Three-year-old classroom education innovators
Top Hat Monocle are hiring now in Toronto as they move their headquarters from Waterloo to the big city.
"We're currently in a co-working space in Toronto as we await our official office space later this quarter," says CEO Mike Silagadze by email.
The company was founded by University of Waterloo students Silagadze and Mohsen Shahini
when, for a class project, they decided to try to put the mobile devices students carry with them to use as learning aids. The reaction to the project was so good that they launched the concept as a business with $300,000 from Waterloo-area angel investors (they have
since raised a total of $1.5 million in investment).
Three years later, their products are used on more than 85 university campuses around the world—including
Harvard—and the company has seen more than $5 million in sales, according to
a recent report.
Today, they continue to grow. Top Hat Monocle has opened a San Francisco office. The HQ relocation to TO, Silagadze says, is motivated primarily by recruiting purposes, "It was very hard to convince top candidates to move to Waterloo, and we in fact lost a few people that way. So long term, the right decision was for the company to be in Toronto."
The company currently has 24 full-time employees. Perks include weeks available to work on personal projects, catered staff meals and video game tournaments. The company is
hiring developers, designers and sales reps right now—lots of them. "We'll likely need to hire another 20 to 30 sales reps and another 10 developers in the next six months," Silagadze says. "It's going to be a busy time."
Sources: Mike Silagasze, CEO,
Top Hat Monocle;
Yahoo! Small Business advisor