The winds of change started whispering the name Ax-C back in 2023, when it was officially announced to be a project that would revolutionize the way Montréal’s startups interact. Today, with Geneviève Leclerc at its helm, a striking space in the heart of Downtown Montréal currently amid construction and an estimated start date of spring 2025, it’s fair to say that things are hotting up.
What, exactly, is Ax-C?
Comparable to Station F in Paris, Mars Centre in Toronto or The Platform, in Calgary, Ax-C is a grand-scale startup hub: a shared, open and inclusive space dedicated to start-ups, universities and businesses that will offer strategic services focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. Starting in spring 2025 it will offer affordable workspaces, meeting rooms, spaces dedicated to prototyping, and public and private financial services.
Their mission is this: to offer technology start-ups with high growth potential an inspiring, inclusive and world-class space. They strive to bring together the key players — from entrepreneurs to mentors, incubators, accelerators, corporations, service providers and more — in a single ecosystem to stimulate, support and commercialise their innovations here in Montréal, but also elsewhere in the world.
A showcase for local innovation
Financed in part by the national, provincial and municipal levels of government, Ax-C was borne out of the need to support the development of technological entrepreneurship in the province of Quebec and accelerate the commercialization of technological innovations that are developed here.
“Our vision is to become the go-to destination for anyone from around the world who wants to discover what we’re developing in terms of technological innovation in Quebec,” explains Geneviève Leclerc. “It’s a world-class space where we’ll be able to welcome investor delegations, for example, in a much more appropriate way than at present.”
Leclerc joined the project as the Director of Ax-C (employed by the École de technologie supérieure) in the spring of 2023, after having accrued over 20 years of professional experience in event project management and communications, including for the Palais des congrès de Montréal. At Ax-C she is collaborating closely with the team of Québec Tech (previously Startup Montréal) who are also partners in the project.
A space worthy of its mission
Ax-C haven’t chosen just any space to set up shop: they are taking over the third and fourth floors of the Place Victoria Tower, which originally housed the Montréal Stock Exchange.
The 100,000-square-foot space is strategically located in the midst of Montréal’s cultural effervescence, across the street from the Palais des congrès de Montréal and within walking distance from major hotels, universities and many tech research centres.
Designed as a space of inspiration and exchange, Ax-C is building space for 50-odd startups to rent offices for teams of 2 to 8 people, as well as a coworking space with room for 40. In addition to the meeting rooms and small conversation nooks, there will be an atrium, located on the ex-stock exchange floor — a huge open space perfect for networking, which will be able to host events for up to 350 people. On the fourth floor there will also be a closed event space (plus a series of adjacent VIP lounges) overlooking Place Victoria, able to welcome 200 people in theatre seating. The spaces will be available for use by all of Ax-C’s residents, and by external players as well, as long as they relate somehow to tech innovation.
And once the spaces are built, the mission is to get the crowd engaged, says Leclerc. “We’ll be doing a lot of outreach and social engineering to encourage the residents to get out of their spaces and come together.” More details to come!
Read this next: Montréal’s booming tech sector draws industry bigwigs
