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Despite everything that’s been thrown at Canadian startups over the last two years — supply chain disruptions, inflation, worker shortages — many ventures are continuing to grow at a rapid pace.
Working on everything from welding robots to brain-sensing meditation guides, tech entrepreneurs from across the country share how they’ve navigated hurdles and what they’re excited about next:
Jennifer Wagner is scaling a new, sustainable kind of concrete — using recycled CO2
Headquartered in Halifax, CarbonCure’s technologies are installed globally in more than 500 concrete plants worldwide.
Biggest challenge: “Climate change is a really big problem. And for us to tackle the problem, we need to work together, bring all of those intelligent minds together to think big. Canada understands that carbon removal is critical in order to meet our collective climate targets. Everyone has a role to play to help reduce and remove carbon dioxide as quickly as possible because time is running out.”
Proudest achievement: “Winning the Carbon XPrize was a really special moment. It showed that we have the right people, the right technologies and the right tools to tackle climate change.”
What keeps you going in the fight against carbon? “My biggest motivator is my kids. I want the next generation to have access to all of the wonderful things that we’ve had access to in this generation. And without taking action on climate change, that may not happen. The work that we’re doing here in Canada on reducing and removing carbon emissions will be critical to leaving the next generation in a much better place. This is important work. We all have a role to play, so let’s get it done.”
Keith McIntosh is training the next generation of tech workers
At PLATO Testing, McIntosh and his team are building a network of Indigenous software testers across the country.
Biggest challenge: The biggest challenge has been getting through COVID, but even more than that for us is achieving scale. Every day I get up and try to overcome that challenge by creating good meaningful work for employees by collaborating with corporate clients and partners. Tomorrow there will be new challenges, like branching into new lines or business and figuring out how we can further contribute to reconciliation, but that’s what makes each day different and gets you out of bed each morning ready to find new solutions.”
Latest development: “We are seeing corporations big and small realize that what we are doing is the right thing to do — both from the business side and on the social impact side. Every day we are talking with more and more clients who want to find a way to tackle the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action.”
Design flaw that is guaranteed to drive you up the wall: “Not leaving enough time for testing. Designers and developers spend so much time getting stuff created that testing falls by the wayside. This negatively affects the quality of the software and causes more headaches that could have been avoided if testing time had been scheduled earlier.”
Daniel Larsen is changing how we heat and our cool our homes
Larsen is the co-founder and chief product officer at Stash Energy, a Fredericton, N.B.–based venture that is developing a heat pump and energy storage solution for homes.
Biggest challenge: “Hardware companies often have specific challenges, such as managing international supply chains, continuous product development and raising capital — and COVID made all of this even more difficult.”
Latest development: We have six projects in Canada, three in New England and one in New York. We’ve also been working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory to develop a new storage material for our product that is focused on air-conditioning. Building strong relationships with our suppliers and our utility customers has been key for us.”
Best energy-saving tip: Improving the doors, windows and insulation is a great first step toward having an energy-efficient home.
David Roy-Guay is developing a new method of navigating the world
At SBQuantum, a venture based in Sherbrooke, Que., Roy-Guay and his team are working to improve navigation systems by building a space-ready quantum magnetometer.
Biggest challenge: “Our biggest challenge in deeptech is shifting away from a technology looking for a problem to a problem looking for a solution. We have spent hundreds of hours doing customer discovery from counting fish for aquaculture to magnetic navigation on other planets. By expanding our opportunity funnel, we’ve been able to think very differently from the conventional use of magnetometers.”
Latest development: “We’ve just started a new project with a number of Canadian institutions to shrink our Magnetic Intelligence system into a sensor the size of a coffee cup. This is particularly exciting as it would allow us to integrate with drones or other autonomous platforms. By providing simple magnetic interpretations to the users, we will expand the use of magnetometers across the defence, mining and space applications, so that these are no longer restricted to magnetics specialists.”
Heading into space: “We’ve partnered with Spire Federal to build the next-generation solution to monitoring the World Magnetic Model (WMM), the core reference point for navigation systems. If we can conquer space, surely nothing on this earth is beyond us!”
Michael McNaught is making it easier to hit the road
McNaught is the founder of Ottawa-based RVezy, a platform that makes it easier and cheaper to rent an RV.
Biggest challenge: “Prior to RVezy, private owners of RVs couldn’t rent out their vehicle without purchasing a very expensive commercial insurance policy. We decided to build a minimum viable product and present a business model to the insurance industry demonstrating the market need for an insurance product. After 14 long months, we were successful in co-creating an industry-first insurance product that would provide owners full insurance coverage when their RV was rented.”
Proudest achievement: “One of the most exciting things is watching the growth and success of the RV owners listed on the platform. We have watched their small businesses grow and expand to sizes we never thought possible — one owner started renting their personal RV and now has a fleet of over 30 units.”
