Vancouver software developer Appnovation announced August 14 that it is hiring 63 people to work at a new New Brunswick sales and marketing office.
“We’re still headquartered in Vancouver,” said Appnovation’s 28-year-old CEO Arnold Leung, who was a Business in Vancouver Top 40 under 40 winner in 2010.
“We needed a sales and marketing centre that supports both Europe and North America. So, we needed to be in a time zone that is workable for both. New Brunswick is four hours different from Vancouver and four hours different from the UK.”
Incentives also helped.
Invest NB is providing a payroll rebate of up to $500,000 over five years to support Appnovation creating the full-time jobs. That government agency is also providing a $230,000 “forgivable loan” that Appnovation will spend to cover capital costs.
Appnovation’s investment is expected to add $7.5 million annually to New Brunswick’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) once all the positions have been filled.
Appnovation has 90 employees in Vancouver and another 17 in a newer Montreal office.
“Another thing about New Brunswick is that there’s a big bilingual population,” Leung told BIV. “That’s important for us because we also want this office to support our Quebec operation.”
Appnovation helps clients create web applications, mobile applications and back-end information technology systems using open-source software, such as Drupal.
Open-source software has code that is not proprietary so software developers can add onto existing work. That gives the client the biggest bang for their buck, Leung explained.
Clients include Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and the New York City Department of Transportation.
