Mobile tech startup TribalScale has named Carlaw Communications as its public relations agency of record to promote the firm and Toronto’s tech community.
Carlaw will be responsible for all PR activities and will be focusing on building brand awareness through media relations and activities like events. “We’ll be promoting their projects, their client work and sharing their growth story,” says Lauren Wasley, one of Carlaw’s founders.
Toronto-based TribalScale builds mobile apps and specializes in connected devices and the Internet of Things. Formed five months ago, TribalScale has clients that include ABC News and Redtag.ca and 41 employees.
“We’re growing really rapidly and our trajectory is to be 100 (employees) by the end of the year,” says TribalScale CEO Sheetal Jaitly.
Jaitly says Carlaw was recommended through a friend and “they just really resonated with us in their approach and how to amplify our amazing news coming out of Toronto.”
While TribalScale liked Carlaw’s ideas and plans for the firm, “at the end of the day, it’s all about fit,” Wasley says. “In PR, we can all execute but if the synergies are not there it might not work.”
Jaitly says TribalScale’s goal in working with Carlaw is to help bring together the Toronto tech community. “A lot of the PR we want to do with them is not based on us,” he says.
There is a great deal of innovation happening in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor that often goes unmentioned in the news, he says. “We have way more talent in Toronto than in New York. We just don’t have the community support.”
Having a stronger startup ecosystem in Toronto, will only be good for TribalScale, Jaitly adds. “We’re going to attract more talent; we’re going to be able to train the next generation and the next wave of innovation and jobs.”
Founded earlier this year by PR veterans Carolyn Kilbourne and Wasley as a virtual agency, Carlaw’s other clients include Southpaw Beverage Company and the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
Wasley says the firm’s virtual status gives it flexibility. “If a clients wants us to work from their office one day a week, that’s something we can do. It’s convenient for them that we’re able to move around.”
