Tech
Meanwhile, in Canada
Plus: WonderFi CEO Dean Skurka unharmed after kidnapping incident.
The first and only time I’ve found myself part of a front-page story in The Globe and Mail was Monday, January 30, 2017.
It was the day after a small contingent came together over a weekend to draft and publish an open letter in rapid response to then-President Trump’s travel ban preventing citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. BetaKit published the open letter alongside 150 signatures late Sunday morning and it soon became international news; at final count, the letter was endorsed by over 3,500 signatories from more than 2,200 different companies.
The decision by our southern neighbours to re-elect Trump, now a convicted felon and civilly liable sexual abuser, has that moment in time running through my mind in a loop.
A lot has changed in almost eight intervening years: Prime Minister Trudeau has drastically reduced Canada’s immigration targets and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told media Thursday that plan won’t change despite President-Elect Trump’s promise of mass deportations. RIP #WelcomeToCanada alongside Twitter, I guess.
Speaking of Elon, both Eric Newcomer and Brian Merchant had very smart post-election takes on Silicon Valley’s slow transition to embracing Trump from 2016 to 2024. As Merchant put it, “In Trump, Silicon Valley got what it wanted: A president that will kneecap antitrust efforts, embrace deregulation, and defang labor laws.” It’s too soon to evaluate ROI, but early returns look good given (former VC!) JD Vance is willing to threaten NATO support if Europe regulates X.
Back to Canada. The open letter noted “As connected economies, decisions by the United States can directly impact every business north of the border,” but I’m not interested in talking tariffs right now. I’m much more focused on those signatories and the extent to which their opinions have changed over the last eight years, particularly as Canada approaches its own election.
I spoke with someone this week whose job is to walk Canada’s halls of power and ask for things. I can’t tell you how that’s going for them but I can share their opinion that we’re about to find out if Canadians actually believe the stories we tell ourselves. I find it hard to disagree.
It’s not 2017 anymore. That much must be clear by now.
Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief
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TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK
WonderFi CEO Dean Skurka kidnapped, released after reportedly paying $1-million ransom
Dean Skurka, president and CEO of Toronto-based cryptocurrency company WonderFi, was reportedly kidnapped and held for ransom in downtown Toronto this past week.
A Toronto Police Service spokesperson told BetaKit that police were called about a kidnapping in the area of University Ave. and Richmond St. W. just before 6 p.m. on Wednesday after suspects forced the victim into a vehicle and made a demand for money. The victim was later located in Centennial Park in Etobicoke uninjured.
Following the incident, Skurka took to LinkedIn to express gratitude for the support of the Toronto business community and offer reassurances that he was safe and doing well.
Meet Christopher Skeete, Québec’s new minister responsible for finishing Fitzgibbon’s work
Christopher Skeete took over the innovation portion of Pierre Fitzgibbon’s portfolio after Premier François Legault’s “super minister” resigned as Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy in September.
Skeete, a former entrepreneur in the healthcare space with six years of government experience, has inherited and is now responsible for a five-year, $7.5 billion CAD plan to lessen the productivity gap between Québec and Ontario, better commercialize research innovation, and develop a “scientific and innovation culture.”
In an interview with BetaKit, Skeete said that making provincial businesses competitive again in light of Canada’s lagging productivity is a matter of “existential” importance.
Citing national security risks, feds order shutdown of TikTok’s Canadian arm but forgo outright ban
The Government of Canada has ordered social media giant TikTok to wind up its operations in Canada, but refrained from banning use of the short-form video platform outright.
In a statement, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne indicated that with this move, the federal government aims to address “specific national security risks” related to the operations of TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance in Canada through TikTok Technology Canada. Champagne did not elaborate on the nature of these risks.
TikTok, which said the federal government’s decision will impact hundreds of jobs in Canada, plans to challenge this order in court.
Online legal database CanLII sues Caseway AI for copyright infringement
The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup Caseway AI, alleging Caseway violated its terms of use and infringed copyright by scraping 3.5 million records from CanLII’s database.
The institute is seeking an injunction to restrain the startup from reproducing the allegedly stolen work, as well as monetary damages.
Caseway founder and CEO Alistair Vigier rebutted CanLII’s claims in a statement to BetaKit, saying that the court documents Caseway is trained on are public record and that neither he, nor anyone at Caseway, has “seen or accepted” CanLII’s terms of use.
Aron Levitz named co-president of Wattpad as #CDNtech executive turnover continues through the fall
In the latest wave of leadership changes in Canada’s tech sector this year, Toronto-based Wattpad has found a new co-president in one of its long-time leaders: Aron Levitz.
Levitz joins from Wattpad Webtoon Studios—a division of Webtoon Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of South Korea-based conglomerate Naver Corporation—where he has served and will continue to serve as president. He will serve as co-president of Wattpad alongside KB Nam, and will report to Junkoo Kim, the founder and chief executive officer of Webtoon Entertainment.
Levitz’s appointment follows a season full of leadership change in Canada’s tech sector, continuing a trend seen throughout 2024.
Neo Financial snags top spot on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50
Deloitte has announced the 2024 winners of its Technology Fast 50, a list meant to highlight Canadian companies demonstrating rapid revenue growth.
Neo Financial took the top spot for the second year in a row, sporting a whopping 154,022 percent revenue growth between 2020 to 2023, more than nine times that of the runner-up PurposeMed.
Other recognized companies include UniUni, Relay, Nesto, ZayZoon, Showpass, Koho, Certn, and Plooto.
Cracking the code with AI
Earlier this year, Mantle faced a common challenge.
They had built the prototype in a specific coding language that was perfect for speedy interaction in response to feedback from customers.
The problem was that it was different from the code used in their production tech stack.
To ship the product, Mantle would need to convert the codebase from one language to another, an onerous task that is regularly faced by software teams and enterprises.
That’s when Mantle co-founder and CTO Dwayne Forde wondered if AI could help. A trusted industry leader with more than 20 years of engineering experience, Forde chronicled the process in a blog post he hopes will serve as a useful future resource to other tech teams.
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Funding, Acquisitions, and Layoffs
VAN/MTL – Well Health & Lightspeed report revenue milestones in earnings
CGY – Longbow Capital secures initial $150M for second energy transition fund
TOR – Workorb secures $2.6M CAD seed round
TOR – Reactiv secures $6.97M CAD seed round
TOR – MedEssist launches integration with Uber
TOR – Manzil expands to US through acquisition of Aghaz Investments
TOR – Exit North Ventures launches $20M CAD FinTech fund
The BetaKit Podcast
Addressing Canada’s speed of financial innovation
“Regrettably, I don’t think we’re very good, to be honest, at collaborating with FinTechs, or collaborating with the private sector more broadly on solving for policy issues.”
It’s a podcast double feature this week, with two conversations offering a pulse check on financial innovation in Canada. First: Koho’s Daniel Eberhard (CEO) and Peter Aceto (Chief Banking Officer) detail the process of becoming a licensed bank along with the benefits and risks. Second: leaders from Manzil (Mohamad Sawwaf) and Borrowell (Eva Wong) join the Department of Finance’s Julien Brazeau to discuss innovations focused on greater inclusion for Canada’s underbanked. Recorded live at Elevate Festival.
Take The BetaKit Quiz
Think you’re on top of Canadian tech and innovation news? Time to prove it. Introducing The BetaKit Quiz, a new weekly challenge dropping every Friday.
This week: TikTok Bans, CEO kidnappings, and Canadian tech’s Fast 50.
Take The BetaKit Quiz for Nov. 8, 2024.
Feature image courtesy Tom Carnegie via Unsplash.
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