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- Lumonics was a global laser manufacturing company based in the Kanata North Business Park region of Ottawa. Founded in 1970, it was the first venture capital (VC) financed high tech company of the ones that based themselves there, thus clearing the path (started by Computing Devices from nearby Bells Corners back in 1948) for the subsequent VC and start-up fueled growth that led to the region later becoming known as “Silicon Valley North”. With an average sales growth of almost 89% per year over its first decade, in 1980 the company went public. After its acquisition of JK Lasers in 1982, it became “the third largest laser company in the world”. Following a period of private ownership by the Japanese firm Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. starting in 1989, it once again went public in 1995 and went on to merge with Massachusetts-based General Scanning Inc. in 1998/99, to become GSI Lumonics, “the largest producer of laser-based manufacturing equipment in the world". With most of its employees now in the US, despite subsequent growth from the dot-com boom, the Canadian workforce was scaled back down again after the 2001 recession and, in 2002, the original Canadian headquarters was finally “boarded up” and control shifted to the U.S. operations. The company's name was changed to GSI Group in 2005, then finally Novanta, its current name, in 2016. The original Impact, LaserMark, and excimer laser product lines of Lumonics were sold by GSI Group in 2008/2009 to LightMachinery in the Nepean region of Ottawa, many of whose employees originally started out at Lumonics in Kanata. (en)
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