We may have just had Martello Technologies’ CEO on the the program a few months ago, but in just a few short weeks the landscape at the Kanata tech firm has drastically transformed. A merger with Montreal’s Elfiq Networks and a change at the top were enough reasons to welcome new chief executive John Proctor to Techopia Live to break down the transition.
Proctor says one of the main reasons he took the job from outgoing CEO Bruce Linton was the culture he saw at Martello. It’s a “mature” team, the new chief says, steeped in Ottawa’s high-tech culture.
“I’d like to be part of that,” he told Techopia Live, adding that maintaining Martello’s culture as the company grows is integral to his role.
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And there’s significant growth in the forecast. As first heard on Techopia Live in September, the firm is looking at a potential initial public offering in 2018. Proctor says the company has a strong, stable and well-known technology, and now it’s time to take the “challenging step” of scaling up on the public markets.
Making the leap from high-potential to industry leader is never a guarantee, Proctor says, but an IPO is necessary to get there.
“In Canada, we’ve got a very good history of entrepreneurship and startups. The hard phase is moving out of that, into that growth phase,” he says. “To do that, sometimes you need cash.”
Guest host and Techopia partner Chad Holliday, vice-president of product consulting with Stratford Managers, was curious about the capabilities of Martello’s own product in light of the recent Elfiq merger.
Proctor told Holliday that the bandwidth demand on telecom companies has exponentially increased with the popularity of streaming services such as Netflix. Martello’s value is in helping these firms maintain their services in light of these demands – Elfiq’s solution adds remediation and troubleshooting capabilities to Martello’s existing detection services, helping these telcos stay online.
“I wouldn’t say we’re going to be a disruptive technology. I’d say we’re an enabler of these disruptive technologies, given the bandwidth they can get at.”
To hear Proctor’s thoughts about how bandwidth demands will affect connected cities in the near future, watch the video above.
