A RENDERING FOR WHAT VENN INTENDS FOR ITS NEW LOCATION TO LOOK LIKE AFTER FITU-P WORK PLANNED FOR THE COMING MONTHS. IMAGE: VENN
Venn Innovation has a new headquarters near the heart of Moncton, with the opening of the junction.
Venn president and CEO Doug Robertson told Huddle the company’s move to its new home at 770 St. George Boulevard will allow resident tech companies to work and operate on-site with Venn.
“We refer to the center now as a hybrid innovation hub because that’s what’s happening,” said Robertson. “We’re going to have tech companies living in the building. The building is functional–we’re here and the first resident companies are here.”
Resident companies include SnapAP, one of the region’s fastest-growing financial tech companies, and technical service provider Cloud&More, working alongside Venn and Fibre Center – Venn’s fellow anchor tenant and landlord.
“They’re one of the best-kept secrets in Eastern Canada; it’s the only tier-one data hub in Eastern Canada,” Robertson said of Venn’s new landlord.
“That’s a huge asset for their clients, who are larger companies and who have high data transmission, high data storage, and high-security considerations. That means, for us and other resident companies, that [when] Rogers went down the other day we did not because we’re running completely off Fibre Center’s technology. It’s a nice set of features and assets we can offer resident companies.”
The companies will also work alongside the startups participating in Venn’s Garage incubator program. Robertson said Venn is also in discussion with other prospective tenants.
With meeting spaces, board rooms, and event spaces ready at the new headquarters, Robertson said the space is ideally equipped–especially since many younger tech companies are realizing they don’t need large office spaces.
“We’re seeing this not just here but with our peer organizations across the country that a lot of these tech firms are looking for smaller office space,” he said.
The opening of the 16,000-square-foot facility marks the first phase of a two-phase plan. The next phase will involve office spaces and a kitchen facility and general fit-up work.
Robertson said the second phase will see dedicated offices in the building’s main area, incorporating co-working spaces.
“We’re setting up a committee of the board to review and finalize the design elements for the next phase. We have to finalize the design elements and put a budget to it,” he said.
“Then we’ll sort out the process of contractors and who is going to do the work and what kind of timeframe we’re looking at.”
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This marks the third time Venn has moved since its founding in 2010.
“Our original location, when we first got started, was a small suite of offices on the ground floor of 735 Main. Then, four years in, we had the opportunity to add the incubator space and some event and meeting space as a rental revenue source,” he said.
“We took over most of the second floor in the same building. And so we are in that space until this spring when we had the opportunity to move into the new building.”
History
Venn’s new location is close to downtown Moncton, near Centennial Park and highway access, and steeped in local history.
The building was once home to the Noble’s Volkswagen dealership in the late sixties and the Atlantic lottery building in the eighties and nineties.
A space once dedicated to Atlantic Lottery’s interactive gaming lab will be a space for workshops, seminars, and pitch competitions.
“We want to reflect the history and the surroundings because we’re right across the street from Centennial Park, so that’s a whole new quality of work-life component that you might not have in a downtown area,” said Robertson.
The significance and centrality of the location is alluded to in Venn’s new logo, which incorporates the circle motif.
“The circle has some significance. The notion of a junction is that this is very much a community gathering place for the tech sector. The circle also has significance in First Nations culture, and, of course, we live and work on unceded territories of the Wolastoq and Mi’kmaq people,” he said.
The plans for the Junction include a kitchen and eating area known as the Golden Mile Cafe – a reference to the former name for a stretch of St. George Boulevard that was developed in the late sixties.
Growth
Robertson said the move is a testament to Venn’s steady growth.
“We’ve continued to develop and add program offerings along the way, and started to deliver some of those programs, not just here in New Brunswick but to tech companies all over Atlantic Canada,” he said.
“And through Covid, we extended the reach of our incubator because everything went 100 percent virtual. The types of services and programs that tech companies need evolve and we have to evolve with it.”
Venn and its Garage program are subsidized by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), the City of Moncton, and the province.
Sam Macdonald is a Reporter with Huddle Today, a content-sharing partner of Acadia Broadcasting.
