective tool to incentivize your development team to make the move with you, as well. Of course, if you prefer recruiting locally, there is a reliable supply of homegrown Data and AI talent in Montreal.
Download our slide deck on funding opportunities and cost advantages in Montreal.
Small or big, Montreal has something to offer
Our collaborating partner, Benoit Larouche from Invest Quebec, shared two real-life use cases of companies at opposite ends of the labor spectrum. On one end, a 250-person Fintech company from NY created a center of excellence in Montreal and managed to grow their workforce by fifty employees in less than two years. On the other end, a 13-person IoT company in New Jersey moved to Montreal and succeeded in meeting labor cost requirements, while also securing work permits for key employees.
Louise Thiboutot, Director of Business Development from Montreal International, also explained that regardless of the size of a company, she organizes tailored visits to Montreal, introduces companies to the right partners, and directly assists with international mobility and talent acquisition.
What’s expected from NY-based AI and NLP entrepreneurs as a result?
It isn’t difficult to find an incentive for AI and NLP companies to relocate, in part or entirely, to Montreal. Paraphrasing the sentiment of the speaking panel, New York City is “overheated,” and the real opportunities for funding, growth, and success are in Montreal.
In summary, we curated a valuable experience for all companies in attendance – large and small. It’s rare to see a Wednesday night crowd so engaged from 6:00 pm until 9:00 pm, so we thank all attendees for making it out.
The end result from this initiative is the expectation that NY-based entrepreneurs will start to leverage abundant financial incentives in Montreal to compete globally.
Moving North will be travelling to Boston on March 21st and plans to visit Europe in Q4 of 2018. Tickets for the Boston event are available here.
Be sure to follow the #movingnorth story on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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