This interview has been edited for length and clarity
UCalgary Tech Law Association’s Co-Founder Justin Lentz recently had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Grantmyre, a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP whose practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and securities law in the Emerging and High Growth Companies sector.
Michael obtained his JD degree from the University of Windsor and started his career at LaBarge Weinstein LLP in Ottawa. After several years of successful practice at LaBarge, Michael joined Osler in Toronto, before finally moving to Osler’s Calgary office to bring his experience to support Osler’s building out of the Emerging and High Growth Companies Group in Alberta.
Justin: Could you speak a bit about what the day-to-day of working with emerging and high growth companies is like?
Michael: A helpful place to start would be understanding the client that fits our practice model. From a company perspective, this would be a company that requires a lot of capital to grow very quickly, and that doesn’t necessarily mean only tech companies. It can mean many more things other than tech, and we’ve got a lot of clients that really fit our group’s thesis and that are clients of the firm, which are not all tech companies as you would expect, but they still fit that model. Obviously, tech is the clearest application of when those factors exist, so a lot of the clients of the firm are tech companies and a lot of the investors that we work with invest in tech companies.
The emerging and high growth companies group is really our way of describing [the] life cycle of a client; our support of them from an ideation or pre-incorporation stage where this is literally just an idea on a board … to the most late possible stage company, such as, for example in Calgary, Neo Financial, Attabotics, Symend, Athenian and, in Toronto, Wealthsimple. And these are companies that, not in all cases, but in some cases, we’ve started working with from their date of incorporation.
That’s really the thesis of our group and kind of where we’re looking to slot in. I think the biggest misconception of us as a firm is that we’re this big, Bay Street headquartered law firm that only wants to work with you if you are a BMO or CIBC. On the contrary, something that we’re proud of is that we’re able to figure out ways to work with companies well before they are generating revenue. So, the idea of emerging and high growth companies is this idea of plugging in from the emerging early stage through the high growth life cycle … we’re along for the ride for the whole thing, and that’s really what this EHG description is meant to capture.
Justin: Can you speak a bit about the differences in market structure between Toronto and Calgary?
Michael: What’s really drawn me to [Calgary] and why I jumped at the opportunity to help lead our firm’s practice in the prairies is the ecosystem of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; it’s exceptional, but it’s still more nascent than Toronto and Vancouver. I see tremendous value in that and, frankly, purpose, as a service provider, in being able to take all of the exposure to everything that I’ve gained [in Toronto and Ottawa] and bringing it here. I saw this ability to … contribute to awesome projects that people are working on in the prairies. There weren’t Neos five years ago, we saw Solium before it was acquired…there was this kind of flickering light of just what was possible in Alberta and, more broadly, the prairies. The Prairies has really come into its own as an ecosystem…
Justin: Are there any specific sectors within tech that you think will grow a lot in Calgary over the next 5 years or so?
Michael: Generative AI has been a pretty hot topic and we’ve seen some outsized rounds of financing and valuations for companies in that space, so that seems to be taking a bit of the stage right now in terms of what people are really focused on.
But, I mean, from an ecosystem perspective, it’s interesting, right? Because you’ve got this local flavor of the oil and gas and industry which kind of takes on its own vibe; [we’re seeing] a lot of these energy transition companies and venture arms of oil and gas corporations investing in these companies too, and that’s really cool to see, but we have an extremely vibrant AI scene as well. Look at Edmonton, for example, AltaML is a leader from an artificial intelligence perspective, right in North America, and they’re spinning out some awesome, awesome ventures.
You’ve also got FinTech companies. Like I said, Neo is an easy, easy one to cite. You’ve got super cool digital health companies like Purpose Med and DrugBank. You’ve got awesome life science companies. I should also give the University of Calgary a shout out as well because they’ve been spinning out some awesome life sciences and bio tech companies.
This province doesn’t just have oil and gas related tech, and that’s not what people are exclusively looking for either. So the market here, the investors here, the advisors here, are kind of all in on creating a truly diverse system of companies, which is really cool to see.
Justin: If a law student really wanted to get involved in that tech ecosystem you were talking about, where should they start?
Michael: I would say to reach out to lawyers at all different kinds of firms … Get involved in the community. I think that’s by far the best exercise you can undertake as a student trying to understand what a career in law in this particular space means, because all of those people out there that I mentioned, those are all your constituents that you need to serve and make happy.
[Just get a] sense of people’s aspirations. What are they excited about? What are they looking for? What are their pain points with lawyers? We’re not all great all the time, so what can you do better? Tech is really interesting in that you don’t just dabble in this; you don’t just kind of show up to the office and push through contracts, you’re getting exciting work. People want you to be part of the community. They want you to be part of the team when you’re working with clients. And, from my perspective, that’s the joy of this practice. They want you to be the friend and the therapist and the business advisor and also do some legal related work. I think that that’s the greatest compliment when you’re actually getting those opportunities to be that close to your clients. So, you know, it is almost kind of crazy to think, if people want that from you, why would you not get out into that community?
Get to know people. Build bonds. Just because they’re your clients doesn’t mean they can’t become your friends. Think about it from that perspective, because I think, when you’re on other people’s wavelengths…when you’re at that point, you’re at your best for them. So, I’d recommend that. The most important thing to focus on is just to get out there, get out in the community and see where you can help. There’s a lot of work to do out here.
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