BCBUSINESS.CA APRIL 2017 BCBUSINESS 49
L I F E S T O RY: Jessica Thomas Cooke started
her career as an account executive at a public
relations firm in Sydney, Australia. After moving
back to Vancouver in July 2013, she kept think-
ing about a former boss who had started an
agency that represented bloggers. She shared
her idea with a good friend, Hilary Chan-Kent,
and they decided to give it a go. They launched
their company in July 2014 with three "influenc-
ers," bloggers with thousands of followers on
Instagram or other social networks. They ap-
proached marketing agencies to negotiate deals
through which the bloggers would get paid for
promoting products. Defining a new category
with standards such as how much a post is
worth, they soon started working with major
brands including Yves Saint Laurent Beauty and
lingerie chain La Senza Corp.
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : In October 2015, Sam
Feldman, who represents clients such as singers
Carly Rae Jepsen and Gord Downie, asked
Cooke and Chan-Kent to join him in a partner-
ship. They moved into the offices of the Feldman
Agency in February 2016, and that year their
company's revenue grew 650 per cent. Cooke
and Chan-Kent employ three people and are
opening a second office, in Toronto. —M.G.
L I F E S T O RY: Born and raised in Sri Lanka,
Shanil Gunasekara moved to Canada in 2011
with a B.Sc. in biomedical engineering from the
University of Southern California. As an associ-
ate at Lumedica Consultants Inc., a Vancouver-
based adviser to medical device developers,
he came up with the idea for a mobile app that
measures and tracks arthritis symptoms. He and
his boss, Nick MacKinnon, plotted their new
tool while working on a big, expensive, hospital-
grade machine to analyze skin tissue. "We'd
look to other fields like finance, entertainment
or social media—and see how they were being
revolutionized by technology that was mobile,
portable and cheap," says Gunasekara, who
became a Canadian citizen last year. "It was
frustrating to us that health, which is critical,
wasn't really keeping up with that." In 2014,
Gunasekara founded eTreat Medical Diagnostics
with a group that includes MacKinnon. Using a
smartphone camera, their app can register min-
ute changes in a patient's condition over time,
tracking hand movements. It's also a cheaper
alternative to X-rays and ultrasounds.
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : Vancouver's eTreat
has seen its app deployed by the National Data
Bank for Rheumatic Diseases in the U.S. and at
clinics in India and Sri Lanka. The company has
also raised $1 million from angel investors and
is gathering another $2 million. —J.P.
S H A N I L G U N A S E K A R A
Founder and CEO
ETREAT MEDICAL DIAGNOSTICS INC.
A G E : 2 8
J E S S I C A T H O M A S C O O K E
Co-founder
INF INFLUENCER AGENCY
A G E : 2 9
