Saskatoon tech firm lands $4.3M boost from American investor

A Saskatoon tech company that works to help restaurants streamline their business just received a big boost in the form of a $4.3 million investment.

"It validates what we are doing as a business," said 7shifts founder Jordan BoeschtoldCBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

"It means we can expand more aggressively and hire more people. We can go after and test different product ideas. But if anything,it is being able to support the Saskatoon tech ecosystem."

The money comes from an American investor, and Boesch views it as a signal that tech companies can keep their headquarters in their home communities and not have to relocate to Silicon Valley.

The company makesscheduling software that helps managers to schedule restaurant staff, and the staff themselves can view shifts, trade them, and communicate with one another.

The idea, Boesch said, came from watching his father struggle to organize his Quiznos sandwichshop.

"That is kind of where it was born out of, just seeing these frustrations happen in real time."

Staying in Sask.

There is no question that as 7shifts caught on,the lure of Silicon Valley was there. Boesch said there is an energy and creativity there that cannot be duplicated. But it was the so-called "brain drain" happening in Saskatchewan that convinced Boesch to stay.

"Seeing people from the U of S graduate and go work for Apple, go work for Google, you know there are a lot of smart people here."

Success still means travelling to Silicon Valley often to tap into that energy, but he said this latest investment will also allow 7shifts to expand, keeping more homegrown talent in Saskatoon.