Burnaby, BC-based legaltech company Clio says it’s looking to foster local business talent through a $3-million donation to the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Powerhouse Project, a new flagship building for the UBC Sauder School of Business. Clio’s investment will fund an entrepreneurship and innovation hub inside the building that will serve as the formal…
QUIZ START Feature image courtesy PixMob. The post Musk eyes OpenAI, Shopify’s Kanye problem, and a Canadian startup at the Super Bowl first appeared on BetaKit. Quiz, Sponsored BetaKit Test your knowledge of Canadian tech news with The BetaKit Quiz for Feb. 14, 2025. The post Musk eyes OpenAI, Shopify’s Kanye problem, and a Canadian startup…
The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) had a busy week dispensing $34 million in federal funding to help create new tech and life sciences hubs and help scale startups in Waterloo Region and Toronto. Earlier this week, Ruby Sahota, the minister responsible for FedDev Ontario, announced a commitment of $18 million…
There’s a lot going on right now, but one news item that stands out is the surprise emergence of the DeepSeek LLM: competitive with OpenAI’s best large language models, at a ‘fraction’ of the development cost. True or not, the news sent existential shockwaves through Western tech (and Western markets). “ You’re going to see Coveo…
Friday was Valentine’s Day, and I hoped to share with you some Canadian tech-themed Valentine’s messages the team had drafted, but on advice from counsel, we’ve decided to keep them in our Slack. The Cohere and Shopify ones were particularly good, as you might imagine (and will now have to). So instead I’ll tell you…
In an effort to counter low investment activity in Canada, the venture arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) will inject nearly $1 billion across two direct investment vehicles targeted at later-stage companies. “What we’re aiming to do is to share the risk with the companies so that they can continue their growth.”…
Toronto-based FinTech startup Glassbox wants to reimagine the humble workhorse of corporate finance. Led by a former investment banker, the company is developing a software platform designed to help professionals in the space build financial models and evaluate deals faster than traditional spreadsheet tools like Microsoft Excel. “I tried to automate my way out of…
A new annual Toronto event initiative led by local tech leaders has launched to fill the gap left by Collision’s departure to Vancouver. Toronto Tech Week will take place from June 23-27 and feature a variety of partner-hosted and community events designed to cement the city’s reputation as a global tech powerhouse. Led by a…
Victoria-based background-check technology startup Certn and Toronto-based software rollup company Quadshift are benefiting from the Business Development Bank of Canada’s (BDC) bolstered venture capital arm this week, securing a combined $53 million in funding from the agency’s recently topped-up investment vehicles. Certn raised $30 million from BDC Capital’s Growth Venture Fund. According to BDC, Certn…
A new report shows venture capital (VC) investments in Canadian tech last year grew slightly compared to 2023, buoyed by later-stage megadeals while seed-stage funding continued to struggle. Megadeals—raises over $50 million—accounted for 62 percent of all dollars invested in 2024. In its year-end market overview, the Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA) tracked $7.86 billion…