KPMG in Canada has acquired the assets and remaining workers of a Victoria tech firm that went bankrupt and laid off most of its staff last year following a downturn in the tech market.
B.C. Supreme Court approved the accounting firm’s $1.45-million purchase of LlamaZOO on May 20.
Founded by Charles Lavigne and Kevin Oke in 2014, LlamaZOO provided real-time 3D visualizations for the forestry, mining, and oil and gas industry to map out their projects, cutting down on the amount of travel needed to maintain remote work sites.
One of their flagship products, Timberops, was used to plan forest cut blocks and road-survey operations through topographic visualizations.
The software, based on a century’s worth of logging operation data, allows users to see what a mountain might look like if the trees on its slopes were logged or kept growing.
The company also provided tools to help First Nations map out their territories, with clients including the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations near Gold River.
One of Victoria’s tech darlings in the mid-2010s, LlamaZOO was named Startup of the Year by VIATEC in 2015 and won a nod for innovation at the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce in 2016.
But it began experiencing financial challenges starting in 2021 due to rising interest rates, reduced venture-capital money, and a slowdown in technological development, according to a bankruptcy application the company filed in December.
One of LlamaZOO’s U.S.-based investors halted its investment in the company when the venture-capital market began contracting in 2022, the application said.
LlamaZOO tried to raise more money through investors in the Middle East, New York, Miami and Singapore and hired two investment banks to help with the process.
But it failed to attract further investments or acquisition offers, despite approaching more than 60 venture-capital funds and investors.
It cut its 40-member workforce in half in 2022 and laid off the rest of its employees in March 2024.
Five employees were brought back last August to prepare the company for a possible sale.
KPMG’s $1.45-million purchase offer was the best the company received. Raven Capital, Acuity Brands, FPI Innovations and an unnamed party in Saudi Arabia were among those who expressed interest in investing or purchasing the company, according to the bankruptcy proceeding documents.
When the company applied for bankruptcy, it owed 28 creditors about $2.3 million, including $91,633 in rent and $55,500 in employee deductions to Canada Revenue Agency.
Only two parties, RBC and Bonsai Growth Solutions Inc., were listed as secured creditors, according to insolvency trustee Crowe Mackay & Company Ltd.
As part of the purchase, Lavigne, Oke and the five remaining LlamaZOO employees are joining KPMG’s office in Victoria and will be part of KPMG’s hub for innovation and advanced technologies.
Matt Grant, KPMG’s director of digital twin and spatial computing, said LlamaZOO’s technology and expertise will allow KPMG to create better AI-based technologies for companies to make decisions with their data.
“Amid ongoing economic uncertainty and global trade disruptions, scenario planning is more critical than ever for Canadian organizations,” Grant said in a statement announcing KPMG’s purchase.
“Digital twin technology can help create strategies for all types of scenarios by using data to assess various outcomes and support better, faster and more informed decisions, which ultimately leads to higher productivity and lower costs.”
