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Red Herring Inc. -- the California-based media and events company that bills itself as "a sophisticated insider's guide to the business of technology" -- is turning its attention to Canada's high-tech sector.

The publisher of Red Herring.com and its weekly magazine counterpart yesterday launched Red Herring Canada with an eye to showcasing this country's strengths in technological innovation and its rise as a centre of financing in the sector.

Red Herring plans to start by focusing on Montreal, with a three-day tech financing conference to be held in the city next year. Other Canadian cities will follow, beginning in 2009, organizers said.

The Montreal conference, which is aiming for up to 700 participants from around the globe, will be Red Herring's first event in Canada.

Red Herring's annual events, including the venerable European Technology Roundtable Exhibition, bring together technology innovators, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

"There are some very interesting projects being developed in Canada and very few people know about them," said Alex Vieux, a technology consultant and entrepreneur who bought the rights to the Red Herring name in 2003 after it was broken up in the wake of the dot-com bust.

"There is a very good set of relationships between the public and private sectors in Canada, which is giving some drive to entrepreneurs," he said in a telephone interview from New York.

On the publishing side, Red Herring intends to hire a Montreal-based writer to cover the industry and step up its reporting on developments in the city, as well as the province and the country, vice-president Farley Duvall said.

"This will be a celebration of Canadian technology," he said at a news conference.

Mr. Duvall said Red Herring would have decided to launch its Canadian offshoot even without government funding, the terms of which are still being negotiated.

Pierre Brunet, chairman of public and privately financed business-promotion agency Montréal International, said it's likely that the municipal, provincial and federal governments will participate but that it's too early to provide funding details. Mr. Brunet is also chairman of public pension fund portfolio manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, a major investor in technology startups. "We didn't guarantee [Red Herring] anything. We're ready to work hard with them because we are so happy to see them there," he said.