Feds Hand Out $8.5M for AI

The federal government on Tuesday announced more than $8.5 million in funding for 40 projects to support artificial intelligence adoption across Atlantic Canada.

“Artificial intelligence is one of the greatest economic opportunities of our time,” said Evan Solomon, Canada’s Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, who announced the funding during an event at Volta in Halifax. “These investments will help Atlantic Canadian businesses scale AI, boost productivity, expand exports, and create high-quality jobs.”

The funding, delivered through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, is designed to support small businesses using AI-powered sales tools to expand their customer base, rural industries adopting automation to improve productivity, and companies scaling AI systems for export and certification. It will also fund training and support programs to help workers build digital skills.

The federal government has committed $200 million over five years to the national AI initiative, delivered by regional development agencies to support sector-specific adoption in areas such as agriculture, health care, clean technology and manufacturing.

In Atlantic Canada, ACOA is delivering $15.7 million under the initiative.

The funding packages announced Tuesday, starting with projects funded through the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative, are:

 

Bulletproof Solutions ULC

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Engage expertise to enhance productivity through Artificial Intelligence integration 

Investment: $49,500 (non-repayable)

 

Université de Moncton – Campus de Shippagan

Shippagan, New Brunswick

Optimize production lines through AI and collaborative robotics

Investment: $93,000 (non-repayable)

 

CKF Incorporated

Hantsport, Nova Scotia

Execute training initiatives and launch business tools developed from AI strategies 

Investment: $124,500 (repayable)

 

Aucure Inc.

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Undertake market development activities to increase market awareness and accelerate growth

Investment: $75,000 (repayable)

 

Liquid Health Data Inc.

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Engage expertise to develop an AI-driven system for financial operations in healthcare

Investment: $50,000 (conditionally repayable)

 

LEXA Intelligence Corporation

Moncton, New Brunswick

Commercialize iOne technology to enter the physical security market

Investment: $250,000 (repayable)

 

HomeschoolToGo

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Commercialize an AI-powered platform for custom homeschool curricula 

Investment: $84,000 (non-repayable)

 

Canadian Black Women in Excellence Society

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Support business accelerator programs to equip Black women entrepreneurs with AI tools, business strategies, and mentorship

Investment: $60,750 (non-repayable)

 

Chick Pick

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Commercialize AI-powered chick sorting equipment 

Investment: $400,000 (non-repayable)

 

FLOQER Inc.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Scale its AI-powered sales platform, create jobs and achieve compliance to expand into new markets

Investment: $294,000 (repayable)

 

Volta Labs

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Foster AI and digital technology adoption in SMEs across the province, and create new business opportunities for regional AI Driven Enterprises (AIDEs) 

Investment: $557,000 (non-repayable)

 

Dalhousie University

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Support the AI2Market pilot program to train students in AI and entrepreneurship, turning ideas into companies

Investment: $200,000 (non-repayable)

 

trophi.ai

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Undertake marketing and product development activities to accelerate revenue growth 

Investment: $950,000 (repayable)

 

qualiTEAS Inc.

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Undertake commercialization activities to accelerate revenue growth 

Investment: $60,000 (conditionally repayable)

 

Université de Moncton

Moncton, New Brunswick

Encourage the adoption of artificial intelligence for small and medium-sized enterprises 

Investment: $1,820,000 (non-repayable)

 

Projects funded through ACOA’s Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program to support the adoption and development of generative AI applications:

 

Kardio Diagnostix Inc.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise for product development and market research to prepare for Health Canada and FDA approvals

Investment: $200,000 (repayable)

 

CKF Incorporated

Hantsport, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to evaluate operations, design and implement AI and digitization strategies

Investment: $100,000 (non-repayable)

 

Mariner Partners Inc.

Saint John, New Brunswick

Engage expertise to develop an AI-driven fault detection system 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Pluragon IT Inc.

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to develop and commercialize an AI-driven mobile app for grocery savings 

Investment: $49,500 (non-repayable)

 

Myomar Molecular Inc.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Engage senior software developer to build predictive analytics for clinical and market adoption

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

e-WorkSAFE

Saint John, New Brunswick

Engage expertise to develop AI roadmap 

Investment: $37,500 (non-repayable)

 

ResolveHD

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to develop a new AI-based product to expand into new markets 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Greenlight Analytical Inc.

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to enhance development of AI-based analytical model 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Expertise Hub Co-operative

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Implement phase I of a multi-phase immigration retention and mentorship initiative 

Investment: $131,250 (non-repayable)

 

ImmigrateAI Global

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to support development of AI-powered platform to simplify immigration applications 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick Inc.

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Host a NB Tourism Summit and deliver capacity-building training to operators 

Investment: $153,910 (non-repayable)

 

Bulletproof Solutions ULC

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Develop and commercialize a new AI-centric cybersecurity service offering 

Investment: $49,500 (non-repayable)

 

Innerlogic

Bedford, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to accelerate the adoption of its engagement and culture analytics platform 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Digital Nova Scotia

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Deliver Artificial Intelligence training and micro-credentialing program 

Investment: $387,000 (non-repayable)

 

TechImpact

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Support the InnovateNB Awards and the AI Conference Series 

Investment: $67,500 (non-repayable)

 

Easy Platter

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Engage expertise to launch a market-ready version of the platform powered by its AI assistant 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Food and Beverage Atlantic Association Inc.

Moncton, New Brunswick

Support high-impact AI workshops helping SMEs integrate AI into core operations

Investment: $88,108 (non-repayable)

 

L & A Metalworks Inc.

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Engage expertise to develop an AI-driven estimating engine 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Event Temple

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Assist company with product development and AI integration 

Investment: $367,500 (repayable)

 

Digital Nova Scotia

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Assist Nova Scotian SMEs with AI adoption and integration 

Investment: $200,000 (non-repayable)

 

CharliAI Inc.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Establish marketing and Artificial Intelligence hub 

Investment: $487,500 (repayable)

 

Spandrel Interactive

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Engage expertise of Artificial Intelligence specialist 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

AGADA Biosciences Inc.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Expand facility, acquire advanced lab equipment and create five jobs to develop new services 

Investment: $576,750 (repayable)

 

Wellfish Tech (Canada) Inc.

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

Engage expertise in AI training and validation 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

 

Quidi Vidi Brewing Company Ltd.

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Enhance Artificial Intelligence capabilities to boost productivity and growth 

Investment: $50,000 (non-repayable)

Clean Valley CIC Inks Six Contracts

The company has secured $2M in equity funding and $4M in venture debt.

With access to $6 million in capital, Clean Valley CIC has signed six contracts with oyster farming operations ranging from its home in Atlantic Canada to such far-flung markets as Portugal and Brunei.

Founded in 2018, Clean Valley has developed technology for growing algae in wastewater from land-based aquaculture pens. The algae can then be fed to oysters, after which the now-filtered water is circulated back into the pen. The algae- and oyster-growing systems are each housed in 20-foot shipping containers.

The company bills its technology as more sustainable than other water filtration methods, because its cyclical design does not rely on harsh chemicals and relies on processes that already occur in nature.

“The farmers need feed – you can't have a farm without it,” said Clean Valley CEO Nicholas LaValle in an interview. “And we were able to come up with a business plan through what's called hardware-as-a-service, where we're providing not only the technology but also a technician who is running that technology at an incremental monthly cost. It makes it a lot easier for farmers to essentially get a critical part of their supply chain without having to build a massive, million-dollar facility.”

Clean Valley is now working with clients not only in the Maritimes but also in Long Island, the U.K., Portugal and Brunei, and it is having discussions with potential clients in such countries as Indonesia and the Philippines.

LaValle is especially proud of the contract in Brunei, a small territory on the coast of Borneo in Southeast Asia. The Sultan and government of Brunei want to develop its blue economy so Clean Valley has been working with such groups as the Canadian Trade Commission and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of Brunei to build the country’s first oyster hatchery.

He is also proud that this company is help oyster farmers in the Maritimes at a time when their business is threatened by diseases. Last July, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed the presence of the highly damaging mollusc disease dermo in oysters from P.E.I.'s Egmont Bay. This came after another disease called MSX was detected in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island in 2024.

“The impact of MSX and Dermo have been incredibly detrimental to the oyster industry across the Maritimes,” said LaValle. “We're lucky to be working with groups like . . . Atlantic Aqua Farms to be combating this challenge and working with other institutions like Canada's Ocean Supercluster, Aqua Production Systems and IntegraSEE Research to make sure that we're able to come back from the spread of these terrible diseases.”
To finance this growth, the company has attracted equity investment of about $2 million, and leveraged that with access to $4 million in venture debt. LaValle said the equity investment allowed the company to develop and protect its intellectual property, while the loans will be used for operating capital as it executes on the contracts.  

For 2026, LaValle said the company is planning announcements around its carbon offset credit policies, working with a group called Carbon Asset in expanding into this area.

“We've been double-checking the science  . . . to be 100 percent certain that the product that we're going to be bringing to the market is not only solid but is also auditable and trustworthy,” said LaValle. “So we're really excited to be bringing that to the market.” 

 

Five Finalists Named for Breakthru

They will vie for $200K at the finals on March 19

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation has announced the five finalists for its breakthru pitch competition, which features a total prize pot of $200,000.

The New Brunswick government’s innovation agency announced last year it was resurrecting the Breakthru brand, which is designed to offer coaching and capital to the best new tech companies in the province. More than 80 teams entered the competition and the finalists were chosen from a group of 10 semi-finalists.

The process will conclude with the breakthru Live Finale at the Fredericton Convention Centre on March 19, which will bring together entrepreneurs, business leaders, and ecosystem partners from across the region. Tickets and event details are available here. 

“The breakthru pitch competition is about identifying companies with the potential to build globally competitive businesses from here in New Brunswick and connecting them with the capital and networks to do it,” said NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White in a statement. “This year’s finalists demonstrate the strength and ambition of New Brunswick founders. They are tackling real global challenges with scalable solutions.”

Each company will pitch to a live audience for the opportunity to secure equity investment from NBIF and accelerate their growth. The top three teams will enter due diligence with NBIF for an equity investment of $100,000 for the first prize and two second prizes worth $50,000 each.

The finalists are:

 • Hexoris (Founder: Lance Keddy) – Developing bio-sourced battery materials that replace oil-derived graphite, reducing carbon impact in electric vehicle supply chains.

 • Ozone (Founder: Michael Doiron) – Developing an intelligent robotic puck-passing system designed to transform hockey training and skill development.

 • Intralytix (Founder: Ethan MacLeod) – Creating advanced bridge weigh-in-motion technology to improve infrastructure monitoring and overweight enforcement with minimal installation.

• Urai AI Corp. (Founder: Shanthi Shanmugam) – Building a programmable, realtime voice AI platform that dramatically reduces deployment complexity and cost for enterprises.

 • Mulli Swing Solutions (Founder: Brycen Munroe) – Creating a smart golf grip with embedded sensors that provides real-time feedback to improve swing consistency.

 

Anessa Partners With French Energy Firms

The NB cleantech company has inked deals with TotalEnergies and CVE Biogaz.

Anessa CEO Amir Akbari

Anessa CEO Amir Akbari

Fredericton-based anessa, which makes software for the biogas industry, has announced partnerships with two major French energy companies, TotalEnergies and CVE Biogaz.

Founded in 2017 by chief executive Amir Akbari and chief technology officer Dr. Farough Motasemi, anessa develops software that supports biogas developers and operators from early-stage project assessment through to plant operations. Its platform enables companies to model proposed facilities, estimate costs and carbon impacts, and optimize performance once plants are running.

Under its agreement with TotalEnergies, anessa is providing software for a new internal digital solution known as Starck. The platform is designed to standardize how TotalEnergies evaluates, designs and optimizes biogas plants. By using an integrated software system, the French energy company aims to streamline development studies and apply a consistent methodology across projects.

Starck models biogas processes at a conceptual level and incorporates business and operational parameters, including cost estimates and carbon impact assessments. The companies said they intend to continue developing additional features for the platform as operational requirements evolve.

TotalEnergies is France’s largest energy company, operating in more than 120 countries and employing more than 100,000 people.

In a separate announcement, anessa said it has entered into a long-term strategic partnership with CVE Biogaz. Under that agreement, Anessa’s modelling and analytics platform will be deployed across CVE Biogaz’s existing and future facilities.

CVE Biogaz is a subsidiary of the CVE Group, an independent French renewable energy producer. The subsidiary operates 16 methanization units, with four additional sites under construction, and has close to 20 projects in development. It employs about 140 people and operates across the biowaste and biomethane value chain, from waste collection to gas production and the return of organic matter to soil.

Anessa’s software includes digital twin technology and AI-enabled optimization tools that allow operators to simulate plant performance, test scenarios and monitor assets in real time. Through the partnership, CVE Biogaz will use the platform to support project design, operational monitoring and performance optimization across its portfolio.

Both partnerships mark an expansion of anessa’s presence in the European market. The company said the collaborations are intended to support more efficient project development and plant operations through standardized modelling, data analysis and performance tracking tools.

 

 

Optiml Tops 2K customers, Aims for 5K

Users created their 100,000th financial plan using Optiml last month.

The Optiml Co-Founders: Max Jessome, left, Zac Davies and Alex Ingham.

The Optiml Co-Founders: Max Jessome, left, Zac Davies and Alex Ingham.

Halifax-based Optiml hit a significant milestone last month as the 100,000th financial plan was created using its platform, which automates retirement and estate planning.

Since it launched in September 2024, Optiml has attracted more than 2,000 customers, providing them with do-it-yourself financial planning software designed to offer more control and transparency over retirement and estate plans.

The platform allows users – primarily those approaching or already in retirement – to build detailed, tax-efficient strategies tailored to their goals, whether that means spending down their savings to zero, maximizing estate value, or carefully drawing from accounts such as RRSPs and TFSAs.

“We have well over 2,000 active customers right now,” said Co-Founder and CEO Zac Davies in an interview. “Of course we’re subscription-based so people come and go but right now we’re at more than 2,000 active users on Optml.”

He added that the big news for the company is that more people are coming to the platform because they want independence in their financial planning. The company aims to have 5,000 users by the end of the year.

Optiml, he said, was built around a simple idea: individuals have embraced self-directed platforms for investing or saving their money, and now they want the same autonomy when it comes to financial planning. Instead of relying on static PDF reports from advisors or juggling complex Excel spreadsheets, users can model unlimited “what-if” scenarios, stress-testing assumptions around inflation, retirement age, government benefits such as CPP and OAS, and market returns.

Optiml operates on a tiered subscription model. Its Essentials plan starts at $9.99 per month, while annual plans range up to $49.99 per month for people with more complex holdings.

Notably, Optiml has grown without raising significant equity investment, other than a small friends-and-family round. The company has relied on non-dilutive government funding programs, allowing Davies and his co-founders Maxwell Jessome and Alexander Ingham to preserve their holding in the company. Davies says the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has been a key factor in making that bootstrapped approach viable.

