Strength through diversity: how immigrants created Canada’s fastest-growing tech startup

ApplyBoard is the world’s largest online platform for international student recruitment and was recognized by Deloitte as Canada’s fastest-growing tech company in 2019. Martin Basiri is the co-founder and CEO of ApplyBoard which has had a truly remarkable journey to date and recently closed their latest round of financing, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. ApplyBoard has over 500 employees in over 20 countries and was founded in Canada by immigrants who faced a long list of obstacles when looking to study abroad and immigrate to another country.

In this Terminal Tech Talk we sit down with Martin Basiri to discuss how he built Canada’s fastest-growing startup and one of the most diverse teams in tech. At ApplyBoard there are over 50 languages spoken, over 30 nationalities represented, and as many women as men on the team.  When asked about ApplyBoard, Canada’s former Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Ahmed Hussen, a Canadian immigrant himself, recently said, “This is the answer to that. When people say, what does immigration do for Canada, this is the answer. It’s about innovation, it’s about growth, it’s about jobs and it’s about ambition for our country.”

We will explore a number of key topics including:

- Diversity of thought, teammates, customers and partners
- Strength through diversity and scaling to 500+ employees
- Distributed teams and recruiting talent all around the world
- Fundraising during a global pandemic and becoming a unicorn