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Manzil launches Halal wealth management solution following acquisition of Canadian Islamic Wealth

Toronto-based Halal-certified FinTech startup Manzil has launched its first wealth management solution through subsidiary Manzil Wealth following its acquisition of Winnipeg-based Canadian Islamic Wealth. Canadian Islamic Wealth is a fellow Halal investment and financial services provider. The announcement of the deal, which closed in September, comes just weeks after Manzil announced it had acquired Aghaz […]

Québec International to bring Finnish networking conference Slush’D to Québec City

Finnish founder networking extravaganza Slush will make its North American debut in Québec City next spring as Slush’D.  The economic development agency Québec International (QI), which supports business development in the province’s capital region, is hosting the one-day conference on May 7, 2025, with an undisclosed amount of financial support from Québec’s tourism ministry. QI’s […]

We need to talk about startup failure

Globalive Capital’s Brice Scheschuk recently spoke at Highline Beta (where BetaKit shares an office) about owning your startup journey. Brice is also the co-founder of MindFrame Connect, a non-profit focused on building entrepreneurial resilience. During the presentation, he posed the above question as a thought experiment. Fully answering that great question is beyond the scope […]

Boosted.ai raises $20.9 million CAD to grow AI investment manager platform

Toronto-based investment software startup Boosted.ai has secured a $15-million USD ($20.9 million CAD) bridge round to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Alfa.  Boosted.ai anticipates raising a much larger round in 2025.  The all-equity round saw participation from existing investors Ten Coves Capital, Spark Capital, Portage Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, and HarbourVest Partners, as […]

Dentists helping dentists: Clinician-founded OraQ secures $2.6 million to help assess patient risk with AI

Calgary-based healthtech startup OraQ AI has closed $2.6 million CAD in seed funding from dentists and others to commercialize its clinical decision support platform for dental practices. Led by dentists-turned-tech entrepreneurs, OraQ has developed software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze dental and medical records and help other dentists assess patient risk, with the […]

The story of Sampler (live at SAAS NORTH 2024)

Globalive Capital’s Brice Scheschuk spoke at Highline Beta the other day (where BetaKit shares an office) about owning your startup journey. During the presentation, he posed an interesting thought exercise: what if the tech press wrote 49 articles about company failure for every one article about fundraising success? “In summary, Sampler lost product-market fit 10 […]

Why Sampler failed, according to its founder

Could this happen to my company?  That was surely one of the questions running through the minds of the assembled tech leaders and founders attending the tell-all fireside chat between Sampler founder and former CEO Marie Chevrier Schwartz and BetaKit editor-in-chief Douglas Soltys at SAAS NORTH 2024 on Nov. 13.  “In hindsight, [the pandemic] made […]

Iconiq reportedly buyer of $100-million worth of Wealthsimple employee shares

Last week when Power Corp. revealed it had marked up the valuation of its controlling stake in Wealthsimple, BetaKit reported that Power’s Q3 financial results indicated the Toronto FinTech giant was engaged in a third-party secondary transaction expected to close during the fourth quarter. At the time, Wealthsimple declined to share further details. “We wanted […]

FDA clears drug for rare and deadly GI cancer developed by Canadian firm Zymeworks

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of a cancer-treating antibody originally developed by Vancouver-based biotech company Zymeworks. Dublin, Ireland-headquartered Jazz Pharmaceuticals announced this week that the FDA had approved use of Zihera, an antibody that treats adults living with a form of biliary-tract cancer, in the US. In 2022, […]