“AI has fundamentally changed how we build,” he said, noting that as much as 60 to 70 per cent of his workday now involves coding even though he’s not a programmer. The productivity gains have reduced the need to hire large development or marketing teams, preserving equity while accelerating product development.

Looking ahead, Optiml plans to launch a redesigned interface in 2026 featuring an integrated AI agent capable of interpreting users’ plans and answering plain-language questions about withdrawals, deposits, and government benefits timing. While the company is currently focused on Canada, it has ambitions to expand internationally and eventually integrate open banking to streamline onboarding and automatically import investment data.

“The big plan [for 2026] is just to continue to scale,” said Davies, adding that the team is working on new user interfaces and adding an AI agent that can actually see and interpret every user’s plan.

 

Ocean Idea Challenge Seeks Applicants

The Challenge Assesses Sustainable Ocean Solutions.

The Ocean Startup Project has opened applications for the 2026 Ocean Idea Challenge, a national early-stage three-month program that helps Canadians turn ideas into opportunities.

Selected teams can receive up to $8,000 and hands-on support to test assumptions through customer conversations.

“If you’ve got an ocean idea with potential, we’ll help you pressure-test it, sharpen it, and take your first real steps toward a venture,” said Natasha Legay, Challenge Director at the Ocean Startup Project, in a statement.

The Ocean Idea Challenge is designed for individuals and teams who are pre-company or very early-stage, including those who haven’t registered a business yet, or who have been incorporated for one year or less and are still validating. Applicants must be 18-plus and based in Canada.

To date, 54 teams have completed the program, with most continuing onto other OSP programming such as Lab2Market Oceans, Ocean Startup Challenge, Boost and Amplify, the group said.

In the coming weeks, OSP will roll out a series of statements that highlight priority needs and real-world opportunities across ocean sectors.

Key dates for the 2026 program include:

● March 12: English Program information session #1

● March 26: French Program information session

● March 31: Workshop: How to talk about your ocean tech

● April 8: Workshop - Overcoming a Customer Discovery Cold Start

● April 9: English Program information session #2

● April 12: Registration Deadline

Participant selection will take place in mid-to late-April, with programming following. Full details, including the program information package and registration, are available here.

The Ocean Startup Project is a national organization that supports the growth of Canada’s ocean innovation sector by connecting startups with industry, government and academic partners.

 

Founders/CEOs: Please Fill In our Survey

It takes five minutes at most, and is 100% confidential.

Now we’re into the new year, we’re ramping up our efforts to get startup CEOs to fill in our short, confidential survey.

We understand how busy everyone is so we hate to keep asking. But we also hear from a lot of founders that they appreciate our data report and promise to fill in the survey  . . . soon.

So we’re sure there are lots of founders who mean to get to it, but haven’t quite found the time yet.

If you’re a CEO, please take a few minutes now to complete the Entrevestor survey, which you can find by clicking on this image:

Each year, Entrevestor publishes the Atlantic Canada Startup Data report to give founders, investors and policy-makers the clearest picture possible of what is happening in Atlantic Canada’s innovation economy. Decision-makers read our report, so it’s vital that we get an accurate picture of how many companies are in the community.

While we hope all startup leaders will fill in the survey, we also hope people in BAIs will encourage the companies they work with to do so. It’s not good for anyone if we under-report how many companies are in the startup community.

We know CEOs are busy, so we keep our survey as short as possible. All the answers are 100 percent confidential, and you can skip any question you’re uncomfortable with.

We’re pushing hard this month to get as many survey responses as possible, and will soon begin contacting people directly. Please take just a few minutes to complete the survey so that all members of the ecosystem will understand the dynamics at work in our community.

Enactus Canada Regional Exposition Approaching

Participants will gather in Halifax on February 26 and 27

Halifax will see postsecondary entrepreneurs compete in the Enactus Atlantic Canada Regional Exposition this week. 

Competitors will include future social entrepreneurs from educational institutions from across the Atlantic provinces. Local business leaders will judge their presentations and help select the teams that will receive funding to further their projects and earn a spot to represent the region at the National Exposition in Montreal this May, the group said in a statement.

Enactus Canada is a charity that focuses on inspiring post-secondary students to initiate and operate socially and environmentally positive enterprises. Currently, more than 2,000 students at over 76 campuses across Canada are engaged in Enactus projects, the group has said.

This week's participants include:

*Spuds2Suds from the University of Prince Edward Island

▪ Resilient Youth from Acadia University

▪ Alaagi from Saint Mary’s University

▪ CapCycle from Nova Scotia Community College

The opening events will begin Thursday, between 5pm and 6pm.  Friday, 9:30am to noon, Enactus teams will present their projects in the Desjardins Community Empowerment Challenge and TD Entrepreneurship Challenge categories.

Between 1pm and 3:30pm, teams will present in the Innovation & Impact Challenge and Canadian Tire Environmental Sustainability Challenge. Between 5pm and 6pm, finalists will be announced and awarded. 

The event will occur at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront at 1991 Upper Water St. Register here.

 

techNL Seeks New CEO

Florian Villaumé will leave early in July and find a position within a tech company.

Florian Villaumé, retiring CEO of techNL

Florian Villaumé, retiring CEO of techNL

Florian Villaumé, CEO of industry association techNL for the last four years, has announced he is stepping down a year earlier than originally planned. The association is now seeking a new leader.

In a statement, techNL said that Villaumé has made a significant and lasting impact on the group and the broader ecosystem.

"My commitment has always been to leave techNL in a significantly stronger position than when I arrived—stronger in terms of impact and operations," Villaumé said in a LinkedIn post. "I also believe leadership renewal is healthy for organizations, and I have long viewed a five-year timeframe as an appropriate horizon for a CEO role in similar organizations."

The organization said Newfoundland and Labrador’s tech sector is experiencing momentum:

• Contributing more than $1.8B annually to the provincial economy

• Growing 24 per cent in less than a decade

• Accounting for nearly 80 per cent of Atlantic Canada’s investment deals in 2025, raising $295.5.

Villaumé said that in the last four years, techNL's achievements include delivering the largest project in techNL’s history, Find Your Future in Tech, training over 4,000 people across the province. It has also built the Co. Innovation Centre and the Tech Sector Group Health Plan has been launched, helping provincial startups access group health benefits.
 
Villaumé said he has identified a few priorities that he believes are important:

1. Launching defence-focused programming for local tech companies not yet active in the defence sector.

2. Creating a SaaS sales curriculum to address a recurring gap in the sector. 

 3. Piloting a relocation subsidy to increase the availability of senior talent locally, strengthening mentorship capacity for recent graduates entering the workforce, and deepening the roots of tech companies in the province.

Villaumé said these priorities do not require another 1.5 years to complete. He said he has spent almost four years at techNL and a total of 10 years supporting the creation and growth of tech companies in the province.

He said: "While I have deeply valued this work — and still do — I’m increasingly drawn to contributing from within a tech company, as another path to accelerate the growth of the NL tech sector."

 

Student Pitch Contest Returns to UNB

The competition is similar to an elevator pitch.

The J. Herbert Smith Centre at UNB Fredericton is seeking applicants for the RBC student pitching contest.

The finalists for the contest will have three minutes to pitch their idea to a panel of judges while vying for cash prizes.

The RBC Student Pitch Competition is an ideal setting to receive candid feedback, network with the business community, and brush up on presenting your business case in a succinct and compelling way, organizers said on LinkedIn.

The competition is open to any full-time university student with an interest in driving technological or social innovation. Entries may be submitted by individuals or by groups of up to four.  Applicants need to submit an executive summary (max. 500 words) as part of the registration.

The event will occur on March 16. Learn more and apply here.

 


 

Versos AI Launches Video Management Platform

The Saint John company also announced an investment from US partner CuriosityStream.

Saint John-based Versos AI has launched its Video Library Intelligence Platform, and announced its partnership with and strategic investment from CuriosityStream of Silver Springs, MD.

Founded in 2023 by serial entrepreneur Chris Keevill, Versos AI has developed its platform to help the owners of video content licence their libraries out to AI model trainers and hyperscalers. The goal is to produce a massive library of ethically sourced video that can be used to train AI models.

Versos already works with more than 20 studios and content owners across seven countries and represents over 1 million hours of professional video content. Its strategic relationship with CuriosityStream is a key milestone because the U.S. company already works with most of the largest AI model trainers and hyperscalers in the world.

“This is the validation of the ever-sought-after, so-called product-market fit,” said CEO Keevill in a phone interview from London, where he is attending the MIP London conference. “This platform solves a huge problem for the rights-holders.”

The Saint John company is at the centre of an industry that didn’t exist a year ago. The stampede of new AI-driven products is creating a huge demand for video content, needed to train artificial intelligence algorithms. Yet the common practice of “scraping” video content from the internet is resulting in a wave of litigation, in which the owners of the video rights are defending their intellectual property.

Keevill said end-users of AI-generated content are starting to demand that the content has been ethically sourced. The example he uses is the hypothetical instance of a global cosmetics company developing an ad campaign with an AI-generated video of a woman applying lipstick. The cosmetics company’s lawyers won’t sign off on the ads until they are satisfied the film has been ethically sourced.

That’s where Versos AI comes in.

The company has already signed up more than 20 rights-owners and is in discussions with about thirty others. These clients and potential clients, which hail from North America, China, the Middle East and Europe, are interested in using the Video Library Intelligence Platform to analyze, organize, package and deliver video data at scale, and establish a chain of custody for the content. Versos works with the suppliers of the content while its partner CuriosityStream – a Nasdaq-listed company founded by John Hendricks, who previously launched the Discovery Channel – sells the content on to the AI model trainers.

CuriosityStream has made a strategic investment in Versos – the amount is not being disclosed – on top of the $1.85 million seed round that Versos announced last month.

“We’re seeing extraordinary demand from major hyperscalers, AI innovators and tech leaders who recognize that high-quality, structured video and metadata are essential to training more capable, and context-rich models,” said CuriosityStream CEO Clint Stinchcomb in a statement. “Our extensive library, combined with the Versos AI best-in-class delivery and indexing capabilities, helps position CuriosityStream as the leading provider for next-generation AI models.”

Versos and CuriosityStream are attending MIP London, a leading TV market gathering, to launch the new platform. Keevill is speaking at the event, as is the head of Austin, Tx.-based Troveo, one of its major competitors.

Keevill said his company’s priority in 2026 will be to sign up more rights holders, and he will also be working on raising more capital, now that the investment from CuriosityStream is in the bank.

“This closes our seed round,” he said. “And like any good startup, the day after you close your seed round you start opening your series A and that’s where we’re going.”

 

Genesis Launches Build48

The aim is to take an idea to a working product in 48 hours.

St. John’s-based innovation hub Genesis is introducing Build48, a startup event where participants will take a problem to a launched product over two days.

Build48 is a hands-on experience focused entirely on execution, the group said in a press release. Participants will include students, early-stage founders, and professionals who want to see whether what they are working on shows the early signals needed to keep going.

Participants will work in short build-test cycles, talking to potential users, refining their product, and using AI and no-code tools to create a functional minimum viable product (MVP). No idea is required to attend. Work can be done solo or in teams, and both technical and non-technical builders are welcome.

Throughout the weekend, participants will have access to founders who have built and shipped products before, including Jan Mertlik, Co-Founder and CEO of Get Building, Dr. Nikitha Kendyala, Co-Founder and CEO of Nucliq Biologics, Nick Warren, Co-Founder and COO of GroundControl, and Johanna Brown, Founder and Principal of Rivet.

“The rules of startups have changed,” said Ed Martin, President and CEO of Genesis. “What used to take months and significant resources can now be explored in a single, focused weekend. Build48 is here to help aspiring founders get in motion. It’s practical, intense, and designed to help people learn what launching a startup actually involves.”

Genesis said it has supported more than 1,000 tech startups in Newfoundland and Labrador, experience that directly informs the structure and pace of Build48.

The event will take place March 28 to 29 at the Emera Innovation Exchange in the city.

For more information, click here.

 

ACOA Puts $4M into N.S. Defence Companies

The funds will assist with making critical technologies and equipment.

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) has announced funding of more than $4 million for nine Nova Scotia defence companies under the Regional Defence Investment Initiative.

The funds will assist with developing and manufacturing critical equipment and technologies, while creating 24 new jobs. 

With more than 200 firms in the defence industry, Atlantic Canada delivers advanced shipbuilding, aircraft and engine maintenance, sonar and acoustic systems, training and simulation, ground vehicle technologies and cyber resilience, ACOA said in a statement. The region is home to nearly 10,000 direct aerospace and defence jobs, representing 20 percent of national defence industry employment.

The $379.2 million Regional Defence Investment Initiative is a three-year project delivered by Canada’s Regional Development Agencies. The new announcement is part of ACOA’s $38.2 million allocation over three years.  The news builds on the $997,000 RDII funding recently announced for New Brunswick-based Vimy Forge, a new defence-focused accelerator.

The recipients of the new funds are:

Sensor Technology: $1,300,000; 

Mathers Logistics: $956,250;

Salient Energy: $843,531;

AML Oceanographic: $387,500;

GALAXIA Mission Systems: $218,750;

Marine Thinking: $179,836;

Atlantic Hardchrome: $50,000;

L & M Highland Outfitters: $50,000;

And Leeway Marine: $45,000.

All of the contributions are loans, except those to Atlantic Hardchrome and Leeway Marine, which received grants. 

 

VC Surged in Region in 2025, Says CVCA

The strong performance was driven by deals in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

Atlantic Canadian startups raised $348 million in venture capital in 2025, according to the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, driven by a strong fourth-quarter performance in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

It was the strongest annual Atlantic Canadian tally announced in this decade by the country’s private capital association, and a marked improvement from the $176 million reported by the CVCA last year.

It was no surprise that Newfoundland and Labrador recorded a strong performance with $163 million in funding in 2025, given the high-profile raises on The Rock last year. What was surprising was that Nova Scotian companies raised almost as much at $162 million.

A national surge in VC funding in the fourth quarter pushed Canadian VC funding for 2025 to a record $8 billion, driven by megadeals in major markets like Toronto and Vancouver. But the CVCA report also noted strong performance in smaller provinces.

“Across the country, notable activity . . . emerged in provinces such as Newfoundland and Labrador, which recorded the highest average deal size among provinces at $27.21 million, while Manitoba and Nova Scotia each posted record annual investment levels with $127 million and $162 million invested respectively,” said the report, issued today.

In an interview, the CVCA’s Director of Data and Product David Kornacki added: “We’re seeing a spread of the activity across all the provinces so it definitely is an exciting time, especially in the Atlantic Provinces. . . . Investors are investing all across Canada – they’re are not siloed in just these [major] centres any more.”

The annual total for Atlantic Canada was the strongest since St. John’s-based Verafin (now Nasdaq Verafin) booked a $505 million equity-and-debt funding round in 2019.

