Category: Tech News

Federal government provides $3.5 million for DMZ’s new Centre for Housing Innovation

Toronto-based incubator DMZ has received $3.5 million from the federal government to establish the Centre for Housing Innovation (CHI), a new hub that will provide a training program and a housing-focused accelerator.  The funding, which comes from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), aims to establish CHI as a central hub […]

Canadian tech is locked in on election season

‘Tis the season for stump speeches.  I’m writing to you from my newsletter bunker shortly after former finance minister Chrystia Freeland and government House leader Karina Gould announced their candidacy for Liberal party leader. Along with Mark Carney and a host of other candidates (but not Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne), they are running for the […]

Leaders from Clio, Certn, Humi and others talk M&A at TechExit.io

A wave of exits and acquisitions in the first few weeks of 2025 is signalling continued heat in Canada’s tech sector. In the last month alone, BetaKit reported that Carbon6 will be acquired for over $300 million CAD, 1Password made its largest-ever acquisition, Humi was acquired for $155-million CAD, and Payfare will join Fiserv in […]

Discussing social media’s midlife crisis with Amber Mac

Social media is going through a midlife crisis. How does that work? Social media is only around 20 years old! Well, tech ages twice as fast, so it only took half the time.  “It does make me increasingly nervous that one of them really wants to move to Mars and the other one has a […]

‘Is there life after acquisition?’ Canadian founders get candid at TechTO

Can ChatGPT write a founder’s story for them? What does life after exit look like? And how do you get men to back a fertility solution?  On January 13, four founders took the stage at the MaRS Discovery District for TechTO Together to share hard-earned lessons about fundraising, storytelling, life post-acquisition, and winning at every […]

Luge Capital, Pender Ventures hire in Alberta following investments from AEC

Two venture-capital (VC) firms from opposite sides of the country are establishing new presences in Alberta.  Montréal-based Luge Capital and Vancouver-based Pender Ventures are both adding new Calgary-based investors after the Alberta Enterprise Corporation (AEC) contributed to their most recent funds.  The new VC presence indicates a boost in capital available to early-stage companies in Alberta. […]

Home hardware: Canadian founders at CES talk challenges and opportunities

Canadian companies secured some high-profile awards at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, even while most face hurdles building their solutions on home soil. Montréal-based Eli Health won a Best of Innovation award at the event for the Hormometer, an app-linked home device that the company says can measure levels of the […]

Feds pledge nearly $100 million in grants to commercialize research innovation

The federal government has announced a nearly $100-million commitment over five years to support the commercialization of lab innovations from Canadian universities.  SFU and UBC are leading the Lab2Market program’s West Coast expansion, which will be known as the Lab2Market Pacific Hub. A total of $95.3 million in grants will be dispensed in varying amounts […]