Essential road-trip music: “I spent my summers as a youth as a canoe guide in Northern Ontario. I carried with me an old tape deck to enjoy some music along my route. Essential on every trip was Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon and Billy Joel.
Laura Zizzo is helping us navigate the climate transformation
Zizzo is the CEO and co-founder of Manifest Climate, a Bay Street software-as-a-service firm that scales climate insights across organizations.
Biggest challenge: “Bringing clarity through the noise. There’s a lot of different technology, we need to try a lot of different things to solve this crisis. Technology can help us to quickly curate that information, to empower decision makers in order to deal with many of the challenges that the world is facing, including climate change.”
Proudest achievement: “The kind of technology that we are super excited about is machine learning and AI. We are taking a different tech approach to understanding: how do you organize information? How do you add expertise through machine learning to really just go faster? And I think we have all the answers. What we need to do is empower decision makers to actually be accountable. And we can do that through technology, through sharing information and bringing more transparency to market decision makers.
Have you always been a climate advocate? “It’s really funny. I just came across my childhood journals — and I was talking when I was about 12 about the environment and thinking about this. It’s actually why I went to law school. So when I ended up on Bay Street, I was confused because our clients weren’t asking us the right questions. My bosses would say, “clients ask us our questions and then we answer them.” And I said, “that’s not going to work for me. We have to empower clients to know what questions to ask. So that’s why I started my own law firm, and it actually grew into a consulting firm, which is now scaling through technology with Manifest Climate.”
Derek Luke is guiding us to a calmer state of mind
Luke is the CEO of Toronto-based venture Muse, which has developed EEG-powered brain sensing headbands to deepen meditation practice and help guide users to sleep.
Biggest challenge: “Leading a team during the COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for many companies including here at Muse. The good news is that we were prepared. Prior to the pandemic, the team had invested in collaboration tools making the transfer to working at home very natural for most of us. Whether in an office or at home, what matters is that we have a healthy and engaged team that meets our business objectives. As a work culture, we place a lot of emphasis on making sure we stay connected as a cohesive team.”
Latest developments: “We’re working with research partners who are supporting our understanding of long-term changes in brain health and sleep as we age. A 2021 study led by Western University, Cambridge Brain Science, Hatch and Interaxon that used our Muse S EEG-sleep support technology noticed a 20 per cent improvement in the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index.”
How do you get revved up for a big meeting? “My strategy is simple and effective. It begins with ensuring I’m well prepped on the key objectives so I can help facilitate participation. After the meeting is over, I like to do a ‘check out’ with everyone to get a sense of how they are feeling and to ensure they were able to contribute their perspective. Having transparency and authenticity within our team is core to managing uncertainty.
Soroush Karimzadeh is building a new workforce
The Vancouver-based Novarc Technologies creates automated welding solutions — robots that can help welders with rudimentary tasks.
Biggest challenge: “The pandemic. However, by applying the processes and methods we learned during the earlier years of building Novarc — cash flow management, team building and finding new ways to do our business — we managed to move through the pandemic with no negative impact.”
Latest development: “Growth. Since the establishment of Novarc in 2012 with three founders, the company has grown to more than 50 team members, more than doubling the number of team members over the last two years. The Novarc team now consists of engineers, data scientists, software developers, welders and robotic engineers.”
Will we all have robot coworkers one day? “I predict this will happen within the decade. Shrinking numbers of skilled and semi-skilled workers, and the resulting pressure on labour costs have challenged many traditional industries to look for alternative solutions. We’ve seen the application of robotic technology spread from the more traditional applications in mechanical assembly to food and beverage, electronics, waste management and pharmaceuticals.”
Alastair Smith is getting us down the hill — faster
Based in Whitehorse, Proskida’s sport software helps alpine skiers improve their performance.
Biggest challenge: “Pivoting. We started in cross country skiing as a hardware startup. While the technology didn’t make it beyond a few early customers, it got us credibility in the world of elite sport. We were able to pivot to Protern.io, a software product. Shifting our mindset was one of the hardest things for us to do, but the outcome has been incredible.
Latest development: “We are seeing growth with new clubs and teams adopting our tool in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. And the software is working! Our elite customers have won over 150 World Cup medals plus seven medals at the last Olympics. However the most exciting part is expansion of our unique performance analysis software into the mass market endurance sports like cycling and running.”
Most underrated place in Canada for an active holiday? “Whitehorse, Yukon. We’re biased as we live here, but we’re surrounded by mountains and rivers. There are 85 km of world-class cross country ski trails that leave from the middle of town, and hundreds of kilometres of mountain biking trails and gravel biking routes. And when you are tired of that, you can hop in a packraft, canoe or kayak and hit some whitewater. The Yukon is an undiscovered gem.”
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