Deal worth roughly $200-million for startup incubated at CEO’s family company Biscuits Leclerc
Swedish enterprise technology giant IFS World Operations AB has bought Quebec City’s Poka Inc. as deep-pocketed buyers continue to show a healthy appetite for successful Canadian technology firms.
, respectively, when revenues were $15-million a year. Poka is being deployed at dozens of factories apiece by Danone SA, Robert Bosch GmbH and Nestle SA. Other customers include Rio Tinto, Alcoa, Tetra Pak Group, Mars, Coty, Hitachi Energy, Stanley Black and Decker, Aveva Group and Kraft Heinz Co. So he invited childhood friend Antoine Bisson, a software engineer working at Microsoft in Seattle, to start a venture to bring modern mobile communications tools to the factory floor, starting with Leclerc’s eight factories. The duo were inspired by the proliferation of quick how-to-videos on YouTube, thinking factories could benefit from engaging online tools. Their technology helped Leclerc cut training times by 75 per cent, reduce equipment downtime and shorten changeovers.
Mr. Leclerc said Poka received several acquisition entreaties last year and hired investment banking firm AGC Partners after private equity-backed QAD, Inc., bought rival Redzone early this year. Poka still had two-plus years of cash and didn’t need money; “It was more about, ‘How do we accelerate growth so we can get as many customers as we can as quickly as we can and take the market,’” he said.
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