Is Shopify the Biggest Company in Canada?

Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It is also the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services “including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement” to simplify the process of running an online store for small merchants.

In 2006, Shopify was founded by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake after attempting to open Snowdevil, an online store for snowboarding equipment. Lütke was forced to take a hiatus from snowboarding after a back injury and began seeking out a new business venture.

Weinand and Lake had recently sold another business and were also on the lookout for a new project. The three eventually decided to start their own web-based company together.

Shopify launched its platform in June 2006. Since then, the company has become one of Canada’s fastest growing companies with over 1,000 employees and offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal and San Francisco. In 2015, Shopify was named Ottawa’s second “unicorn” after real estate software company Wattpad as both companies were valued at over $1 billion at the time.

Shopify has been growing rapidly and is now one of the largest companies in Canada. With its easy-to-use platform and suite of services, Shopify makes it easy for small businesses to start and grow their online stores.