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UBCO grad students’ business venture valued at $5.6 million

Linkbase aims to support the hospitality sector with its software
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keyboard on computer (Pixabay.com)

A trio of UBC Okanagan students have tried and failed before, but as Co-Founder of Linkbase Brandon Caiza says, hard work and persistence pay off. Their business received a valuation of $5.6 million.

Caiza and fellow graduate students Shiven Khera and Sagar Singh created Linkbase to handle the technical clutter of businesses by connecting and maintaining smart devices customized to a specific brand.

“Now we have the ability to take what we’ve been working on for a long time and basically manifest our big picture ideas,” said Caiza. “We’re really happy to get our valuation to that point.”

Linkbase is hoping to use its technology to improve the hospitality sector.

“The main thing that not just hotels, but buildings in general, do to consume a lot of energy is they have legacy systems and old technology to run these things. What we did is we took the devices, which is number one, and then number two, we have the ability to take these devices and read all the information that is given off from these devices, and then make smart decisions based on these data points.”

Linkbase is also focused on being accessible and affordable to everyone.

When it comes to starting a business venture this is Caiza’s advice.

“It’s no ‘one size fits all’ for sure. I’ve had a lot of advice in the past and it’s really up to what worked for them and what was best at the time, but one thing stands true is that working hard is really important.”

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Brittany Webster

About the Author: Brittany Webster

A video journalist with Black Press Media. I recently made the exciting move from my radio anchor position at AM 1150 to this new venture.
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