Year: 2025

It’s time for Canada to show “spine and toughness”

Along with our friends at National Bank and Fasken, BetaKit took some tech locals out for an evening of theatre this weekend to see The Master Plan. A theatrical dramatization of the emphatic failure to build a smart city in Toronto (based on Josh O’Kane’s book Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy), the production was […]

Canadian tech advocates join movement to free social media feeds from billionaire control

A consortium of open tech leaders is calling for social media feeds to be unbound from the control of tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.  The group of tech entrepreneurs, scholars, and advocates, which includes celebrity signatories such as Mark Ruffalo, launched a fundraising campaign today called Free Our Feeds. “The underlying problem […]

The biggest tech questions of 2025

The last episode of The BetaKit Podcast was about predicting what will come to pass in 2025. Our first episode of the new year is about open questions: tech happenings we’re wondering might happen this year. “ I’m sure if there’s one takeaway here is that we can all trust Enron to solve the world’s energy […]

BBTV rebrands to RHEI, launches new AI training licensing platform for creator content

Vancouver-based media tech firm BBTV Holdings, which went private in early 2024, has rebranded to RHEI and launched a new data monetization platform called RHEI Data Pro.  “We are no longer in the creator economy. This is the augmented creativity era.”  Shahrzad RafatiRHEI The new platform is meant to help digital content creators, like YouTubers, […]

Work automation platform Gumloop raises $24.5-million Series A as it relocates to Silicon Valley

Vancouver-founded Gumloop has raised a $17-million USD ($24.5 million CAD) Series A round as it looks to hire talent for its new San Francisco home.  The company, which develops an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered workflow automation platform, raised the all-equity round from round leader Nexus Venture Partners with participation from return investors First Round Capital and […]

How AI can get you a job in 2025

Canada punches well above its weight in artificial intelligence, regularly ranking among the top countries for AI talent globally. With strong research institutions, federal funding, and a growing tech sector, the country has positioned itself as a key player in the sector. The country is now home to 10 percent of the world’s AI researchers, […]

D-Wave CEO says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is “dead wrong” about quantum computing

D-Wave Quantum suffered a significant hit to its stock price alongside other publicly listed quantum computing companies after the founder and CEO of chip giant Nvidia, Jensen Huang, expressed a pessimistic outlook on the sector.  “There is more than one approach to building a quantum computer.” Alan BaratzD-Wave D-Wave, a Canadian-founded, New York Stock Exchange […]

Cohere launches customizable enterprise AI workspace platform North

Toronto-based generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup Cohere has launched an early access program for North, its new AI workspace platform that serves as an answer to Microsoft Copilot and Google Vertex AI.  Cohere claims North outperforms both Microsoft Copilot and Google Vertex AI in retrieval-augmented generation. Cohere claims the new platform can integrate with “any tool […]

Shakepay bolsters regulatory standing with CIRO membership

Montréal-based FinTech Shakepay has been made a member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO), clearing a regulatory hurdle that will hold the company’s cryptocurrency trading platform to a higher standard. “Regulation matters. It’s the foundation for establishing confidence in this space.” Shakepay is now the first crypto platform in Québec to be certified as […]