Tech
Canadian tech’s lost generation
Plus: VC departures, political mudslinging, and a new centaur startup.
What a week. I’ve just returned from a very busy seven days in Vancouver, which hosted the Technology Impact Awards (TIAs), Frontier Summit, and our BetaKit Town Hall, among other events.
Locals Isabelle Kirkwood covered the Town Hall stage conversation for BetaKit, while James Matthews checked in with an audience eager to reconnect with each other. You can find the full fireside and AMA with Clio CEO Jack Newton on The BetaKit Podcast feed below, and next week we’ll have features on each of our Vantage Points panellists, including Jane App’s Alison Taylor, who revealed her company’s centaur status on our stage the day before winning a TIA.
My tenth anniversary at BetaKit coincided with the week of our Town Hall, and I’m forever grateful that someone from small-town Northern Ontario keeps getting asked to travel our country for pulse checks and pints (in that order, probably).
I am troubled, however, by the number of young people at BetaKit events forced to ask for support and mentorship. Last time it was Socratica’s Jocelyne Murphy, this time it was Vancouver.dev’s Toki Hossain and Atelier’s Scott Langille, the latter admitting at a private dinner the night before our Town Hall that he didn’t know there were local tech veterans willing to offer support.
The new entrants to Canadian tech don’t know the lore: the heartbreaks, headaches, victories, and defeats. They don’t know whom to listen to and whom to ignore.
As the editor-in-chief of a tech publication looking to report locally and connect nationally, this is an opportunity! As someone with 20-plus years in Canadian tech whose career was supported and propelled by the generation before me, this is unacceptable.
Canada faces many challenges that our nation’s youth are about to inherit. If we can’t get in the same room together to share stories, we risk Canada’s lost tech generation being the current one.
I’ll be thinking more about this and you might see some new things from BetaKit because of it. For now, if you have a Canadian Tech Heritage Moment™ worth sharing with a new generation, let me know.
Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief
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TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK
Jane App co-founder reveals company’s centaur status at BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver
At BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver, Jane App co-founder Alison Taylor casually revealed on stage that her clinic management software company has achieved $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
“I hadn’t actually really thought past that moment, and we just hit 100 million [ARR] this year,” Taylor said. “I’m like, ‘Oh okay, now what are we doing?’ Okay, let’s go to a billion.”
Brightspark closes latest early-stage VC fund at $100 million, appoints new BC partner
Montréal-based venture capital firm Brightspark Ventures has closed its latest fund for early-stage Canadian technology startups with over $100 million CAD in total commitments and added a new partner in Vancouver to capture more British Columbia deal flow.
With its newest fund, Brightspark plans to keep leading seed to Series A rounds for tech startups across Canada as it looks to hit more “home runs.”
Champagne, Conservatives point fingers as Canadian cleantech startups suffer continued SDTC funding delays
More than a year after the federal government suspended SDTC funding due to conflict of interest and governance issues, the cleantech investment agency is still not accepting new applications for project funding. In addition, despite SDTC having its funding capacity restored in June, some startups that have met their project milestones are still waiting for those funds to arrive.
Multiple Canadian cleantech investors and entrepreneurs have told BetaKit that these delays have put some startups SDTC had previously committed funding to in a tough spot. With those startups cutting staff and projects to reduce burn, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne traded barbs with Conservative counterparts last week as the arm’s-length foundation remains a political football.
Québec’s early-stage ecosystem eyes American investment amid fundraising woes
As a harsh fundraising landscape and a reliance on public funds plague the Québec startup ecosystem, founders and VCs are looking southward to find their footing.
That was one of the takeaways from a live podcast recording of the Flagship Podcast, hosted by Amiral Ventures at Espace CDPQ in Montréal on Oct. 10. Panels of general partners and founders dug into recent data on the state of Québec’s early-stage ecosystem, capped off by a talk with Tom Birch from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. From the presentation stage to the open bar, the thirst for capital from founders was palpable.
Panache Ventures partner Chris Neumann to depart, VC firm promotes Sarah Willson to principal
Vancouver-based Panache Ventures partner Chris Neumann plans to depart the early-stage Canadian venture capital firm at the end of 2024 to explore new opportunities. The firm also announced it had promoted Toronto-based associate Sarah Willson to principal.
In an interview with BetaKit, Neumann said the decision to depart was his own, and that he remains fully focused on Panache until the end of this year.
Plooto appoints John McLane as new CEO
Following previously unreported layoffs and significant leadership changes, including the departure of co-founder Hamed Abbasi, Toronto-based payments scaleup Plooto has found its next permanent CEO in John McLane.
With McLane in, Abbasi out, and a slew of other recent leadership departures and additions, including a recent workforce reduction, Plooto has taken significant steps to reshape its team in 2024.
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BETAKIT’S WEEKLY ROUNDUP
CAN – Applications open for $300M CAD federal AI programs aimed at SMBs
VAN – Top Down Ventures completes first close of $34M CAD fund
VAN – MyFO secures $4.8M CAD
VAN – Free Agent secures $500,000 CAD
VAN – Spark Real Estate Software acquires Juniper Homeowner Care
RCH – PacifiCan invests $4.7M CAD in two Richmond companies
PRC – Moment Energy awarded $28.1M CAD by US Department of Energy
CGY – PrairiesCan invests $13M CAD across eight Calgary companies
TOR – Phaseshift Technologies closes $4.1M CAD in seed financing
TOR – Parachute secures $1.5M CAD seed round
TOR – Thomson Reuters acquires New York-based Materia AI
MTL – Epitopea raises $43M CAD in pre-Series A funding
MTL – EnvisAGE invests $5M across 16 AgeTech projects
HFX – Planetary Technologies closes $15.8M CAD Series A round
STJ – Kraken Robotics raises $51.75M CAD bought deal public offering
The BetaKit Podcast
Clio’s Jack Newton can build another Shopify without building like Shopify
“Our DNA is Canadian, but if it’s going to help increase the odds that we can build a terrific company hiring out of the US or hiring elsewhere in Canada, we’ll do that in a heartbeat.”
Come for the fireside chat with Clio CEO and co-founder Jack Newton, recorded live at BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver. Stay for the AMA with BC tech leaders.
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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: Political mudslinging, zombie startups, and Clio’s CEO gets candid.
Take The BetaKit Quiz for Oct. 25, 2024.
Feature image courtesy Eric Ennis from Renovo Agency for BetaKit.
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