Seven years after Noibu’s launch, co-founder Kailin Noivo says the company that detects bugs in e-commerce sites hasn’t quite hit full stride – but it’s getting there.
Noivo, who hatched the Ottawa-based software firm with business partners Robert Boukine and Filip Slatinac, says the reality that online stores don’t always work properly remains one of the industry’s “dirty secrets.”
“I don’t think anyone correlates revenue loss to quality issues,” he said in an interview with Techopia this week. “I think a lot of people want to pretend they’re not there. It’s still something where we’re having to go out and educate our buyers on that.”
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But retailers are starting to come around, Noivo added.
“The tides are now turning, where people are coming to us.”
The more e-commerce retailers turn to Noibu, the more the Ottawa company gains recognition for its rapid ascent.
Noibu ranked 12th on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 list of North America’s top-growing companies announced earlier this week, recording three-year revenue growth of 12,865 per cent.
That follows the firm’s eighth-place finish in the Globe and Mail’s annual list of Canada’s top-performing companies last month. Earlier this year, it placed second on OBJ’s list of top-growing Ottawa-based companies, its second consecutive appearance in the No. 2 slot.
The startup has come a long way from its origin in 2017 as a platform that offered 3D virtual tours of retailers’ brick-and-mortar stores.
Two years later, the founders changed tack, shifting Noibu’s focus to software that detects and helps resolve glitches in online stores.
“We started with a solution and we were kind of looking for a problem after, whereas this time we started with a problem and then tried to effectively build a solution from there,” explains Noivo, who earned a commerce degree from the University of Ottawa and worked at the Bank of Montreal before starting his own business.
Noibu’s software now helps more than 1,000 e-commerce websites run more efficiently. Its customers include global retailers Champion, Guess, Levi Strauss and Co. and Swarovski.
While some experts are predicting a slowdown in retail spending as inflation and rising interest rates eat into disposable income, Noivo said demand for his company’s solution is growing as online retailers seek ways to make the buying experience more seamless for consumers.
“If we had a nice-to-have product, I would be very concerned,” he said. “I think we’re actually very well-positioned to accelerate our growth through this.”
Five other local companies also appeared on this year’s Technology Fast 500 list.
Food Cycle Science, whose flagship offering is a portable composter that converts food scraps into a nutrient-rich byproduct, ranked 304th with three-year growth of 436 per cent.
Rewind, which makes software that backs up and recovers data for Shopify merchants, QuickBooks customers and users of other cloud-based software platforms, came in at No. 368 with 344 per cent growth.
Video surveillance software firm Solink, which landed a US$60-million financing round this past summer, was No. 393 (322 per cent growth). Online health-care platform Fullscript was next at No. 447 (271 per cent), followed by automotive e-commerce retailer CanadaWheels, which finished in 520th place with growth of 214 per cent.
“While our technological prowess is evident, its true power lies in the transformative experiences we create for our customers,” CanadaWheels founder and CEO Saleh Taebi said in a statement. “Every facet of our growth underscores our promise to integrate cutting-edge solutions and serve our clients with unparalleled excellence.”
In addition, Ottawa-based meeting management software provider Fellow made Deloitte’s Companies to Watch list of up-and-coming Canadian tech startups after posting three-year growth of 729 per cent.
