Introduction...WHAT MOTIVATES US
“Seize your opportunity, embrace your happiness and go toward your risk. Watching you, they will come to do likewise.”
René Char
BeVolution was founded in July 2008 by two seasoned entrepreneurs and managers, Dominique Gatto and Micheline Fortin:
A burning drive to share our experience and support outstanding people and projects was the fundamental impetus to our deciding to create BeVolution.
We had observed that:
- Entrepreneurship is learned in the doing, and such experience often comes at great cost,
- When it comes to companies, growth is not linear, but chaotic and complex,
- Entrepreneurs receive many offers for consulting services, but find themselves facing many challenges alone as they establish their company and make it grow,
- International marketing and financing know-how is both strategic and valuable,
- It is rare to find people with real-life experience in all aspects of software development and publication.
- A project’s long-term success largely hinges on one’s way of being, yet few companies make this a cornerstone of what they do.
For these reasons, we decided to actively engage in Co-entrepreneurship with people who share our values – integrity, commitment, humanity – in order to build and meet the challenges of international growth.
Micheline Fortin,
General Partner
Over 35 years of information and communications technology (ICT) experience, having served as a senior manager and advisor to ministers, paragovernmental financing companies, and entrepreneurs, responsible for building an economic environment enabling ICT companies to thrive in Quebec. In addition to supporting entrepreneurs, she has herself founded and headed two software development and publication companies.
- Director General of Information Technology and Telecommunications Industries for the Quebec government. She has jointly headed ICT clusters with the Quebec Minister of Industry and Commerce, was appointed to the board of directors of Montreal’s Cité du Multimedia, and has represented Quebec on several national think-tank committees on ICT development.
- Founding President of Réseaux Fort International, Inc., a company that advises entrepreneurs wishing to access new markets and financing for their company. Her achievements include helping IBM Canada Ltd win a nearly $20 million contract with the Quebec government, and securing a total of about $7 million in financing for various Quebec SMBs.
- Founding President of Tekflow M.I.S. Inc., a company that develops and publishes software for the healthcare sector. As soon as the company was up and running, she organized, negotiated and concluded a sales contract worth over $1.5 million with a strategic client.
- Founding President and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Mensa Solutions Inc., a company involved in developing software for distributed computing architectures. She has raised nearly $1 million in private investments, in addition to nearly $1 million in government subsidies.
- Co-founder and General Partner of BeVolution, Inc.
Micheline has also served as president and as a member on several boards of directors. She is an engineer with a Master’s in Administration from Quebec’s National School of Public Administration, ENAP.
Dominique Gatto,
General Partner
Over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience creating and growing software development and publication companies internationally. He brings a solid culture of innovation, with specialized experience in marketing and strategic alliances, as well as in establishing global distribution / sales networks. This visionary has founded and directed several companies, one of which has become a global leader.
- Founding president and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gimeor S.A. (vendor of the Architrion application), a company that develops and publishes CAD software for the architecture and construction sector. The company is a global leader, with 25,000 software packages sold and a 42% market share.
- Founding President of DesignVision Ltd., a company that has built European distribution networks and concluded strategic partnership agreements for leading international software vendors, including Alias Research, Inc., Ashlar, Inc. and Cadam Systems, Inc. The company also developed the “ClipVision” staging software for 3D clip art which was licensed to Expert Software Inc., a NASDAQ-traded company and a global player in mass-market software publication. Over 100,000 copies of this software were sold in its first year of commercial release alone.
- Founding President and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Tornado Technologies Inc., a company that develops and publishes collaborative 3D visualization and communication software for the extended enterprise. The company has numerous strategic partnerships, including with Matrox, Trimble and France Telecom, and major user accounts, including Cirque du Soleil and Leroy Somer/Emerson Electric Company.
- CEO of IFCS, Inc., a software development and publication company in the asset management and computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) sectors. The company has numerous strategic partnerships, including with Suez Energy Services, Ameresco and GBM, and major user accounts, including the National Bank of Canada and the Cité du Multimédia.
- Co-founder and General Partner at BeVolution Inc.
Dominique earned his degree in engineering from the French engineering school École Nationale Supérieure des Techniques Industrielles et des Mines de Douai.
