Meet StartupNorth’s Rich New Benefactor…

Written by

Yes, that’s right. Our very own Jevon Macdonald reportedly has sold GoInstant to Salesforce for $70mm big smackers.

Forbes – http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/07/09/salesforce-com-reportedly-to-buy-goinstant-for-70m-plus/

Tech Crunch – http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/09/salesforce-com-reported-to-buy-goinstant-for-70-million/

Somehow missing from the GoInstant story is that they had picked up an extremely impressive list of customers, including several of the top ecommerce brands for whom I’m sure salesforce.com wanted deeper presence.

In fact its a double pay day for startupnorth. Jonas Brandon also was one of the super early investors in GoInstant and I’m sure is taking home a nice chunk of change.

Big Congrats to Jevon and the GoInstant Team, its not every day a small startup based out of Halifax builds $70mm of value in a short 2 year period and gets acquired by one the most successful technology companies.

Comments

23 responses to “Meet StartupNorth’s Rich New Benefactor…”

July 9, 2012

davidcrow

@dpmorel:twitter apparently I’m not good enough for @jevon:twitter to have taken my money for @goinstant:twitter 😉

Damn I shoulda, woulda, coulda…

Reply
July 9, 2012

Roger Chabra

Amazing result on such a small amount of capital raised. Totally huge positive for all involved and I’m sure for the Canadian startup ecosystem which is so dear to Jevon’s heart. BRAVO!

Reply
1. July 11, 2012
  
  Matthew A. Myers
  
  Indeed, we need more of these. 🙂
  
  Reply
2. July 11, 2012
  
  Jevon
  
  Thanks Roger– Can’t wait to see what happens in the the next 5 years in Canada!
  
  Reply
  1. July 11, 2012
    
    William Mougayar
    
    What would you like to see? What have you learned? And what do you plan on doing?
    
    Reply
July 9, 2012

Abdallah Al-Hakim

Terrific news for GoInstant and for the Canadian startup scene. Great to see Canadian startups thriving even in small communities such as Nova Scotia.

Reply
1. July 11, 2012
  
  Kevin Browne
  
  That’s what I find inspiring about the story. If this can happen in a smaller community like Halifax, we should be able to do it in Hamilton too.
  
  Reply
  1. July 11, 2012
    
    Abdallah Al-Hakim
    
    Completely agree and Hamilton is actually ahead of Halifax in many respects especially with its proximity to Waterloo, Guelph, Toronto. Also, a world-class university such as McMaster with good engineering and life science departments is big boost. It about creating the space for the bright minds to collide together and create something useful
    
    Reply
  2. July 12, 2012
    
    Jevon
    
    Halifax is a great place to build a startup. Hiring is amazing, quality of life is fantastic, the downtown is full of life. There isn’t much I would change.
    
    There aren’t tech events every single night and the tech/startup community here isn’t quite as tight/connected as other places, but in my case that was more of an advantage because with GoInstant I frankly have just wanted to get rid of distractions and focus.
    
    Reply
    1. July 12, 2012
      
      Matthew A. Myers
      
      Maybe I should move back to my hometown Halifax – though I feel there are some things I’d like to change in the city where I’ve lived most of the last 20 years of my life. I’ll be going to spend some time in Halifax again this August though. Maybe revisiting will change my mind.
      
      Reply
July 9, 2012

Mark MacLeod

Love that you’ve put him on the spot to now be a sugar daddy and invest in the next gen. Jevon would have done the same if he were writing. Very happy for Jevon and his team.

Reply
1. July 9, 2012
  
  StartupNorth
  
  @startupcfo I think with the take home for @jevon it puts him more in LP territory than angel investor territory 🙂 (kidding… kinda…)
  
  Reply
July 9, 2012

William Mougayar

Nicely done! Congrats to the GI team for making history.

Reply
1. July 12, 2012
  
  Jevon
  
  Thanks WIlliam– love what you’ve been doing and glad you are focused on building the community here at home.
  
  Reply
July 10, 2012

Anthony Lipschitz

Congrats to all, nice win.

Reply
July 10, 2012

Chrisarsenault

The time frame from idea to exit was extremely short for GoInstant. Though Jevon didn’t have time to build a big company, he generated amazing wealth and returns for his team and investors. He is most likely also creating a sense of “fuck I can do it to – I WANT to do it” attitude in the tech community. Note that Jevon has taken a lot of “right” decisions over the course of the last 2 years: he hired extremely well, they focused on building the product their customers wanted, not what he thought they wanted, was meeting with customers every week, Jevon likely staked up 1M Airmiles flying to the Valley. In your face approach always gets you what you need. And Jevon used his investors as sound board and for intros into customer accounts. Busy last 2 years indeed! A great entrepreneur indeed.

Congrats to Jevon and the team.

Reply
1. July 11, 2012
  
  Matthew A. Myers
  
  This sounds like the right way to do any company. 🙂
  
  Reply
  1. July 11, 2012
    
    William Mougayar
    
    Definitely a textbook story. I’d like to hear more about the story behind the story.
    
    Reply
    1. July 11, 2012
      
      Matthew A. Myers
      
      Would love to hear it too. Jevon could and should become a figurehead for the Canadian tech community – to not only help rally the troops through leading by example, but to increase optimism, and investors or angels to be more willing to invest in tech, to get interested in investing in tech – which will give hope to Canadian entrepreneurs that more money is available and that they can find money to contribute to our own ecosystem.
      
      Reply
2. July 12, 2012
  
  Jevon
  
  Thanks Chris, I appreciate the kind words.
  
  Reply
July 11, 2012

Jevon

I knew I should have revoked Morel’s posting rights!

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I don’t even know where the last two years went, and I can’t wait to see what the coming years have in store.

You all rock

Reply
July 13, 2012

Ovi

This is an interesting startup story.

Nonetheless I am a bit confused. A short while ago some articles of this blog were talking about the potential of Canadian startups to become future global companies. Now another great startup was bought.

Should we be that cheerful? Is there no environment that would support that?

Reply
September 4, 2012

» We want you! – Looking for contributors | StartupNorth

[…] will save venture capital in Canada“. You can look at the recent acquisitions (including Jevon’s GoInstant) are providing liquidity and bigger better investment opportunity. (OMERS Ventures has […]

Reply