StartUp Worcester Success Story: Ryan Canuel

Ryan Canuel

Company: Petricore, Inc.

Cohort: 2015-16

Ryan Canuel is the exemplification of just how big the video game development industry is in Worcester.

A native of Swansea, MA who moved to Worcester to attend Becker College, Ryan was a self-starter ready to launch his first business the day after his graduation in 2015. He was selected for the inaugural cohort of StartUp Worcester that same year with his company, Petricore.

Petricore focuses on delivering mobile games like Mind the Arrow, a puzzle game which was developed as Petricore’s first foray into the industry. Mind the Arrow had more than 100,000 downloads in its debut week, and was named one of the “best iPhone games on the planet” by TechRadar. Now, Petricore’s games have been downloaded on app stores over 750,000 times.

When Becker opened its brand new innovation and entrepreneurship center in 2018, Petricore moved in as an anchor tenant. Ryan wanted to stay close to the Becker community, even becoming an adjunct professor with the school while he helped game design undergraduates get hands-on experience in the field.

Petricore’s employees, mostly Becker College graduates, include six employees besides Ryan. Petricore’s portfolio of more than 40+ clients that they provide production and design for include the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate, the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Bose, Mitsubishi, Yale University, and Star Trek. The team has successfully completed over 80 client projects.

Ryan has received much-deserved recognition from the community, including the 2017 Playcrafting Boston Rising Pixel Award, the 2016 Becker College Alumni Association Excellence Award, the 2016 Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and a selection to the Worcester Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty in 2018.

Ryan continues to serve the community and the game design industry as an advisory board member of MassDiGI, a statewide game design incubator based at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the Venture Forum, a Worcester-based nonprofit focused on promoting the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem.