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Canada’s AI godfather takes a shot at Sam Altman | BetaKit

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1 month ago

October 15, 2024

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Canada’s AI godfather takes a shot at Sam Altman | BetaKit

Plus: Think you know 🇨🇦 tech? Take the quiz.

Reporters spend a lot of time thinking about questions.

Actually, hold that thought and let’s take one step back: interviews with tech CEOs can sometimes be super awkward.

There are a variety of reasons for this: first-time founders stumbling through their first interview; repeat founders expertly Matrix-dodging all unwelcome topics of conversation in an effort to stay on message; embattled leaders presented with information or documents the reporter shouldn’t have, but somehow does.

I once had a bird defecate on my laptop from great heights in the middle of a video interview and forced myself to continue on like nothing happened, because I’m a professional.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of bad timing, like my fireside chat at Elevate two weeks ago with Lightspeed CEO Dax Dasilva. In the midst of a strategic review to reportedly explore a go-private sale, Lightspeed also happens to be in the midst of its quiet period, making sharing new opinions or information about the company effectively verboten.

Between me, Dax, and the SEC, I’m not sure who was more stressed about how it would turn out (probably me). In circumstances such as these, it pays to think a lot about questions. The ones you want to ask and the ones you think will garner a useful answer.

I’m happy to say I was able to glean some fresh details in my 20 minutes onstage with Dax. The results of that strategic review will be presented at Lightspeed’s capital markets day in November, featuring details on the company’s AI strategy, among other things (ahem). And despite potentially leaving the public markets for good, Lightspeed’s CEO encouraged other founders to take the plunge. “It was a graduation for the company to a whole other level of discipline and rigour,” he said of Lightspeed’s IPO.

We think a lot about questions at BetaKit. We think about them so much that we’ve launched a product that puts those questions to our readers in a (hopefully!) fun way. Introducing The BetaKit Quiz, released weekly on Fridays and designed to test your knowledge about Canadian tech so you can brag to your friends.

Give our first quiz a try and let me know your result. I’ll pass along all feedback and suggestions to our quizmaster.

Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief

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Diagram Ventures beats target to close first ClimateTech Fund at $80 million

Montréal-based venture builder and investor Diagram Ventures has fuelled up to expand beyond its FinTech roots with the final close of its first ClimateTech Fund.

Diagram reached its hard cap for the fund after securing $80 million CAD in commitments. With this final close, Diagram has surpassed its $60-million target despite a particularly tough venture capital (VC) fundraising market.

MaRS CEO lays out reset business model as innovation hub makes more cuts

As its new CEO continues to overhaul MaRS Discovery District’s operations, the Toronto-based innovation hub has made additional layoffs and revamped its advisory model.

After laying off 20 staff members in June 2024, predominantly at the leadership level, MaRS told BetaKit it had cut a further 11 people from its team, while moving eight of its advisors from employees to contract positions. These latest reductions bring MaRS Discovery District’s total headcount to 101 employees.

In an interview with BetaKit, MaRS CEO Alison Nankivell said the latest reductions are part of the innovation hub’s continued effort to reset its business model, which includes a target to achieve a 50/50 split between public and private funding “in the next few years.”

‘AI godfather’ Geoffrey Hinton co-wins 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics

Geoffrey Hinton has spent recent years warning against the potentially disastrous effects of artificial intelligence (AI) systems he helped create if left unchecked. Now, the life’s work that spawned his ‘godfather of AI’ nickname has resulted in a Nobel Prize in Physics, one of the most prestigious awards in the scientific field.

At the press conference, Hinton acknowledged several of his peers in Canada’s AI research community, including Yoshua Bengio, David Rumelhart, and his students.

“I was particularly fortunate to have many very clever students, much cleverer than me, who actually made things work,” Hinton said. “They’ve gone on to do great things. I’m particularly proud of the fact that one of my students fired Sam Altman.”

Government-backed Montréal innovation hub Ax-C gets boost from private sector

Québec’s forthcoming innovation hub has received a boost from four private sector companies to sustain its operations in the province until at least 2029.

Bell, Google Canada, Desjardins, and the Fonds de solidarité de Québec (FTQ) pledged a total of $5.25 million CAD to support Ax-C, an upcoming space in downtown Montréal that aims to foster entrepreneurship and innovation.

The funding comes in addition to the $48 million in public funding pledged by the governments of Canada, Québec, and the City of Montréal in March 2023.

An 82-acre medtech campus emerges in Vaughan

In a city less than 30 minutes away from Toronto’s downtown core is an 82-acre parcel of land that is not earmarked for new condos, but instead, a full ecosystem driving healthtech innovation.

The City of Vaughan has partnered with Mackenzie Health, York University, and ventureLAB to develop a destination for healthcare innovation called the Vaughan Healthcare Centre Precinct (VHCP).

Already home to Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital—Canada’s first smart hospital—the VHCP will convene partners across the healthcare sector to produce the next generation of healthcare practices, research, talent, and technology.

Toronto delivers for Uber’s tech team

In 2018, Uber expanded its small but growing presence in Toronto by creating a 20-person tech shop that operated out of a coworking space at Queen and Spadina.

Today, the tech hub is housed inside one of the top four floors of Uber Canada’s Toronto headquarters at 121 Bloor Street East, a WELL-certified workplace with the vibrant neon signage, kombucha on tap, and mini putt you’d expect at a modern tech company office.

It’s not your typical regional outpost. The tech shop was named in 2019 one of the company’s eleven global tech hubs, as part of $200-million investment in the Canadian market. With over 350 employees based at the headquarters, almost half are part of the tech hub. Five years later, one thing is clear—they’ve been busy.

Do you own your .CA domain? BetaKit didn’t

About a month ago, our CEO Siri Agrell typed BetaKit’s name into the address bar on her browser, and then added .CA.

It bounced to a newsletter sign-up for another company.

Like many startups and small businesses, BetaKit’s former leadership had originally opted for a .com website. But they had not secured the .CA top-level domain (TLD), and now someone else had.

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Funding, Acquisitions, and Layoffs

VAN – Indiegraf – $2.9M CAD
CGY – AtVenu – $178M CAD
CGY – Flora Fertility – $1.5M CAD
SASK – Rivercity Innovations – $2M CAD
TOR – Moselle – $2.1M CAD
TOR – Unified.to – $1.1M CAD
TOR – BlueCat Networks to acquire LiveAction

The BetaKit Podcast

Can Canada successfully scale AI companies?

“The development of AI is racing ahead from most large corporations’ ability to keep up with it. What does that mean? There’s a nice gap there. There’s a beautiful gap to create products and go fill that gap.”

Founders and government capital convene to discuss the go-to-market and scaling realities for AI companies in Canada. Featuring Dwayne Dulmage (BDC), Hongwei Liu (Mappedin), Sarah Legendre-Bilodeau (Videns Analytics), Sam Ramadori (BrainBox AI), and Pape Wade (Airudi). Recorded live at ALL IN in Montréal.

The Retail Payment Activities Act (RPAA) is coming into force. Get ready to submit your registration application November 1-15 to continue providing payment services in Canada.

Find out if you are a payment service provider subject to the RPAA, if you should apply to register with the Bank of Canada, and what the requirements are to prepare for registration.

Learn more about registration with the Bank of Canada.

Introducing 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: GreenSky milestones, Nobel godfathers, and a 600-pound beaver.

Take The BetaKit Quiz for Oct. 11, 2024.

Feature image courtesy Elevate.