Dollarton Cantech Letter

The Dollarton Cantech Letter is an online magazine about Canadian tech stocks. The site, which publishes a new issue each month,^[1] contains articles, interviews and analysis of the approximately five hundred companies included in the Toronto Stock Exchange's Technology, Cleantech and Life Sciences Indices. The site's June 2010 issue,^[2] for instance, included an interview with John Keating, CEO of Cambridge Ontario based aerospace company COM DEV, an analysis of the stock chart of Research in Motion, and an article entitled "10 Moments in Canadian Tech Stock History that Changed the World."^[3]

The Dollarton Cantech Letter, known as the DVC Smalltech Letter until January, 2010^[4] is owned and operated by Dollarton Capital, a private Canadian firm that is focused strictly on technology. Dollarton Capital's Founder and President, Nick Waddell, is also the Editor of The Dollarton Cantech Letter. The site draws content from various contributors including Kirk Exner of Vancouver based Newcoast Capital, Adam Adamou, Founding Partner of Toronto's Caseridge Capital, and Ron Shuttleworth, Technology Analyst at Toronto's M Partners and Managing Partner at Razor Capital Partners, also contribute content on a regular basis. One notable article documented an experience of Adamou who, as a young fund manager, was the first person that Jim Balsillie of Research in Motion pitched to in a pre-IPO institutional series of meetings.^[5][6]

The Dollarton Cantech Letter has published several articles that address a perceived lack of government and industry support for Canadian technology and R&D firms. A roundtable discussion, from the August 2009 issue, entitled "So Long Nortel.." was moderated by Nick Waddell and included Adamou, Andrew Wahl of Canadian Business Magazine and Leslie Klein, President of an Ottawa technology firm called C-Com Satellite. This article used the delisting of former telecommunications giant Nortel to touch on many of the themes that recur throughout the site. These themes include how to support and encourage technology, the role of the Canadian government, and the cultivation of technology "clusters" such as those found in Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo. The panel members agreed that a lower tax environment would encourage technology in Canada, with Klein suggesting a "flat 20% income tax and also a flat corporate tax", and Adamou suggesting that he would "reduce corporate taxes dramatically". Wahl, while noting that lower taxes is the "default editorial stance at Canadian Business magazine", said that a flow-through tax credit would be good idea.^[7]

Another article that touched on these themes was entitled "Going, Going...Gone! Why are Canadian Tech Firms Disappearing?" from the site's November, 2009 issue. Nick Waddell interviewed Jeffrey Crelinsten of Toronto's Impact Group. Mr. Crelinsten, along with Gennum (TSX:GND) founder and former CEO H. Douglas Barber had recently completed the fourth in a series of white papers examining Canada's innovation performance and culture.^[8] These gentlemen interviewed former CEOs and investors from 18 R&D performing companies that are no longer part of Canada's business landscape. The interview examined whether Canada's venture capital community is too risk averse, and talked about a "Canadian Culture of Commerce" that many interviewed for the paper believed to be too focused on research and development to the detriment of the enterprise and customer-facing skills needed to successfully commercialize a product.

The Dollarton Cantech Letter maintains an index of companies that rank especially high when using five quantitative analysis tools, such as price to sales and debt to market capitalization. As of May 28, 2010 this collection of Canadian tech stocks (called the "Profiled Companies" list) totaled seventeen. These stocks had gained, on average 20.3%, while the TSX as a whole was down 3.8% over the same time frame (September 26, 2008 – May 28, 2010).^[9]

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