Atlantic Canada, like the rest of the country, saw a surge in funding in the fourth quarter. Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, Newfoundland reported $142 million across five deals; Nova Scotia $97 million across four deals; New Brunswick $10 million across seven deals; and Prince Edward Island a single funding round worth $2 million. (Entrevestor calculated the fourth-quarter figures by subtracting CVCA’s data for the first nine months from the full year’s totals.)

In Newfoundland and Labrador, CoLab Software in November announced a US$72 million Series C funding round, the largest VC financing in Atlantic Canada in the past two years. That announcement came weeks after Spellbook, which makes AI products for law firms, closed a US$50 million Series B round in October led by Khosla Ventures, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

The CVCA figures for Nova Scotia include GoodLeaf Farms, which raised $52 million in equity financing to expand its vertical farming operations in Western and Central Canada and establish a new R&D centre in Ontario. The company began life as Halifax-based TruLeaf and its largest shareholder now is understood to be McCain Foods.

Other major deals were the US$35 million Series D round booked by ABK Biomedical (see accompanying article) and the US$16.5 million round closed by Halifax-based medtech company Sound Blade Medical in only its second year.

On a national level, the CVCA reported 571 funding deals totalling $8 billion in 2025, and said there was a further $1.3 billion in secondary transactions (in which existing investors sell shares to another investor).

Almost half of the primary investments were booked in the fourth quarter, when there were 165 deals worth $3.8 billion. This included Canada’s first $1 billion funding round, reported by Toronto-based generative AI driving company Waabi.

 

 

 

ABK Closed US$35M Round Last Year

The money will support the development of a new product for liver cancer treatment.

ABK Biomedical late last year raised US$35 million (C$47.9 million) in a Series D financing round to support clinical trials, manufacturing expansion and development of a product to be used in treating liver cancer.

The Halifax-based medical device company said the oversubscribed round was led by J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital, investing in the company for the first time. Existing investors, including F-Prime Capital, Santé Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures and an undisclosed medical device company, also participated. (ABK put out a press release with little fanfare in October, and the deal came to Entrevestor’s attention only when the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association released its fourth-quarter data this week.)

A stalwart of the Halifax life sciences community, ABK Biomedical has been one of the most successful companies in the region at attracting venture capital. It previously closed rounds worth US$30 million in both 2022 and 2019, and C$9 million in 2017.

“We have been extremely impressed with the progress ABK Biomedical has made dating back to its Series B funding round in 2019,” said J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Managing Partner Joe Siletto in the press release. “ABK’s development of Eye90 microspheres has been recognized by the FDA as a Breakthrough Device Designation, having the potential to more effectively treat life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions.”

The Series D funding will primarily support ongoing clinical trials and manufacturing scale-up for the company’s Eye90 microspheres, a treatment designed for liver cancer. ABK Biomedical is currently conducting a pivotal clinical trial, known as Route90, to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the device. The product has received Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a status intended to speed development and review of technologies that could provide significant improvements over existing treatments.

Eye90 microspheres are tiny beads made from an inorganic material that can be seen clearly in medical imaging. They are delivered through a thin tube, or catheter, into blood vessels that feed a tumour in the liver. Once in place, the beads serve two purposes: they block the tumour’s blood supply and deliver radiation directly to cancer cells.

This approach, known as radioembolization, allows doctors to target tumours more precisely than conventional radiation therapy, which exposes larger areas of the body. By concentrating treatment within the tumour, the technique is intended to reduce damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

ABK Biomedical said the new funding will also help expand its manufacturing and supply chain operations in preparation for possible commercialization, depending on regulatory approval. Eye90 microspheres remain an investigational product and are not yet approved for general clinical use.

ABK was founded in 2012 by a team of Dalhousie University researchers Robert Abraham, MD, Daniel Boyd, and Sharon Kehoe. It now operates its own research, development and manufacturing facilities and holds intellectual property related to the microspheres and their delivery systems.

It is also the flagship for a cluster of companies associated with its founders that includes IR Scientific and ClearDynamic.

“Our ABK team is a best-in-class organization and continues to achieve our product development goals for our embolic platforms while executing our FDA IDE pivotal trial,” said CEO Mike Mangano. “Our Route90 PIs, investigators, and research support staff are conducting the study with exceptional rigor, in what we feel will be one of the most robust data sets ever completed within the Interventional Oncology subspecialty.”

 

 

Elle, MD Named CIX Startup Award Winner

The reproductive health company is developing a contraceptive.

Dr. Jennifer Johnston and Jeff White of NBIF last year.

Dr. Jennifer Johnston and Jeff White of NBIF last year.

New Minas, N.S.-based Elle, MD Biotechnologies has been recognized in the Emerging Category of the national CIX Startup Awards run by Toronto-based Elevate.

The awards are the largest national showcase of innovative tech companies, the group said in an announcement. Selected by a committee of more than 100 North American investors, the awards program is intended to bring promising startups at both early and growth stages to a global audience of active investors.

Headed by Dr. Jennifer Johnston, Elle, MD is developing a user-controlled contraceptive that’s free from pain, procedures, and hormones. Johnston, who founded the company in 2022, is a family physician and assistant professor at Dalhousie University School of Medicine.

This year’s CIX Startup Award winners represented various industries, including climate technology, renewable energy, medtech, fintech, e-commerce, security, big data, and software. Winners were selected from more than 370 applicants and reviewed by 94 leading North American investors, organizers said

In October last year, Elle, MD received a $100, 000 investment from Invest NS, matching an investment from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation earlier in the year. In 2024, the company participated in Creative Destruction Lab Atlantic. CDL is a nine-month, milestone-based accelerator that operates in six countries. The program, which does not charge founders a participation fee or take equity, is divided into a series of five meetings over nine months, with an emphasis on entrepreneurs setting and then meeting key growth objectives.

On March 25, the company will present at the CIX Summit at the Design Exchange in Toronto, connecting with 600-plus investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders from across the continent.

 

Applications Open for GreenShoots

The program offers up to $40,000 in non-repayable, non-dilutive funding.

Applications have opened for the six-month GreenShoots program, designed for high-potential, early-stage, knowledge-based ventures based in Nova Scotia.

The program seeks innovators in the areas of agriculture, agri-food, bioeconomy, cleantech and related technology. It supports companies with potential for export, climate impact, job creation and rural economic growth. Successful applicants receive up to $40,000 in non-repayable, non-dilutive funding and guidance from experienced professionals.

The program is delivered by Dartmouth-based Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub and Invest Nova Scotia. The Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub, formerly known as Nova Scotia Innovation Hub, was established in 2015 to support development of the province’s bioeconomy. Its work includes improving access to feedstocks, supporting collaboration, and providing financial and commercialization support to bio-based companies.

The application deadline is Monday, February 23 at 5pm..

See here for terms and application details.

 

Sustane Reveals Milestones

The company that diverts waste from landfill also named a new project director.

Marc Donaldson, project director at Sustane Technologies

Marc Donaldson, project director at Sustane Technologies

Chester, N.S.-based Sustane Technologies has announced major project milestones at its advanced recycling facility and welcomed Marc Donaldson as its new project director.

The company converts difficult-to-recycle plastics into valuable resources and is making progress toward expanded plastics recycling capacity and operational scale.

In a news release, the company said a milestone was reached in late 2025 with the delivery of the Quebec-based Pyrovac’s Pyrolysis Reactor (PR) to Sustane’s facility. The Pyrovac PR Line 1 system forms the backbone of Sustane’s advanced plastics recycling process, the company said.

The venture is also boosting its on-site capacity, including higher plastic intake, improved material handling, and safer storage. The upgrades will lead to a more than doubling of the capacity of the plant up to 14 tonnes per day of end-of-life waste plastics.

Sustane transforms unsorted waste into high-value products such as engineered plastics, renewable synthetic fuels, and recyclable materials. By diverting up to 90 per cent of waste from landfills, the company said it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. Pyrovac specializes in the development of advanced pyrolysis systems (the thermochemical decomposition of organic material without oxygen).. 

“Pyrovac’s deep scientific credibility and process engineering excellence make them the ideal long-term collaborator as together we expand our footprint nationally and ultimately globally.” said Peter Vinall, CEO of Sustane, in an earlier interview.

In July 2024, Sustane received a $950,000 funding package from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and used it to develop a system for converting plastic waste into naphtha — one of the constituents of gasoline and jet fuel. 

Sustane first began with technology developed by CTO Javier De La Fuente. He headed up the initial research in Spain to process landfill waste into biomass pellets with the help of steam. Then, in 2014, he launched the company in Nova Scotia with  Vinall and CFO Robert Richardson.

Sustane opened its manufacturing plant in 2019. Other than the naphtha fuel, the company also manufactures biomass pellets, synthetic diesel and an organic fertilizer for which it has received Canadian Food Inspection Agency approval. In 2024, it shipped its first naphtha to Europe.

Supporting the company’s growth, new project director Marc Donaldson  is the founder of Martech Energy and has led projects for organizations including Emera, Brookfield Infrastructure, Enbridge, Encana, and BP Canada.

“Marc’s experience in de-risking projects across the full lifecycle and aligning execution with strategic objectives strengthens our ability to deliver safely, predictably, and at scale,” said Peter Vinall, company CEO. “His leadership comes at a pivotal time as we move from construction into start-up.”

Modest Tree Lands $32M Contract

The Halifax company will design training systems for the Navy's new destroyers.

Halifax-based Modest Tree has been awarded a $32 million subcontract by Fleetway Inc. to develop training systems for the Royal Canadian Navy’s future River-class destroyers.

Modest Tree will deliver immersive training platforms built from validated digital ship design data and original equipment manufacturer documentation provided by Fleetway, which offers engineering and logistics support to Canada's shipbuilding program. The systems are intended to allow sailors to train on ship systems before the first River-class vessel enters service.

According to a statement releasedf by the companies Tuesday, the training platform will convert engineering models into interactive operational environments. The goal is to prepare crews for the transition from the current Halifax-class frigates to the new destroyers and to reduce risks associated with introducing the ships into service.

“As Canada builds its future fleet, we are building the training advantage alongside it,” said Modest Tree CEO Emily Smits in a statement. “We are transforming engineering design into operational readiness while creating high-value technology jobs here in Nova Scotia.”

The River-class destroyers are being built under Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy. Fleetway, which serves as Canada’s Design Agent for major combatants, is responsible for engineering authority and in-service support for the country’s frontline warships.

Modest Tree’s system will integrate validated design data and technical documentation across the destroyer program. Fleetway personnel will also be trained to manage lifecycle updates to the courseware so that training materials remain aligned with the ships’ configuration throughout construction and service.

John Newton, a retired rear-admiral and managing director of Fleetway, said generating training directly from digital ship design data is intended to shorten the learning curve for crews who will operate the new vessels.

Founded in 2011, Modest Tree develops 3D training and digital engineering systems for defence and industrial clients. Fleetway has supported Canada’s combat fleet for four decades, providing engineering services, system integration and in-service support.

The contract comes about as the Canadian government has announced strong increases in defence spending, and a range of startups are targeting the defence complex. Earlier this week, two New Brunswick startups – Seafarer AI and Vartis Space – were accepted into the inaugural cohort of Vimy Forge, a new defence-focused accelerator that has received $1 million in federal funding.

 

SMU Venture Capitalists Score Another Win

Halifax student VC teams have seen many successes.

SMU business professor Ellen Farrell

SMU business professor Ellen Farrell

The Sobey School of Business and the Venture Capital program at Saint Mary’s University have won the New England Venture Capital Investment Competition, marking the latest success for the Halifax university’s young venture capitalists.

VCIC is an international organization that trains student venture capitalists and hosts regional and international competitions.  This time, the undergraduate team of Lydia Ramsey, Matt Chapman, Katie Murray, Brennan Campbell and Vaishali Sandech took the New England Regional first prize. The SMU team beat out five other schools, including the Ivy League school Dartmouth College, which placed second. 

The Canadian version of the contest is run by the Venture Capital program at the Sobey School of Business at SMU.For both founders and young venture capitalists, the contest is a unique and challenging experience, said business professor Ellen Farrell in an earlier interview. 

Saint Mary’s students have had a lot of success in making venture capital investments, exits, and placing in the competition through their experience with their own VC fund, Venture Grade: Student Venture Capital Fund. In 2022 for example, SMU's graduate and undergrad teams won silver medals at the New England competition. 

Founded in 2016, Venture Grade is a VC fund raised and managed by graduate and undergraduate students at the university. The fund is connected to Silicon Valley’s C100 group, Boston’s Canadian Entrepreneurs in New England, and local VC funds like Invest Nova Scotia, Build Ventures, Concrete Ventures, Tidal, NBIF, and Island Capital Partners, Farrell said. 

Among the companies SMU students have invested in are regional ventures such as Aurea’s Shine, Ashored, Bright Breaks, and they have had a 2X exit for a 26 percent return on Trip Ninja.

The global finals of the latest contest will be held in April.


 

Vimy Forge Unveils First Cohort

The NB-based defence accelerator also received $1M from ACOA.

Two New Brunswick startups – Seafarer AI and Vartis Space – have been accepted into the inaugural cohort of Vimy Forge, a new defence-focused accelerator that has just received $1 million in federal funding.

The federal government issued a press release Monday announcing that the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) will provide $997,000 to the Fredericton-based accelerator through the government's Regional Defence Investment Initiative.

Recently launched, Vimy Forge targets early-stage Canadian startups developing technologies aligned with the priorities of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. The organization says its program is designed to help founders navigate defence-specific challenges such as capability development, procurement processes, compliance requirements, and long-term adoption within the military.

“Vimy Forge is answering a clear call to build more of Canada’s defence and security capability at home,” Duncan McSporran, founding partner at Vimy Forge Corp., said in the federal government’s statement. “By supporting Canadian innovators at the earliest stages, we are helping turn world-class ideas into deployable solutions that strengthen our sovereignty, reinforce our industrial base, and contribute to long-term economic resilience.”

The initial cohort – named Black Flight in honour of an all-Canadian squadron from the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War –includes the two New Brunswick companies as well as startups from British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

Based in Saint John, Seafarer AI uses advanced sensor networks, artificial intelligence and data analytics to enhance operations in such areas as port security, environmental monitoring, and maritime intelligence. Led by CEO Ian Wilms, the company was selected in September to lead a $964,000 Ocean Supercluster project focused on applying AI to port dredging.

Led by serial entrepreneur Norm Couturier, Vartis Space has developed a universal timekeeping system capable of synchronizing time on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere in space. The company, which is headquartered in Fredericton and Milton, Ont., says its mission is to deliver an inclusive and advanced interstellar timekeeping system for the global space community.

The Regional Defence Investment Initiative is designed to deliver $357.7 million to defence industries over three years through Canada’s regional development agencies, including ACOA. Of that total, $38.2 million will be allocated to the Atlantic Canadian agency.

 

 

Remsoft Acquires Brazilian Company

The purchase of INFLOR adds a forest management system to Remsoft's product list.

