Orthogone Technologies is a well-kept secret of the Quebec technology industry. Despite this discretion, the company, which is celebrating its 15th year this year,e Founding anniversary, has succeeded very well in making a name for itself with a national and international clientele.
“It’s true that until now we haven’t made too much noise because we’ve been too busy developing products for our customers,” said Luc Leblanc, president and CEO of the company he co-founded in 2007.
Serving Quebec companies as well as large Fortune 500 companies, Orthogone specializes in the development of highly specialized software for various sectors including automotive, healthcare, telecommunications and data centers.
“We design very complex technological solutions that do not exist on the market. Instead of specializing in one sector, we have chosen to be vertical generalists,” explains Luc Leblanc.
Innovative products
Orthogone’s achievements include a digital detector for mammography that integrates powerful image processing algorithms.
Its engineers have also developed a bionic ear designed to improve communication efficiency in noisy environments.
They also designed 3D LiDAR, a solid-state sensor with a 180-degree field of view for autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance applications from LeddarTech, a Quebec-based company.
The company relies on a strong team of engineers in software development and electronics.
“These are champions who love a challenge,” explains Luc Leblanc, who manages to attract and, more importantly, retain them despite the lack of talent in the technology sector. What’s his recipe?
“Strong people attract other strong people. In addition, engineers of this caliber quickly get bored of working on the same project over and over again. At Orthogone we have around forty projects in development every year, so they have the opportunity to be involved in the design of different products,” explains Luc Leblanc, who boasts that five out of six candidates accept his job offer after the interview.
Goal: growth
Right from the start, Orthogone managed to gain a loyal customer base – the first customer is still there after 15 years.
“Around 30% of our sales come from abroad, without us having a presence abroad. Everything is done from Montreal,” says Luc Leblanc.
Orthogone has grown year after year, varying between 15% and 30%. Luc Leblanc wants to accelerate this growth thanks in particular to a recent investment by Desjardins Capital. A partner of the company for three years, the latter has taken a position as a minority shareholder of the company.
“We want to promote international development. Our goal is the American market. Our growth will also come through the development of our portfolio of very low latency solutions. [pour des communications plus rapides et efficaces] he says.
“We want to offer our customers the most complete solution possible. To do this, we want to open up new fields of competence, particularly in the areas of artificial intelligence and cloud computing,” he adds. This new investment should enable the creation of around 100 new jobs, mainly in engineering, and increase annual growth by at least 25% over a three-year horizon.
In short, Orthogone engineers are unlikely to be bored for years to come!
orthogonal
- Foundation date : 2017
- Activities : specialized software design
- Shareholders: Luc Leblanc, Alexandre Raymond, Desjardin’s capital
- Number of employees : 75
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