Miovision Technologies Expands to Create 275 New Jobs

CBC NEWS (JAN 30, 2018)

Province invests $1.5M into Kitchener-based traffic data tech company

Kitchener-based tech company Miovision Technologies is expanding to create 275 new jobs in Waterloo region, Kitchener-Centre MPP Daiene Vernile and Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrabnovic announced on Monday.

The expansion comes with the provincial government investment of $1.5 million into the traffic data company through the Southwestern Ontario Development Fund, which in turn allowed Miovision to obtain $13.5 million in private investments.

“Our investment means this home-grown company will create hundreds of highly-skilled jobs here in Kitchener, providing a boost to our local economy,” Vernile said in a news release. “I look forward to seeing Miovision further build its global position as a leading provider of advanced traffic signal operations.”

The company already employs 109 employees and Vernile’s office said the province’s investment helped to keep them working in the region.

Miovision’s Kurtis McBride, MPP Daiene Vernile and Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic were on hand for Monday’s Miovision announcement. (Daiene Vernile/Twitter)

New, larger facility

Miovision moved to a larger facility, Catalyst137, on Glasgow Street last year thanks to the funding.

Kurtis McBride, CEO of Miovision, told CBC News the new space is about three times the size of the old location and will help them grow the company’s staff significantly in the coming years.

“The new location is right downtown, right in the heart of the tech cluster, so it makes it easy to attract talent because we’re in the heart of where everyone wants to be,” he said. “We moved into that building as the first tenant, the anchor tenant, and we’re pretty excited about being part of that community.”

Described as both “a new Internet of Things innovation centre” and a “new hardware technology hub,” the nearly 500,000-square-foot Catalyst137 is expected to become home to about 50 additional organizations in the coming months.

Vernile said the facility will allow Miovision to become more competitive as it expands into new markets, because the space allows for more staff and expansion of their research and development.

Miovision was founded in 2005 and also has offices in Cologne, Germany. It services 17,000 municipalities globally with its traffic data technology.

The company is expected to fill the 275 new jobs by December 2021.

“With any business, it takes time to find good people, but in tech in Waterloo it’s pretty competitive,” McBride said. “It will take us two or three years to get the headcount numbers that we’ve been talking about.”

An early design plan for Catalyst137.

Source:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/miovision-expansion-1.4510528