Fredericton-based Remsoft has acquired forest management software company INFLOR, adding a forest management system (FMS) to its portfolio of digital products for the forestry industry.

The companies announced the acquisition in a press release Friday but did not reveal the financial terms.

Remsoft, which provides planning, optimization and analytics software for the forestry sector, said the acquisition is intended to strengthen its forest intelligence platform by integrating forest asset management with higher-level planning and decision-making tools. Based in Brazil, INFLOR has more than 20 years of experience developing enterprise-grade systems used to manage forests, silviculture activities, certifications and regulatory compliance.

“INFLOR is a natural fit for Remsoft,” said Remsoft CEO Kevin Lim in the statement. “Their FMS is widely trusted for managing forest assets and compliance. By bringing INFLOR into Remsoft, we’re strengthening the foundation of our Forest Intelligence Platform and helping customers better connect forest management data with planning, decision-making, and stewardship.”

INFLOR’s software is widely used by forestry companies, landowners and institutional investors, particularly in Brazil and other parts of South America. Remsoft said the addition of INFLOR’s FMS will allow customers to manage operational forest data and long-term planning within a single, cloud-based platform.

Remsoft said the acquisition will give customers a consolidated view of forest operations, from inventory data and management plans through to forecasting and strategic planning. The combined platform is intended to improve transparency and reporting for certification and compliance, while supporting sustainable forest management objectives.

The deal also expands Remsoft’s presence in South America, where INFLOR has a strong customer base. Franc Roxo, general director of Remsoft Ltda., the company’s Brazilian subsidiary, said the acquisition builds on Remsoft’s existing operations in the region and creates opportunities to serve a broader range of forestry organizations.

Carlos Albuquerque, CEO of INFLOR, said joining Remsoft will allow the company to scale its software internationally and integrate forest management systems with advanced planning tools. INFLOR’s customers are primarily located in South America and Europe.

Remsoft operates globally, with customers across South America, North America, Europe and Australasia. The company said INFLOR will gain access to Remsoft’s global sales and support infrastructure, while Remsoft benefits from INFLOR’s specialized expertise in forest asset and compliance management.

Last March, Remsoft announced it had secured a strategic investment from Banneker Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm specializing in enterprise software. The investment strengthened Remsoft’s ability to scale and accelerate innovation, said the company. It also said at the time that it had acquired Lim Geomatics, a forestry software innovator specializing in geospatial and operational analytics.

Of the INFLOR acquisition, Banneker Operating Partner Steven Ballantyne said: “INFLOR strengthens Remsoft at the core of forest management and asset intelligence. Together, they offer global forestry organizations a complete, enterprise-ready forest intelligence solution.”

 

 

pHathom Closes $4M Seed Round

The company now has $12 million in committed capital for pilot projects.

Halifax-based pHathom Technologies has closed a $4 million seed round, which will help to finance pilot projects to validate its carbon capture technology.

The company, whose technology captures carbon from coastal bioenergy facilities, issued a press release Thursday saying Boston-based Propeller Ventures led the round. The other investors are the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Invest Nova Scotia and Carmeuse Ventures of Belgium.

“Reducing emissions from large facilities isn’t enough unless the solution is durable, verifiable, and responsible,” said pHathom CEO Dr. Kimberly Gilbert in the statement. “This investment allows us to demonstrate a bioenergy carbon capture pathway that works within existing infrastructure, meets high scientific and measurement standards, and can be governed using established regulatory frameworks.”

With the closing of this round, pHathom now has $12 million in committed capital. This pool of money includes funds received from: the Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Marine Storage Project supported by Canada’s Ocean Supercluster; a grant from the B.C.-based climate action fund NorthX; and a deal to remove carbon through Frontier, which signs carbon-capture agreements on behalf of leading tech companies.

Founded in 2024, pHathom has developed a process that uses seawater and limestone to capture CO2 at plants that produce energy by burning biomass. It converts the CO2 into dissolved inorganic carbon forms that already exist naturally in seawater. After treatment, the water is returned to the ocean under closely monitored conditions.

According to the company, the process is designed to achieve durable and verifiable carbon storage without relying on new pipelines, long-distance transport of carbon dioxide, or underground geological injection. The system operates within existing industrial sites and regulatory frameworks and does not involve direct intervention in the marine environment.

In an interview, Gilbert said the first pilot project will take place this year at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrew’s, N.B. The centre will conduct eco-toxicology tests on the water discharge to ensure it does no harm to 13 different marine species.

The second pilot will be about 10 times as large, and will take place at a community college in 2027.

Gilbert admitted the pHathom process is capital-intensive and that the company next year will begin work on a Series A round that it hopes will finance even larger projects.

Alastair Jarvis, pHathom’s vice-president of external affairs, said in the interview that the team is excited to hear Prime Minister Mark Carney talk of Canada as an energy superpower with a commitment to sustainability. What pHathom is focusing on is supplying the evidence that carbon capture is effective in supporting that goal.

“The [pHathom] team is addressing carbon removal with highly scalable, customer-first technology for durable carbon removal from existing emitters,” said Propeller Ventures Partner Steven Fox. “This financing positions pHathom well to serve initial partners, validate impact, and play a meaningful role in the carbon removal market.”

 

 

CVCA Head: Timing Perfect for Halifax Conference

Oceans, defence and dual-use companies will be key to the national discussion.

Benjamin Bergen, CEO of the CVCA

Benjamin Bergen, CEO of the CVCA

The timing is perfect for the Invest Canada Conference to land in Halifax, says Benjamin Bergen, because Atlantic Canada excels at enterprises that are front and centre in the national economic agenda.

The new CEO of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, which is hosting the conference in Halifax on May 26-28, says his organization is now studying ways to “recapitalize Canada”. It is part of the national effort to improve and diversify the economy, and key sectors in the nation-building initiative will include defence, dual-use enterprises and ocean technology – all of which are strengths in Atlantic Canada.

“The timing actually couldn’t be better for the region given the geopolitical reality the world now finds itself in,” said Bergen in an interview on Wednesday.

The CVCA announced last month that Bergen, who was then the President of the Council of Canadian Innovators, would succeed Kim Furlong as the top executive at the national association for private capital. Now 24 days into the job, Bergen is touring the country to solicit opinions on what the private equity and venture capital communities need to do to maximize the success of innovation-driven companies.

“We’re at a moment where we have to think of new strategies,” said Bergen. “The most exciting thing for me is, how do we recapitalize the country?”

He added that Canada has risen to such challenges before in its history. In the early years of the confederation, it found the financial and engineering capacity to build a transnational railroad. And in the 1980s, the country’s need for larger engineering concerns spawned the creation of such global companies as SNC-Lavalin (now AtkinsRéalis).

Asked what the conference will mean to founders in Atlantic Canada, Bergen said Invest Canada will bring together the leading investors in Canada and beyond, and they will see what’s going on in Atlantic Canada. The 2025 conference in Calgary was sold out and attracted 700 senior investment professionals. The 2026 conference will offer this group the chance to witness the unique organizations in the regional ecosystem, said Bergen, who began his university career at Dalhousie University before transferring to University of Toronto. For example, he said they’d learn about such “great facilities” as COVE, the Dartmouth-based oceantech hub that is one of the principal sponsors of the event.

For founders, he said, it will be a perfect opportunity to develop connections and mingle with leading investors.

 

Adaptiv Wins Top Prize at Spark Tank

The pitching event was hosted by the PEI IT Alliance

Bassam Kamal, a fourth-year computer science student at the University of Prince Edward Island, won first prize at the Spark Tank pitching event hosted by the PEI IT Alliance last week.

Kamal presented Adaptiv, an AI-driven fitness coaching app designed to adjust training and nutrition plans around real-life changes. Users enter personal metrics, goals, schedules, food preferences, and injury information, and the app generates a personalized but fully editable plan. When a user’s schedule or circumstances change, Adaptiv recalculates calorie targets and training volume for the rest of the week, explaining the changes and requiring user approval before adjustments are applied.

Several other early-stage founders and student entrepreneurs also pitched at the event, which is intended to showcase emerging technology ideas from across the Island’s tech community:

Wanhar Aziz presented VoteOn, a secure online voting platform aimed at student unions, clubs, nonprofits, and small organizations. The platform is designed to support elections, polls, and referendums with an emphasis on transparency and ease of use, without the cost or complexity associated with traditional voting systems.

Erin MacDonald pitched WellSpring Water, a platform focused on helping users better understand and manage drinking water quality. The app allows users to create profiles, receive reminders for water testing, view local water quality trends, and book verified testing and treatment services. It also connects users with educational resources and a community forum related to water safety and quality.

Bharani Ram introduced the PEI Solar Panel Advisor, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to assess the suitability of residential rooftops for solar energy. Users upload a photo of their roof and enter their address, and the system analyzes sunlight exposure, potential panel capacity, estimated costs, and projected break-even timelines based on local electricity rates and weather data.

Pravin Paudel presented Snapture, a tool that converts event posters into calendar entries using an image-recognition feature called SnapSense. The product is aimed at students and professionals who want to quickly save event details without manual data entry.

Japneet Kalkat pitched Trailflow, a logistics software platform designed to consolidate dispatching, tracking, communications, document management, and accounting into a single system for brokers, carriers, and drivers. Kalkat said the company has signed three early-adopter customers and is targeting logistics firms looking to scale operations without adding staff.

The Spark Tank event was hosted by the PEI IT Alliance, a member-based not-for-profit organization representing Prince Edward Island’s IT and technology community, including companies, startups, professionals, remote workers, and students.

 

 

Focus FS Launches $8m AI Project

The project will use AI to improve safety and efficiency in the offshore oil and gas sector.

Focus FS has launched a multi-year, $8 million artificial intelligence initiative aimed at improving safety and operational control in offshore oil and gas operations, with significant funding from the Hebron and Hibernia projects.

The St. John’s–based industrial software company said the two offshore oil and gas projects will each contribute more than $2.45 million toward the research and development of AI technologies, for a combined expenditure of more than $4.9 million. The program will focus on applying AI tools across offshore assets to reduce operational risk, limit downtime and improve decision-making.

According to Focus FS, the initiative will target areas such as safety reporting, asset performance and predictive modeling. The company plans to deliver the work in phases, beginning with AI-driven safety reporting before expanding into broader operational applications.

“Our AI strategy connects the promise of AI technology with the reality of operations,” said Focus FS CEO Jeff Brown in a statement. “We’re not just talking about what AI can do, we’re demonstrating how it delivers tangible improvements in safety and control. This project will look at embedding AI directly into workflows, helping organizations turn data into action and unlock new value from previous digital investments.”

A key component of the initiative is Focus FS’s proprietary AI platform, which is designed to operate within each customer’s dedicated cloud environment, said the statement. The company said this approach is intended to meet the data governance and security requirements of offshore operators, ensuring sensitive operational data remains under the control of asset owners. The platform includes a private large language model architecture that supports natural language processing and advanced analytics.

The initiative will also draw on historical operational data collected by offshore operators over many years. Focus FS said it will use that data to train AI models, with the aim of generating predictive insights and extending the value of earlier digitization efforts that may not have delivered clear returns at the time.

Focus FS specializes in asset safety systems for high-risk industries, including offshore oil and gas.

 

Seline Wins $8500 at UNB’s Apex Event

Seline won the undergrad stream and the financial model award.

Seline Founder Mary Goudy

Seline Founder Mary Goudy

Seline from Mount Allison University was the big winner last month at the BMO Apex Startup Challenge in Fredericton, taking home $8,500 in prizes.

The Apex event is an annual pitching competition hosted by the International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre at University of New Brunswick. Some 55 competitors from universities across Canada entered the competition to vie for $30,000 in cash prizes.

Led by Mary Goudy, Seline captured the $8,000 first prize in the undergraduate track at the competition, as well as the $500 prize for the Best Financial Model Award. The Mount A venture also took home the Venture Catalyst Award.

Seline aims to eliminate the guesswork in prescribing hormonal contraception by using multi-point hormonal testing across a full menstrual cycle to provide diagnostic data.

The other winners in the undergraduate stream were both from UNB: Hexoris won the second prize worth $4,000 and Niavra the $2,000 third prize.

In the graduate track, the $8,000 first prize was won by McMaster University’s Wonder Guard, which is developing technology to make urinary tract infections easier to detect. CELLECT Laboratories and JTCipher, both from University of Waterloo, won the $4,000 second prize and $2,000 third prize respectively.

CELLECT Labs also won $1,000 for the top elevator pitch. The $500 second place in the elevator pitch competition went to Is This A Scam from St. Francis Xavier University, while Safe Mail Inc. from UNB captured the $250 third prize.

The other prizes were:

  • Viewers’ Choice: Operio, Dalhousie University and Queen’s University ($250)
  • Entrepreneurial Powerhouse: GigLink, University of New Brunswick
  • McInnes Cooper Legal Services Package, Meshed, University of New Brunswick
  • Rising Star: Artemis, Nicole Vera, St. Thomas University
  • Startup Innovation: Operio

 

HCi3 Invests $1M in Oberland Agriscience

Oberland is aiming to close a round of $10 million.

Oberland Agriscience, the Halifax company that turns insect larvae into agricultural feed, has received a $1 million investment from HCi3 as part of a funding round with a target of $10 million.

HCi3, which is the investment subsidiary of Efficiency Nova Scotia, issued a press release this week saying the $1 million cheque represented the largest single investment it had ever made in a company.

The statement said the investment would support the biotech company’s move toward commercial-scale production.

Founded in 2017 by Dr. Greg Wanger, Oberland produces animal nutrition products and insect-derived fertilizer using black soldier fly larvae. Its products include protein ingredients for animal feed and frass, a fertilizer derived from insect production. Its animal nutrition customers include backyard poultry owners, aquaculture operators, livestock producers, and pet feed companies across North America.

The company has built and equipped a commercial-scale facility in Halifax and is ramping up production, with plans to reach full capacity this year. Frass produced at the facility is being introduced to garden centres under the 2nd Nature Plant Food brand.

Oberland’s production process uses organic waste as feedstock for the larvae. By controlling feed inputs and environmental conditions, the company manages nutrient content, growth rates, and fertilizer characteristics. The facility incorporates energy-efficiency measures, including heat capture and reuse from the larvae growth process, and diverts organic material that would otherwise go to landfill.

At full production, Oberland estimates its first plant will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 170,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year compared with conventional protein and fertilizer products.

In June, the company announced the appointment of Jon Getzinger as chief executive officer. Getzinger has more than three decades of experience in food, nutrition, and bio-based industries, largely in the U.S. Wanger has transitioned to chief technology officer and is focused on scaling production and product development.

By providing grants and equity investment, HCi3 aims to reduce CO2 emissions within Halifax and by Halifax companies. In 2023, the Province of Nova Scotia committed $7.5 million to the fund, whose full name is the Halifax Climate Investment, Innovation and Impact Fund

The provincial funding built on $18 million from the Government of Canada, provided through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund, which helped establish HCi3 as part of the Low Carbon Cities Canada network.

HCi3 began operations in 2021 and has completed two rounds of Accelerating to Zero grants, with 14 recipients named in the most recent round.

 

Lab2Market Ocean/Validate Cohort Revealed

18 Teams will tackle real-world ocean challenges.

The sixth cohort of the Lab2Market Oceans/Validate program is beginning work with 18 new teams that aim to tackle challenges in the blue economy.

The eight-week program, hosted by Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador and delivered by the Ocean Startup Project, is designed to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset among post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and faculty. Participants receive a $15,000 stipend for the program, which is part of the national Lab2Market network, the Ocean Startup Project said in a statement.

This year’s Lab2Market Oceans/Validate cohort has accepted teams looking at such nautical solutions as quieter ships, cleaner exhaust, self-powered ocean sensors, and smarter electrified ports. The participants will work full-time on customer discovery, interviewing potential users, buyers, partners, and decision-makers to clarify whether their technology can solve real-world problems.

“We’ve run this program enough times to know that customer discovery isn’t a box to check — it’s where teams either find the signal or save themselves months of building in the wrong direction,” said Paula Mendonça, Executive Director at the Ocean Startup Project.

“The goal isn’t just great science — it’s solutions that actually get used. Validate helps teams bridge that gap by learning what buyers, users, and partners truly need, and what it takes to earn trust and adoption in the ocean space.”

This year’s recruitment process attracted 39 applications from eight post-secondary institutions. The 18 teams selected represent five  provinces – Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. 

Launched in 2020, the accelerator has been recognized as one of the top five oceantech accelerators/incubators in North America and top 10 globally, according to Startup Genome’s report.

The teams are:

Ocean Monitoring, Sensing and Data Intelligence 

● EcoSense (Memorial University) — Developing self-powered marine monitoring devices using triboelectric nanogenerators and power management to harvest low-frequency energy from waves, wind, and currents.

● BlueWave RF (Memorial University) — Developing an AI-optimized RF energy harvesting and SWIPT platform to enable autonomous, battery-free marine IoT monitoring and communications.

● Deep Manthan (Dalhousie University) — Building a scalable AI platform that enhances selection, quality, and analysis of oceanographic datasets for climate.

Research, Marine Monitoring, and Offshore Operations

● COASTAIR (Memorial University) — Building an AI-powered drone platform using red-green-blue and hyperspectral imaging and computer vision to detect, classify, and quantify coastal pollution through rapid aerial surveys and automated analysis.

● FishNet Map (Memorial University) — Developing a real-time, interactive fishnet mapping pipeline/application for aquaculture planning, monitoring, and decision-making.

Cleaner Shipping, Ports and Marine Energy Systems

● OpTecMaritime - Operational & Optimization Technologies for Maritime Systems (Memorial University) — Developing a waste-heat-driven re-liquefaction and cold-energy recovery system to reduce boil-off gas losses and improve energy efficiency in LNG shipping.

● PORT-EM (Memorial University) — Developing a smart port energy platform that forecasts and optimizes electrified port demand alongside ocean renewable supply using machine learning and embedded control.

● HydroDynamiX (Memorial University) — Developing a high-efficiency DC-DC converter to enable scalable, reliable power delivery for marine renewable energy systems.

Advanced Manufacturing and Resilient Marine Supply Chains

● MARINA – Marine Additive Research for Innovation in Next-gen Applications (Memorial University) — Developing additively manufactured, durable, lightweight, anti-fouling ship components to improve efficiency, reduce fuel use, and minimize environmental impact.

● Maritech Additive Solutions Inc. (University of New Brunswick) — Developing next-generation marine impellers using advanced materials and additive manufacturing to boost efficiency, reduce maintenance, and extend operational life.

● AddManuChain (Dalhousie University) — Developing a digital inventory and on-site additive manufacturing solution that enables offshore operators to produce critical spare parts on demand and reduce downtime and logistics delays.

Emissions, Noise and Air Quality

● Quiecean (McGill University) — Developing a plasma-based device for marine transportation systems to reduce noise and filter chemical pollutants in exhaust gases. Security and resilient ocean infrastructure.

● BlueSec AI (Memorial University) — Developing an AI-driven cybersecurity platform to protect ocean-based critical infrastructure (including subsea cables, offshore energy systems, and smart ports) through real-time anomaly detection, digital twin simulations, and autonomous cyber response.

Carbon Removal and Climate Solutions

● Rift Technology (McMaster University) — Developing a scalable membrane-based system that removes atmospheric CO2 by enhancing ocean alkalinity while producing clean hydrogen.

● AquaCarbon (Memorial University) — Developing ocean-based carbon removal using Direct Ocean Electrocapture (DOE), combining metal-organic frameworks and electrochemical processes to capture CO2 from seawater.

Aquaculture, Biosecurity and Safer Ocean Operations

● O3Blue (Memorial University) — Developing a portable, tunable pulsed-power ozone generator for safer, on-site disinfection in aquaculture and marine applications.

Circular Ocean Economy and Sustainability

● NanoOcean (Memorial University) — Developing nanoparticles from seafood waste to support more sustainable environmental practices.

Well-being and Services in the Ocean Workforce

● Mission to Seafarers Newfoundland and Labrador (Memorial University) — Developing a hybrid welfare model that connects seafarers to support services through digital tools and on-the-ground programming.

 

 

Stroke of Luck: Tech for Stroke Survivors

The startup will soon begin clinical trials of its technology.

Steve MacDougall, Founder of Stroke of Luck

Steve MacDougall, Founder of Stroke of Luck

Halifax-based Stroke of Luck is focused on creating affordable, AI-powered hardware and software that offers home-based brain-training therapy for stroke patients. 

Founder Steve MacDougall himself suffered a stroke four years ago that affected his entire right side. He is still working to recover completely and has realized what he calls “a critical gap in accessible physiotherapy”. 

Therapy can be of limited and inconsistent quality, while high costs and a shortage of healthcare workers make occupational therapy and physiotherapy inaccessible for many, he told Entrevestor.

MacDougall is now adapting advanced technology he first used during his career as a mechanical engineer, to help patients re-train their brains at home. 

“Two years ago, along with a software developer, I began looking at using tools we were using as an engineering firm to help in stroke recovery.” 

He said that as an engineer he used virtual reality goggles in new plant construction. The goggles allow users to see what equipment will look like before it is built. The goggles are also used in gold exploration to indicate the location of gold seams subsurface.

“It’s been four years and a few months since my stroke and I’m still improving,” he said. 

His product is a handheld device containing a camera. It plugs into a monitor and allows the patient to do exercises that are analyzed by the system and replayed to the patient. The camera also allows physiotherapists to coach the patient remotely. 

MacDougall’s solution utilizes a series of proven clinical protocols that he used during his own rehab, together with AI enhanced assists coupled with record, playback and analysis of his exercises, he said.

“Basically, it fools the brain into thinking your affected arm is working fine,” MacDougall said. “I look at the monitor during my exercise and see that my right hand is working just fine. In reality, it’s not. My body is still suffering the effects of the stroke, but the innate neuroplasticity of the brain is rewiring itself, constructing new neural pathways and ultimately leading to the arm actually working fine.”

He said the feeling he gets from using the device is “kind of magic”. 

“I do the exercises every morning and throughout the course of my therapy I can actually feel the response of my arm and my leg improving.”

MacDougall said he is not aware of any similar competing devices and he is currently filing a U.S. patent for the technology. As well as focusing on starting clinical trials, the startup has also joined Charlottetown’s Emergence Bioscience Business Incubator.

So far, MacDougall has bootstrapped the venture but may raise funds after the technology has been derisked through further refinement.

“I am intrigued by the science but I’ve come to see that the road to success is probably longer than I expected,” he said. “I will look for non-diluting funding in time.”

On reflection, he thinks his stroke was likely caused by not taking care of himself. 

“I had stopped taking my blood pressure meds, I was travelling a lot for work in different time zones, I was eating out and developed some bad habits which resulted in increased high blood pressure,” he said. 

“I had to slow down, and it took the stroke to show me that. I could have died. Now, I use every opportunity to say to friends ‘The best way to recover from a stroke is not to have one.’ We all need to look at our lifestyle. Once a stroke happens it’s hard to go back, and if you are lucky enough to survive one, it’s a long road to recovery.

“Stroke of Luck is more to me than just a play on words.  I was lucky to survive the stroke, but I have been equally lucky in having to go through what is probably the biggest learning experience of my life.  The stroke inspired me to develop this technology which has helped me immensely. To be able to utilize this technology to try and improve people’s health and recovery is very meaningful for me. We are hoping to prove this device can do what we think it can and put it in the hands of people who can use it.”

 

NBIF Names 10 Breakthru Semi-Finalists

The winners, who will divide $200K, will be announced March 19.

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation has announced the 10 semi‑finalists for its Breakthru Startup Pitch Competition, which will conclude on the evening of March 19.

The New Brunswick government’s innovation agency announced last year it was resurrecting the Breakthru brand. The competition had been held every two years before the pandemic and was a major part of NBIF’s mission.

The revised edition of Breakthru offers a total prize pot of $200,000. The top three teams will enter due diligence with NBIF for an equity investment of $100,000 for the first prize and two second prizes worth $50,000 each. More than 80 early-stage teams entered the competition.

Here are the semi-finalists:

Clearance Central AI Solutions Inc. | Ashish Deshmukh

Clearance Central is on a mission to make life easier for students, newcomers, and everyday people – by uncovering hidden deals and opportunities that most never see.

Hexoris | Lance Keddy, Isaac Richard, Joshua James Pothier

Hexoris is developing a reactor process to create ultra-low-carbon-emission graphitized anode materials. These materials will help lower the carbon intensity of Li-ion batteries.

Infralytix | Ethan MacLeod, Jeremy J. Bowmaster

Infralytix has developed a Bridge Weigh-in-Motion (BWIM) platform that measures vehicle weights directly from bridge response, achieving less than 5 percent accuracy at highway speeds with minimal installation time. This patent-pending technology is validated across multiple New Brunswick highway sites.

InspecTrack | Kazi Mahfuz Mamtazur Rahman, Farhan Fatei Faheem

InspecTrack transforms home inspection through AI-powered computer vision, AR smart glasses, automated defect detection with instant repair cost estimation, and an integrated financial services marketplace.

LigandQI | Mostafa Javaheri Moghadam, Stijn De Baerdemacker

In the past year, Moghadam went through Lab2Market to explore a proposal to develop software that enhances computational drug design by providing quantum-level accuracy in ligand-receptor interactions.

Luvera AI | Tessa Tristianti

Luvera.ai is an AI visibility platform in the prototype stage, built to solve a major blind spot every business faces: the inability to see how often their brand is mentioned inside conversational AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini, and which competitors are appearing instead.

Mulli Swing Solutions| Brycen Munroe, Matt Ryan, Ethan Belliveau, Alex Khoshbakhtian

Fredericton-based Mulli Swing has developed sensors that attach to the grip of a golf club, producing data that helps golfers and their coaches analyze the player’s grip and swing.

Ozone | Michael Doiron, Nathaniel Dryden, Dominic Losier, Jake Profit

Hockey lacks modern, dynamic training technology, the team said Ozone addresses this gap with the PAPPI, an innovative puck-passing system capable of tracking players and delivering accurate, multi-puck passing drills that replicate real game scenarios.

Urai AI Corp. | Shanthi Shanmugam, Vagmi Mudumbai

The company is working on a developer-first platform to build natural voice agents with real-time, interruptible dialogue that talk and listen like humans.

VoltCube | RajyaLakshmi Kotamraju, Girish Babu Venkatappa, Srinivas Tangella

Voltcube delivers modular, AI-optimized microgrids combining solar, wind, battery storage, and atmospheric water generation that deploy in just weeks. Its plug-and-play system aims to achieve 90 percent renewable energy coverage with 30 percent cost savings versus grid power.

 

CORRECTION: An early version of this story said the awards ceremony would be live streamed. That is not the case. The awards ceremony will be a live, in-person event. 

 

 

 

 

Aruna Wins at Halifax Business Awards

The company was named the Innovative Company of the Year.

Dartmouth-based startup Aruna Revolution, which produces compostable hygiene products, was named Innovative Company of the Year at the 2026 Halifax Business Awards last week.

Led by CEO Rashmi Prakash, Aruna was selected from five innovation-driven finalists at the annual awards program hosted by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. The company focuses on reducing the environmental impact of traditional menstrual products, which contribute to landfill waste, water pollution and soil degradation.

Last year, Aruna won the $100,000 Impact Investment Prize at Startupfest 2025 in Montreal, and reached an investment agreement worth $300,000 when appearing on the CBC show Dragons' Den. At the time, the company highlighted the scale of the problem it is addressing, noting that roughly 20 billion menstrual products and their packaging are discarded in North American landfills each year.

The other finalists in the Innovative Company category in the Halifax awards were 3DBioFibR, Good Robot Brewing Company, Nova Graphene and Oberland Agriscience Inc.

The Halifax Business Awards recognize organizations and individuals across a range of sectors for business performance, leadership and community impact. Below is a list of winners and finalists announced at this year’s event.

New Business of the Year
Winner: Celebrate Your Curves Fashion
Finalists: AI-First Consulting; Halifax Tides FC; Jennifer Barnable (Sole Proprietor); Soberish Mocktail Shoppe

Small Business of the Year
Winner: One Day Affair
Finalists: Happily Hitched Halifax; IYALODE African Wholesale Market; Liquid Assets of Nova Scotia; uptreeHR Inc.

Not-for-Profit of the Year
Winner: Feed Nova Scotia
Finalists: DASC (Dartmouth Adult Services Centre); Habitat for Humanity Nova Scotia; Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia; TEAM Work Cooperative

Export Business of the Year
Winner: Maritimes Immigration Consulting
Finalists: Carson Exports; Kuehne+Nagel Canada Ltd.; Smart CoachÔ

Business of the Year
Winner: Halifax International Airport Authority
Finalists: EastPoint; Integrated Staffing; Parkwood Home Care; Remember When HealthCare

Business Leader of the Year
Winner: Lillian (Missy) Searl, Period Equity Alliance Society
Finalists: Bassima Jurdak, Access Language Services Inc.; Donna Williamson, Habitat for Humanity Nova Scotia; Bradley Farquhar, Purple Cow Internet; Shane Kennedy, SA Kennedy Financial Group Inc.

 

 

Pelorus Launches Venture NL III Funding Drive

The NL Government has already committed $15 million to the VC fund.

Pelorus Venture Capital has launched fundraising for its third Newfoundland and Labrador–focused venture capital fund, reportedly nailing down 40 percent of its $50 million target.

The St. John’s–based firm issued a press release Monday saying Venture NL III builds on the work of its previous two funds, the first of which launched in 2015.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is committing $15 million to the new fund, following up on its participation in the previous two funds, according to the statement. The Globe and Mail reported that Klister Credit Corp., an investment firm set up by Shopify investor John Phillips, is investing $5 million in the third fund. Pelorus has set a goal of $50 million for the new fund, said the Globe.

According to Pelorus, Venture NL I was a $14 million fund that returned $21 million to investors at the 10-year mark – or $1.50 for every dollar invested. Investors included the provincial government, angel investors and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

“The Pelorus VC fund is one of the most successful in the country and is a true demonstration of NL ingenuity and collaboration where innovators, investors and governments work together for the benefit of building the nation and the world’s most impactful companies,” said Pelorus Managing Partner Chris Moyer in a statement. “Our founders and the talent and skills growing here are world class innovators.”

According to Pelorus, the first two funds and related special purpose vehicles have invested $30.3 million in Newfoundland and Labrador–based companies. Sixteen companies have received backing, with 11 still active. The firm places the collective valuation of its active portfolio companies at $1.59 billion.

Pelorus’s portfolio includes two companies that closed mega-deals last year: CoLab Software raised US$72 million; and Spellbook closed a US$50 million round. Other portfolio companies include Sequence Bio, Sparrow BioAcoustics, BreatheSuite, Mantle, Verlo, Mysa, HeyOrca, SiftMed and Swiftsure. Clockwork Fox, another portfolio company, was acquired in 2021.

 

DeepSense Aims to Scale Nationally

Dal's AI initiative has already worked with applicants from six provinces, in several sectors.

The DeepSense team with Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston. Iaian Archibald is second from left.

The DeepSense team with Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston. Iaian Archibald is second from left.

DeepSense, Dalhousie University’s initiative to spread artificial intelligence through the broader community, is expanding its mission to the point where its Executive Director is talking about DeepSense 2.0.

In an interview last week, Iaian Archibald said the organization has already ventured beyond its original mission of working with oceantech companies and is targeting several sectors of the economy. It’s also broken out of the Atlantic Provinces and now has projects in six provinces, including British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

The intention, he said, is to continue to grow and help companies and organizations across the country adopt artificial intelligence in their operations.

“What 2.0 is is it’s moving us to scale into new sectors,” said Archibald. “Defence is an obvious one. We also seem to have an expertise in living and environmental systems, so agriculture is a natural area for us to get into. Natural resources is also an area because we have this deep expertise in living systems,  and . . . general environmental systems.”

DeepSense began six years ago when Andrew Rau-Chaplin, Dalhousie’s Dean of Computer Science, and some of his professors including Evangelos Milios wanted to export the AI expertise within the university into the broader business community. They formed DeepSense to encourage AI adoption within the oceans community under the leadership of Jennifer LaPlante, who is now Nova Scotia’s Deputy Minister of Cyber Security and Digital Solutions.

After LaPlante’s departure in 2023, the organization decided her successor would be Archibald, the Co-Founder and CEO of Swell Advantage, which had exited in 2021 in a sale to the American company Oasis Marinas Management. Under his leadership, DeepSense won the Tech For Good Award at Digital Nova Scotia’s 2025 Tech Forward Awards.

DeepSense works like this: a company, government agency or organization comes to DeepSense with a problem that it believes can be solved through artificial intelligence or machine learning. The organization works with them to refine the problem statement, and identify what form of AI would be best for them.

The discussion begins with two questions, said Archibald. First, what type of data does the applicant have? Whether it’s their own proprietary data, or data from a partner or public entity, it will be key to the type of system that’s developed. Second, what form of AI or machine learning is best suited to develop a model based on that data and end up with a functional system?

Once these details are nailed down, DeepSense brings in a computer science student for an intensive four-month internship to work with the applicant. The students are managed by the DeepSense staff with the goal of helping gain “outsized” expertise in developing AI-driven systems.  

Almost half the past interns are now working in industry in roles involving artificial intelligence, and about 20 percent of them are working for the companies they met through the DeepSense projects, the group said. Archibald hopes to raise that number to 40 percent.  

DeepSense has done a lot of work with small and medium-sized enterprises, largely because the organization’s AI supports require less time and money than those offered by enterprise providers. These SMEs include such Atlantic Canadian startups as Halifax-based Glas Ocean Electric, a maker of electric fishing boats, and Bedford-based Innovasea, which develops solutions for aquaculture and fish-tracking.

As DeepSense has expanded into new sectors and geographic regions, it has also begun working with other colleges and universities. Dal’s computer science faculty continues to be its main student pool, but it has also offered internships to students from Holland College in P.E.I., St. Mary’s University in Halifax, and Memorial University of Newfoundland.

The goal now, says Archibald, is to continue scaling so this becomes a truly pan-Canadian initiative.

“We’ve already got a track record of working across multiple education institutions, he said. “And we’ve already got a track record of delivering for companies across Canada. . . . What we’re looking to do now is grow this across Canada.”

 

Ocean Startup Project Names Amplify Winners

The winners of the second round include Lillianah Technologies of Nova Scotia

The Ocean Startup Project has named three winners – including Lillianah Technologies of Nova Scotia – in the latest round of its Amplify competition for early-stage oceantech companies.

The second round of Amplify funding supports startups working in clean energy, ocean data collection and waterway restoration. Each company can receive up to $25,000 to support pilot projects, customer demonstrations and early deployments.

The program is designed help startups validate their solutions with early customers and progress toward revenue, procurement and scale.

“Amplify is built for this pivotal stage, when breakthrough ocean technologies need more than capital alone,” said Executive Director Paula Mendonça in a statement. “By pairing targeted funding with a deeply connected national ecosystem, we help founders move from pilots to procurement, from validation to revenue, and from innovation to real-world impact.”

The new Amplify winners are:

· Lillianah Technologies – This company is focused on restoring polluted waterways using a proprietary biofiltration system based on diatoms, a type of microalgae. The system is designed to remove excess nitrogen, carbon and organic pollutants through a nature-based approach that requires relatively low capital investment and can be scaled for different environments.

· REPWR – Incorporated as Waabaag Energy Corp. in Ontario, REPWR is developing a modular solar energy system designed to be installed on shipping containers. The company’s container-based units are intended to provide renewable power for marine transportation and port logistics, offering a standardized system that can be rapidly deployed.

· Sailbotix – The British Columbia company is building compact autonomous vessels for offshore and nearshore ocean data collection. The company aims to make long-duration data gathering more accessible by reducing the cost and complexity associated with traditional ocean monitoring platforms.

With the addition of the three new companies, the Ocean Startup Project and its partners have now distributed $100,000 through the Amplify program, supporting a total of six Canadian ocean technology startups, the group said.

Amplify is structured to help companies move from research and development into early commercialization. In addition to funding, participating startups work with the Ocean Startup Project’s network of delivery partners to define and meet commercialization milestones, such as executing pilot projects, validating solutions with customers and preparing for deployment.

The Ocean Startup Project is a national organization that supports the growth of Canada’s ocean innovation sector by connecting startups with industry, government and academic partners.

 

·

WeyMedia Has Paid out $5.6M to Consumers

The Moncton fintech has pledged to raise that number to $100M in the long-term.

Stephen and Maria Weyman

Stephen and Maria Weyman

Moncton-based fintech company WeyMedia has paid out $5.6 million to Canadian consumers through its moneyGenius cash-back program and has set a long-term target of distributing $100 million.

The payouts were delivered through WeyMedia’s moneyGenius and creditcardGenius platforms, as well as its standalone GeniusCash mobile app. Funds were paid in cash, rather than points, using Interac e-transfer or PayPal, the company said.

“The future holds more offers, more ways to earn, and more cash back for Canadians over time,” said the company in a statement this week. “Our $100 million pledge is our commitment to keep growing what Canadians can earn through the GeniusCash program by expanding the offer lineup, improving the app, and helping you build your financial literacy.”

WeyMedia operates a portfolio of comparison and rewards platforms focused on personal finance, including banking, credit cards and other financial products. The company has positioned itself as an alternative to traditional points-based loyalty programs by offering direct cash rewards tied to financial product sign-ups, referrals and in-app activity.

The $5.6-million milestone reflects growth in both the number of participating users and the breadth of offers available through the company’s platforms. According to WeyMedia, cash-back payouts have been generated from a mix of bank account offers, credit card sign-ups, app-based promotions and ongoing usage rewards within the GeniusCash app.

The GeniusCash app includes a feature designed to help users optimize credit card rewards and earn additional cash back based on spending behaviour and engagement level. WeyMedia said the app also supports referrals and monthly rewards, which have contributed to the overall payout total.

WeyMedia was founded by the husband-and-wife team of Stephen and Maria Weyman in 2016 and has grown rapidly by combining content, comparison tools and performance-based partnerships with financial institutions. The company has previously said its revenue model is driven by referral fees from banks and other financial services providers when users open accounts or products through its platforms.

The success of the products became apparent in 2024 when WeyMedia was named to Deloitte’s prestigious Fast 50 for the first time, and to the Globe and Mail’s list of fastest-growing Canadian companies. According to Deloitte, WeyMedia was the 46th fastest-growing company in the country over the four-year period to 2023 with revenue growth of 431 percent.

The $100-million payout pledge represents a significant increase from current levels and would require sustained user growth and expanded partnerships. WeyMedia said it plans to reach the target by broadening the range of eligible offers, continuing to develop its app and increasing engagement across its platforms.

The company has not provided a timeline for reaching the $100-million mark, but described the pledge as a long-term commitment rather than a short-term goal.

Though it has not raised equity financing, WeyMedia employs more than 20 people and operates primarily out of Atlantic Canada, with Moncton as its headquarters. The company has previously indicated ambitions to scale nationally and deepen its role in Canada’s consumer finance ecosystem by simplifying financial decision-making and increasing transparency around financial products.

After Successful 2025, TechImpact Reveals Board

The group works to advance New Brunswick’s tech sector and digital economy.

2026 TechImpact Executive Committee

2026 TechImpact Executive Committee

Fredericton-based TechImpact has revealed its membership grew by 20 percent in 2025 and it expanded programs, platforms, and initiatives while strengthening its convenor role across the innovation ecosystem. 

Its Digital Boost 3.0 increased funding for 68 funded businesses and 30 solution providers delivering on cybersecurity, data, and AI projects, the group said in a press release. Its InnovateNB initiative has evolved into a year-round platform and audience that is focused on innovation across all industry sectors.

The group also launched the report Building NB’s Future – How a Thriving Tech Sector Can Lead the Way, which highlighted both challenges and opportunities for the tech ecosystem. CollabHub Atlantic, its online platform, saw expanded functionality, usage, and content, and a more than doubling of the talent pool on its JobHub platform.

In the year ahead, the group will focus on further expanding its membership and advance CollabHub Atlantic as an essential digital marketplace to drive a larger tech community and provide targeted digital skilling and transformation programming and events.

“We want to see companies buying NB technology solutions, hiring talent from New Brunswick and investing in New Brunswick companies… said Cathy Simpson, CEO of TechImpact. “New Brunswick innovation and creativity thrive when we bring the technology and business community together and we plan to scale to make that happen.”

The group has also revealed its new Board.

Nancy Butler, Vice President of Business Development at Mariner Innovations, has been appointed Chair. She is joined by Kumaran Thillainadarajah, Chief Technology Officer at SmartSkin Technologies, as Vice Chair.

Newly appointed directors include Glen Hicks, Co-Founder and Owner of Priority Pilot; Ryan Grant, Director of R&D at IGT as Secretary; Tony Sheehan, Co-Founder of NorthBound Advisory; and Donna Williston, Director of Alliances-ISV at Pythian.

Continuing directors include Scott MacIntosh, Co-founder of ClinicGlide; Luigi Benedecenti, Dean of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick; and Emilly Fraser, Chief Financial Officer at Beauceron Security, as Treasurer.

TechImpact expressed its gratitude to the outgoing Board directors. Monica Justason is concluding her term as Board Chair, alongside David Small as Board Secretary and Senthil Salvamani as Board Vice Chair. Their contributions have helped guide TechImpact through a period of growth, the group said.

"In the year ahead, TechImpact will focus on expanding its membership with a target of building an organization that serves all companies who see technology as key to innovation and growth," said TechImpact. "The organization will advance CollabHub Atlantic as an essential digital marketplace to drive a larger tech community, grow its membership impact and provide targeted digital skilling and transformation programming and events."  

 

 

Burgesson Leaving Tribe to Work with Feds

Savior Joseph will take over as Tribe Interim CEO.

Alfred Burgesson and Savior Joseph at the Tribe Leaders Summit 2023

Alfred Burgesson and Savior Joseph at the Tribe Leaders Summit 2023

Alfred Burgesson, CEO of Tribe Network, the Halifax hub that supports BIPOC entrepreneurs, is taking an immediate leave of absence to work with the federal government. 

In an email to Tribe members, the founder of Tribe said he has joined the Office of the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation as a Senior Advisor in Ottawa. The role of Interim CEO will be filled by Savior Joseph, who will also be Managing Partner of Tribe Ventures for the next year. Joseph became the organization's Founding Board Chair in 2021.

“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to build in five years, a thriving community where racialized people can pursue opportunities for professional development and growth,” Burgesson said.

“We’ve helped our members connect, learn and grow – they’ve created hundreds of jobs, raised millions in capital and have contributed to our local economies.”

Speaking of his new role, Burgesson said he has always had a passion for shaping public policy, and has been lucky to experience this through various roles, including: Special Assistant at the Assembly of First Nations, Project Lead at the Office of Senator Colin Deacon, Prime Minister’s Youth Advisory Council, Governor General’s Advisory Committee on Reconciliation, and a member of Nova Scotia’s Minimum Wage Committee.

“Right now, I feel a sense of duty to contribute to Building Canada Strong. The opportunity to join Minister Evan Solomon allows me to engage in key policy decisions and to help advance Canada’s ambitious plan for our future."

As founding Board Chair, Joseph has been closely involved in shaping the organization’s direction and impact. For the past five years, he has served as President and Board Member of a growth-stage company in the cannabis industry. He is a shareholder in multiple companies in the AI, health and executive coaching fields as well as an advocate for founders, especially those coming from communities that have been historically underrepresented.

He is also a mentor with the Creative Destruction Lab, taking part in Prime, Oceans and Defence streams. 

 

Future Ocean Foods Seeks Buyer

The Halifax-based association supports food innovators around the world.

Future Ocean Foods, a Halifax-based nonprofit that has positioned itself as a global hub for seafood and seaweed innovation, is seeking new leadership and may be open to acquisition, according to its founder and executive director, Marissa Bronfman.

Founded two years ago, Future Ocean Foods describes itself as the world’s first association dedicated exclusively to alternative seafood and seaweed. The organization brings together 53 member companies across 17 countries, spanning startups, scientists, investors and industry leaders working in plant-based, fermentation and cultivated seafood, as well as related health, wellness and materials sectors.

Bronfman said the organization has reached a point at which new stewardship could help it scale more rapidly. “We’ve built a trusted global network without external funding,” she said in an email. “Now we’re looking for the right steward for the next chapter.”

FOF operates as a turnkey platform, offering industry memberships, corporate sponsorships, global events and summits, data and market insights, and access to grants and partnerships tied to ocean conservation and climate initiatives. Its assets include an established brand and intellectual property, a website and communications infrastructure, an active LinkedIn presence, and a global member database with direct introductions across the blue economy ecosystem, Bronfman said.

While headquartered in Canada, FOF’s footprint is international. Eleven of its member companies are based across Canada, including Atlantic Canadian startups Infusd Nutrition,  Mara Renewables, Profillet and Smallfood. The remainder are spread across Europe, the United States and other global markets.

Bronfman said she has already had exploratory conversations with potential partners outside Canada, though she would welcome continued Canadian leadership.

In a recent LinkedIn post announcing the search, Bronfman outlined three potential categories of buyers or successors she believes would be a strong fit: a venture capital firm focused on the blue economy seeking differentiated deal flow; a company developing products in food, health, wellness or beauty; or a nonprofit or foundation working on ocean sustainability.

The organization’s valuation has been kept “thoughtful and accessible,” Bronfman said, to encourage a smooth transition for a mission-aligned partner. An acquirer would also have the option of assuming FOF’s Canadian nonprofit status and associated benefits.

Future Ocean Foods will continue operating during the transition period as discussions progress.

 

 

Home + Health Raising Funds for Care and Wellness Platform

The app links those needing care with service providers.

Home + Healthcare founders Matt Shaw, left, and Alan MacKeen

Home + Healthcare founders Matt Shaw, left, and Alan MacKeen

Halifax-based Home + Health has created an app to streamline the provision and receipt of healthcare and other services for seniors at home. The new company is now seeking financial investment and partners to refine its product and boost public awareness.

To date, the 18-month-old venture has been bootstrapped by founders Alan MacKeen, Managing Partner, and Principal Matt Shaw. The company was inspired by the experiences of Shaw and his siblings as they tried to provide care for their parents.

“Given the fact my parents’ one wish was to remain at home, we put together a program that allowed them to do just that, despite some complications,” Shaw, a long-time tech entrepreneur, told Entrevestor. 

“The logistics were very time-consuming. I thought that if we could bring qualified people together under one umbrella, it would simplify the process…The app allows for direct communication between family members, seniors, and providers.”

Shaw and MacKeen said their product is timely: within five years there will be more than 7 million Canadians aged over 65, and the Canadian home care market is valued at more than $25 billion. Around 95 percent of seniors would prefer to remain at home as they age rather than go into care, they said.

The founders have already launched the platform to service providers and will open it up to clients this week.

Providers with profiles on the site are not just care workers. They include those offering a range of services from gardening, to snow-shovelling and dog-walking.

“We wanted to try and look at all the moving pieces that keep someone at home,” explained Shaw.

The app is free to download and use. Providers undergo a robust vetting process before being permitted to upload their profile, the founders said.

“Trust is a huge component of this,” said Shaw. “All confirmations and arrangements are automated and payments to providers can be made with a digital wallet so users don’t have to enter their own credit card.”

Care workers set their own rates when they create their profile. Those with extra experience and qualifications, can charge a premium. The company makes money by adding an administrative fee to whatever the provider chooses to charge for their services. 

The system aims to give gig workers greater independence and flexibility in setting their own schedules. It also facilitates culturally appropriate care, allowing clients to receive care from people from similar backgrounds. Providers are covered by insurance while they are on site, and a referral bonus program allows providers who refer other quality workers to receive an ongoing referral income stream.

The founders say they do not know of a similar product in Canada. They say most of their competitors are using apps to manage bricks and mortar spaces, and the breadth of services they offer is unusual.

Currently, the company employs 3.5 people – the two founders, a tech partner, and part-time staff who vet providers’ credentials and references.

The founders plan to refine their product and business in Nova Scotia and then scale. The app allows for the geofencing of locations, so they are looking at a franchise model to move into larger cities across the country.

“All service providers are independent contractors so it’s about bringing the two sides together through the technology,” said MacKeen, who has more than 35 years experience in the healthcare industry. “It doesn’t require a robust staff to set up. It needs local advertising and partnerships. It’s a community-focused platform.”

The founders say the app could be useful to many people, including those seeking respite care, childcare, tutors, and post-op care.

“This is a true passion project for both of us,” said MacKeen. “Neither of us is that young. We joke that we are building this app for ourselves.”

 

 

Infusd Nutrition Signs New Partners

The company is focusing on improving the absorption and usability of nutrients.

Infusd Nutrition co-founders David Giffin, left, and Jack MacDonald

Infusd Nutrition co-founders David Giffin, left, and Jack MacDonald

Halifax-based supplement startup Infusd Nutrition has made more inroads in the food technology sector with new partnerships with Connecticut-based consumer-health company Blueroot Health and women's health company Fairhaven Health of Washington.

Founded in 2023 by lawyer Jack MacDonald and chemical engineer David Giffin, Infusd Nutrition is developing technology that makes fat-soluble nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids and certain vitamins, water soluble – a process that could improve the absorption and usability of nutrients in foods and beverages, the company has said. The company’s technology is based on intellectual property developed over five years through research at institutions including Dalhousie University.

Fairhaven Health has chosen Infusd’s 30 percent Algal DHA Powder for its Prenatal and Postnatal Multivitamin Essentials with DHA.
“We spent years searching for an algal-derived DHA Omega-3 powder with a neutral sensory impact…” said John P. Troup, Chief Science, Education, Quality & Regulatory Officer, in a statement. “Infusd’s algal-derived DHA Omega-3 powder allowed us to successfully launch our Fairhaven Health Pre- and Post-natal Multivitamin Essentials with DHA, and we’ve since moved on to co-developing new products.”

In June last year, Infusd announced it had closed an oversubscribed funding round of more than US$2 million (C$2.8 million). The investment round was led by NextGen Nutrition Investment Partners of France, with participation from Nourish Ventures, a unit of Griffith Foods of Toronto, and Agthia Ventures of Abu Dhabi. The company said the funding would support sales growth and continued product development.

Other recent recognitions include Innovator of the Year Award from Food and Beverage Atlantic. an organization that supports the region’s food and drink producers. In October last year, the company announced it had participated in the MISTA Growth Hack in San Francisco, where it showcased products co-developed with multinational partners Givaudan and Danone. The collaboration focused on demonstrating new approaches to functional food and beverage formulation, emphasizing nutrient density, improved taste, and clean labeling, the company said.

Infusd was also named to the Canadian Food Innovation Network’s Foodtech Frontier 25, a list recognizing the country’s most innovative emerging food technology companies.

 

Genesis Opens Applications for Evolve

The eight-week entrepreneurship program is for early-stage tech ventures

St. John’s-based innovation hub Genesis is seeking founders for its winter cohort of Evolve, a program designed to help early-stage entrepreneurs turn tech-driven ideas into viable businesses.

The upcoming cohort begins on January 29, offering founders a hybrid blend of hands-on workshops and mentorship, the group said in a statement.

The eight-week immersive program is designed for those who have identified a real problem and are ready to find out if their technology is a viable solution.

The program focuses on "learning by doing," guiding participants to validate their assumptions, conduct customer research, and utilize AI-powered tools to refine their concepts.

 The cost is $200 for the general public and free for Memorial University students.

Genesis said that, to date, it has supported over 1,000 tech startups, helped create nearly 3,200 jobs, and contributed more than $3.5 billion in economic impact to the province.

For more information or to submit an application, visit here.

 

 

 

Atlantic Fintech Inks US Partnership

The partnership aims to offer regional companies tailored financial solutions.

Moncton-based Atlantic Fintech has announced a strategic partnership with U.S.-based Wellesley Hills Financial to provide customized financial support to companies within the Atlantic Fintech Growth Network.

The collaboration aims to strengthen the region’s fintech ecosystem by offering tailored financial solutions that could include strategic investment, mergers and acquisitions guidance, or growth financing.

“Collaborations like this demonstrate the strength of our partnerships and the shared commitment to driving fintech excellence in Atlantic Canada,” Alicia Roisman Ismach, Head of Fintech at the group, said in a statement. “Wellesley Hills Financial’s experience and network will help extend the reach and capability of our Growth Network, creating real value for participating companies.”

Last September, Atlantic Fintech Growth Network was launched to drive the development and global competitiveness of fintech innovators across Atlantic Canada into international markets. The first step is helping growth-stage fintech firms establish themselves in the U.S.

Charles Potts, advisor at the Atlanta-based National Fintech Organization and former executive at the Independent Community Bankers of America, said at the time that the program addresses the challenges of international growth. “Expanding fintech innovation internationally requires not only market knowledge but also strong strategic partnerships and regulatory insight,” he said.

The Atlantic Fintech Growth Network is supported by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Invest Nova Scotia, and Opportunities New Brunswick, reflecting a regional effort to position Atlantic Canadian fintechs on a global stage.

 

Cape Breton Gains New Business Centre

The new centre sites stakeholders and services in one place.

Dilan Jaunky, CEO of Sevo Bioscience, speaks during the opening. (Province of Nova Scotia)

Dilan Jaunky, CEO of Sevo Bioscience, speaks during the opening. (Province of Nova Scotia)

The new Cape Breton Business Innovation Centre on George Street in Sydney is bringing key supports together in one location.

By bringing mentorship, programming and shared workspaces together under one roof, the centre helps startups and growing businesses reduce costs, connect with experienced business leaders, explore funding opportunities and focus more time and resources on growing their companies, the partners said in a statement.

“This hub is a game-changer for Cape Breton’s innovation ecosystem,” said Doug Jones, CEO of Ignite Atlantic. “By bringing together entrepreneurs, community champions and key partners under one roof, we’re creating a launchpad where ideas are transformed into thriving businesses.”

Nova Scotia’s Department of Growth and Development will provide $775,000 over three years to the Cape Breton Business Innovation Centre while the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), is providing non-repayable contributions of $405,000 to Ignite Atlantic and $153,700 to Volta toward programming and operations.
Ignite has hired a community navigator and an operations and event co-ordinator to support local engagement and programming, while Volta is providing strategic support to businesses. Both share space with the centre.

The space will also serve as a shared resource for other partners, including Invest Nova Scotia, ACOA, the Black Business Initiative, the Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development and Futurpreneur.

 



 

James Geneau Named Propel CEO

Born in NB, Geneau brings more than 25 years of tech experience to the role.

Propel CEO James Geneau

Propel CEO James Geneau

Regional virtual accelerator Propel has appointed longtime tech entrepreneur James Geneau as its new Chief Executive Officer, the organization announced Monday.

Geneau, who was born and raised in New Brunswick, succeeds Kathryn Lockhart, who left the role in late 2025 to lead the McKenna Institute at the University of New Brunswick. Lockhart had served as Propel’s CEO for more than five years, during which Propel focused on encouraging founders to find ways to win customers early rather than chart a path to investment.

In a press release, Propel said Geneau’s appointment reflects the organization’s commitment to deepening support for local entrepreneurs. It noted Geneau’s more than 25 years of experience helping founders and leadership teams build and scale technology-enabled companies in Canada and abroad.

“James brings the kind of global operating experience that matters to local founders who are scaling,” said Propel Chair Cathy Bennett in the statement. “He understands the realities of growth in the Canadian economy in 2026, the pressure founders face, and what it takes to build companies that endure. His leadership marks an important next chapter for Propel.”

Before joining Propel, Geneau’s career spanned senior operating roles and advisory work across software-as-a-service technology, financial technology, government technology and professional services sectors.

Geneau has held senior roles including chief marketing officer at PSD Citywide Inc., where he led go-to-market strategy and team building, and executive advisor roles supporting marketing and growth initiatives for organizations such as VidCruiter in Moncton. His background also includes leading global marketing teams and strategic initiatives for technology firms with international reach, the release said.

His work has involved brand strategy, product marketing, sales enablement and customer success, as well as forging strategic partnerships and expanding market presence. He has experience working with both early-stage startups and established technology organizations.

Propel’s virtual accelerator programs aim to help founders validate business models, refine sales strategies and scale their ventures. The organization has supported hundreds of startups and contributed to job creation and investment growth across the region.

With Geneau at the helm, Propel says it plans to reinforce its focus on helping Atlantic Canadian founders build durable, globally competitive companies that generate long-term economic impact. The organization said it will share additional strategic priorities in the coming weeks.

“As someone who has spent decades working alongside founders, I’ve seen how transformative the right support can be at the right time,” said Geneau. “Propel plays a critical role in helping entrepreneurs across Atlantic Canada find clarity, momentum, and confidence as they scale. I’m looking forward to working with founders, partners and the broader ecosystem to help build companies that can compete globally.”

 

 

Community Invited to BMO Apex Startup Challenge

The events will see 24 teams from UNB and across Canada compete for up to $30,000 in cash awards.

University of New Brunswick in Fredericton is preparing to host 24 teams of student entrepreneurs on Jan. 22 and 23 for the BMO Apex Startup Challenge.

The Challenge invites student entrepreneurs from across North America to compete for the chance to win $30,000 in prizes, organizers said in a statement.

The experience offers:

  • Pre-competition mentorship on pitching and networking;
  • Live practice rounds with experienced coaches;
  • Minimum of three opportunities to present per team;
  • And networking opportunities with investors.

Organizers are inviting the public to two events. The first is the Elevator Pitch Competition and Networking Reception, which will see the student teams pitch their businesses in a lightning pitch competition -- each team has one minute to sell their idea to the judging panel. The event will be held Thursday, Jan. 22 from 5 to 7:30pm at startup hub Planet Hatch.

Please RSVP by Jan. 20.

The Apex Reception and Awards Ceremony will be held Jan. 23 between 4 and 5:30 pm at the Wu Conference Centre at UNB.

Please RSVP by Jan. 20.

 

 


 

Invest NS Seeks Accelerate Applicants

The program now has separate streams for early-stage and scaling companies.

Applications are now open for the first 2026 cohort of Invest Nova Scotia’s Accelerate program, which aims to help support the growth of Nova Scotia startups.

The program has been restructured for 2026 to include two distinct streams aligned with different stages of company development. The Growth Stream is intended for startups that are already in market and focused on scaling revenue, expanding market share, and strengthening traction. This stream is expected to attract companies working in areas such as artificial intelligence and advanced software.

The Development Stream is designed for earlier-stage ventures operating in complex or highly regulated markets, or those developing hardware-intensive products. It targets deep-tech companies and other startups that are still finding their product-market fit.

Companies accepted into either stream will receive $30,000 in non-dilutive funding, mentorship from experienced advisers, and access to workshops and business resources.

The application deadline for the 2026 cohort is Feb. 3, 2026. Additional information and application details are available here.

 

 

 

Dal Innovates Seeks Program Applicants

Applications for Collide Launch and Lab2Market Launch must be in by Jan. 18.

Dal Innovates is accepting applicants for its Collide Launch and Lab2Market Launch programs, which are designed to help student founders and university-based research teams advance early-stage ventures. The deadline is Jan. 18.

The four-month accelerators provide weekly online training sessions focused on venture development, along with one-on-one mentorship from industry professionals. Participants also take part in a simulated “Board of Directors” process intended to introduce real-world accountability and decision-making structures common in growing companies.

The programs, open to teams from across Atlantic Canada, emphasize practical support rather than classroom instruction. In addition to structured programming, participants gain access to a regional network of entrepreneurs, investors, and innovation leaders. Dal Innovates says these connections are intended to help teams validate ideas, refine business models, and prepare for future funding or commercialization opportunities.

Selected teams may receive up to $10,000 in non-dilutive funding to support venture development during the program. The funding can be used for expenses such as customer discovery, product development, or market testing.

Questions related to the program can be directed to Lab2Market Launch Manager Jessie Furze (JFurze@dal.ca) or Collide Launch Manager Shivani Madhavan (Shivani.Madhavan@dal.ca), who are overseeing the current intake.

Propel Names 10 Traction & Growth Grads

The seven-month program is designed for growing companies.

Atlantic Canada's virtual accelerator Propel has announced the 10 companies graduating from its most recent Traction & Growth cohort, its program designed for later-stage companies with demonstrated traction.

Traction & Growth is designed to help founders accelerate revenue, refine strategy, and prepare for their next phase of growth, the group said in a statement.

“Propel helped bring real discipline to how I was building Weevva,” said Matt Creese, Founder and CEO of Weevva, the Newfoundland and Labrador startup that helps landlords and tenants manage rentals.

“The coaching pushed me to slow down, validate my assumptions, and stay focused on the real problems Weevva’s customers are trying to solve, rather than trying to be everything at once. That clarity helped me double down on the features that truly matter.”

Propel offers programming and coaching for pre-revenue and revenue generating companies. Last year Propel celebrated its 20th year of supporting startups.

The new graduating companies include:

AgroGene Solutions (New Brunswick) - An agritech company developing advanced genetic solutions to improve crop productivity and sustainability through comprehensive honeybee hive diagnostics. AgroGene Founder Pascale Michaud was also named “Emerging Innovator” at this year’s InnovateNB awards.

atlantiq AI Automation Solutions  (Newfoundland and Labrador) - Through an AI platform for ship design teams, AtlantiqAI helps marine vessel design/engineering firms compress project timelines, reduce rework, bid on more projects, and scale quality assurance/quality control activities.

Bubbles Haircare for Kids (New Brunswick) - Bubbles Haircare for Kids is a children’s hair salon designed to make haircuts fun for kids and easy for parents through thoughtful design, skilled stylists, and an exceptional customer experience.

CakeyHand Dessert Factory  (Newfoundland and Labrador) - A specialty dessert company offering handcrafted baked goods with a focus on quality, creativity, and memorable experiences.

Dispension Industries (Nova Scotia) - A technology company delivering automated dispensing solutions designed to improve accuracy, safety, and efficiency across industries.

ImmigrateAI Global (Nova Scotia) - An AI-driven platform simplifying immigration processes by providing accessible, data-informed guidance for newcomers and professionals.

NutraForge Technologies (Newfoundland and Labrador) – A health and nutrition technology company developing innovative solutions to support wellness and performance.

Stellar Futures (Nova Scotia) – Stellar Futures is a technology platform that uses environmental data to improve proactive public alerting and climate-risk analytics.

SudDrop Laundry (Nova Scotia) – A consumer services company offering convenient, on-demand laundry solutions designed for modern lifestyles.

Weevva Systems (Newfoundland and Labrador) – A software company building systems to help organizations better manage operations, data, and decision-making.

 

Happy Holidays to all our Readers

We'd like to wish all our readers a happy holidays, and to say we hope you thrive in the new year. 

We’re putting down the phones and shutting down the laptops for a few days, as we do every year at this time. We will begin reporting news again on Jan. 6.

It's been a busy year so we hope you're able to put your feet up and relax for a few days, and enjoy some time with friends and family. 

See you in 2026.

Peter and Carol Moreira

SimplyCast Launches Smart City Product

Working with U Regina, the company has developed a system to improve garbage collection.

Dartmouth-based SimplyCast has partnered with the University of Regina to develop a smart waste management system aimed at reducing waste overflow and improving the efficiency of municipal waste collection.

The automation company said the project was developed in collaboration with the university through Mitacs, a national nonprofit that supports research and innovation partnerships between industry and academia. The work focuses on using data, automation and communication tools to address pressures on urban waste infrastructure.

The prototype was designed with the City of Regina in mind and models how intelligent automation could be applied to municipal waste operations. According to SimplyCast, early analysis of the system suggests it could reduce waste overflow events by 50 per cent, cut missed waste pickups by 72.7 percent, lower fuel consumption by 15.5 percent and improve bin utilization efficiency by 35.5 percent.

“Helping Canadian students gain real-world experience has always been a cornerstone of SimplyCast,” said SimplyCast President and CEO Saeed El-Darahali in a statement. “Year after year, students we work with return to SimplyCast because they understand the impact our platform can have on communities. This Smart Waste Management initiative is another powerful example of how automation can be applied to real-world challenges faced by cities today.”

The company said the improvements could lead to cleaner streets, reduced leakage of waste into landfills and waterways, and lower operating costs for municipalities.

The academic research component of the project was led by a team at the University of Regina’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. Associate professor Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan supervised the work, which examined how predictive analytics, data-driven decision-making and adaptive communication tools could be used to improve waste collection outcomes.

Khan said the project provided hands-on experience for graduate student Abu Uddin while supporting Regina’s long-term sustainability objectives.

“This project not only supports Regina’s long-term sustainability goals but also provides valuable practical experience in developing smart city solutions that are scalable and socially impactful,” Khan said.

While the prototype was developed with Regina as the initial focus, SimplyCast said the system is designed to be scalable and could be adapted for use by other municipalities in Canada and elsewhere.

SimplyCast provides no-code automation and engagement software to governments, businesses and nonprofit organizations across multiple sectors.

 

Potential Motors Sells its Core Technology

CEO Sam Poirier says the buyer is a global manufacturer.

Potential Motors Founder and CEO Sam Poirier

Potential Motors Founder and CEO Sam Poirier

Fredericton-based Potential Motors, which developed next-generation controls for electric off-road vehicles, has sold its core technology and intellectual property to “a leading global manufacturer”.

Founder and CEO Sam Poirier posted on LinkedIn over the weekend that the deal has taken place, though no other details were immediately available.

“Our journey began with converting vehicles to electric, evolved into launching our own off-road EV, and culminated in the development of our proprietary Terrain Intelligence technology,” wrote Poirier. “Building Potential has been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my life. I am incredibly grateful that our innovations are landing with a partner capable of deploying them at scale.”

The Potential Motors team set out in 2018 to convert conventional internal-combustion vehicles into those powered by electricity. Before long, it pivoted to install sensors in electric vehicles and develop software that could react to specific conditions to improve performance and safety. The company’s technology combined computer vision, AI models and software engineering so vehicles could assess the terrain and conditions and automatically take the needed actions.

Three years ago, the company unveiled its own off-road EV, which it had planned to sell.

Along the way, the team attracted impressive backers. Its advisers included two co-founders of the iconic New Brunswick tech company Radian6, Marcel LeBrun and Chris Newton. As well as regional funds like New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and Build Ventures, its investors included TIME Ventures, the personal investment fund of Salesforce founder Marc Benioff.

 A year ago, Poirier was named to Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 list. For the past year, he has been helping out at UNB’s J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology, Management and Entrepreneurship as an entrepreneur-in-residence.

As for his own future, Poirier said in his post: “I am going to take a breath and start thinking about the next challenge.”

 

SnapTrade Partners with Nasdaq-Listed Webull

The alliance will allow investors to view their whole portfolio on a single platform.

Fredericton-based fintech company SnapTrade has partnered with online investment platform Webull to allow investors to view their portfolios all-at-once on one app.

SnapTrade said it has integrated with Webull’s application programming interface, or API, enabling users of SnapTrade-connected apps to view their investment portfolios and execute trades in real time. Previously, many of these apps were limited to read-only access to brokerage data.

Under the agreement, developers using SnapTrade’s platform can embed Webull trading functionality directly into their applications, allowing investors to buy and sell securities without leaving the app they are using. The companies said the goal is to reduce friction caused by switching between multiple platforms and logins.

"We've always believed in empowering investors with the best possible tools," said SnapTrade CEO Brendan Wood in a statement. "Through this integration with Webull's innovative trading API, we're moving beyond simple account aggregation into a new era of frictionless trading. Users of our partner apps can now perform trades in real time, manage their portfolios with greater visibility, and tap into analytical tools historically reserved for professional traders."

Webull Group President and U.S. CEO Anthony Denier said the partnership expands access to Webull’s trading technology through SnapTrade’s network of fintech applications.

SnapTrade said the Webull integration supports use cases such as automated investing tools, portfolio analytics, education features and real-time options insights delivered through third-party apps. For brokerage partners, the company said embedded trading can lead to higher account activity.

In October 2025, SnapTrade reported that its platform facilitated data access for more than 1 million investment accounts, representing about US$40 billion in connected assets. During the same period, the platform executed about 330,000 options contracts, which the company said reflected a compound monthly growth rate of 120 percent.

Webull, which trades on the Nasdaq, operates a global digital investment platform offering self-directed trading across stocks, options, futures and other assets.

A member of Atlantic Fintech, SnapTrade provides infrastructure that allows developers to connect consumer-facing apps to brokerage data and trading systems through a single integration.

 

Digital NS, Life Sciences NS Sign MOU

The agreement aims to accelerate digital health and life sciences innovation.

Digital Nova Scotia and Life Sciences Nova Scotia have signed an MOU to further integrate their sectors in the province.

The new partnership will connect innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers and industry leaders across sectors to drive opportunities for commercialization, talent development and economic growth, Life Sciences NS said in a statement.

The MOU formalizes a shared commitment between DNS (Nova Scotia’s industry association for the technology sector) and LSNS (the province’s champion for health and life sciences) to work together to strengthen the province’s innovation pipeline and support member organizations, the group said..

“Nova Scotia has all the ingredients to be a global leader in digital health—world-class research, ambitious entrepreneurs and a collaborative community,” said Owen Sagness, CEO of Digital Nova Scotia.

“By working more closely with Life Sciences Nova Scotia, we’re creating a stronger bridge between the tech and life sciences sectors so innovators can scale faster and deliver real-world health impact.”

Added Krista Bezanson, Vice President, Business Development and Strategy at Life Sciences Nova Scotia:“By joining forces with Digital Nova Scotia, we’re unlocking new pathways for emerging companies to turn research breakthroughs into real-world solutions …” 

The partnership will focus on sharing knowledge and resources, engaging the startup community to identify opportunities and challenges, and co-delivering workshops, training, and events that build sector capacity. The two groups will also explore ways to support innovation projects and entrepreneurial ventures with real-world health impact, while pursuing emerging research opportunities that accelerate commercialization.

 

Four NS Startups Named to GreenShoots

The life sciences companies will each receive grants of up to $40,000.

Four Nova Scotia startups have been selected to participate in the first GreenShoots 2025–2026 cohort, a six-month program that provides funding along with business and technical support.

Delivered by Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub and Invest Nova Scotia, GreenShoots supports early-stage companies working with bio-based technologies. All four selected companies are based in Nova Scotia and operate in areas spanning skincare, agriculture, food, and biotechnology.

The selected startups – each of which will receive grants of up to $40,000 – are:

  • BryoSphere, based in Cape Breton and led by Liz Mahon and Hila Behar, which is developing high-performance skincare ingredients derived from moss species.
  • Karyotica, based in Truro, led by Aaron Dublenko, Prasanthi Peddinti, Dr. Raphael Ofoe, and William S. Baillie, which produces organic, plant-based biostimulants intended to improve plant health from the root up.
  • Petite Riviere Farming Company, based in Conquerall Mills and led by Gregg Curwin, which is developing freeze-dried micro-broccoli products positioned as food-based interventions aimed at reducing cancer risk and chronic inflammation.
  • Sophie’s BioNutrients, based in Cape Breton and led by Yao-Hsin Eugene Wang and Kirin Tuei, which uses non-GMO precision fermentation technology based on microalgae.

Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub, formerly known as Nova Scotia Innovation Hub, was established in 2015 to support development of the province’s bioeconomy. Its work includes improving access to feedstocks, supporting collaboration, and providing financial and commercialization support to bio-based companies.

Invest Nova Scotia supports early-stage companies through venture capital, incubation facilities, advisory services, and acceleration programs, with a focus on deep technology startups.

 

Excelling at Startups while Topping Music Charts

Jacob Critch is "Founding Engineer" with San Francisco's Carebrain and a Billboard-topping songwriter

Jacob Critch

Jacob Critch

Which would you rather be? A software engineer with a fast-rising San Francisco startup or a Billboard-topping songwriter?

Jacob Critch of St. John’s doesn’t have to choose. He’s both.

Critch’s professional title is “Founding Engineer” of Carebrain, which helps nursing home staff contact doctors if there’s an emergency outside office hours. The system, which also provides notes and takes care of billing, is already being used by major care homes in the U.S.

As well as working on engineering and developing features for this startup, Critch is a songwriter with a special passion for K-Pop, the highly popular musical genre that originated in South Korea. His songs have placed in the top 10 on Billboard charts in Japan and South Korea, and one song was on a No. 1 album in Japan.

The 27-year-old says he loves both halves of his career and feels they complement one another.

“I love making music . . . but I wouldn’t be where I am in startups right now if I wasn’t passionate about it,” he said in an interview last week. “Startups are the most fun you can have in the [business] space.”

A graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Critch was still in university when he began working for the startup InspectAR, which exited in 2020. It used augmented reality to help electrical engineers and electronics technicians to quickly assess and improve the state of printed circuit boards.

Though he only worked there a year, it was enough to convince Critch that he liked startup life, especially early-stage startups in which every member has to get involved in every part of the business. He and his friend Rikki Lee Scicluna soon launched their own startup, Songflow, an online collaborative platform for musicians to record and edit music. It was a finalist for the Woodward Cup and went through Propel’s Traction and Growth accelerator for scaling companies in 2023.

Earlier this year, Critch got a call from Darryl Day, who had previously been the CTO at InspectAR and became one of the expatriate Newfoundlanders that founded Carebrain in the U.S. By the end of the call, Critch had been hired as the founding engineer, the company’s first hire. Carebrain is now in the Neo accelerator in Silicon Valley, which previously supported such digital luminaries as OpenAI and BlueSky, and Critch added that Carebrain has been drawing the interest of investors.

Critch was attracted to the company because its technology is simplifying nurses’ workloads within care facilities, reducing the paperwork burden so they can spend more time with patients.

“One of the reasons I [joined] Carebrain was I was already looking for something health-related to work on, since a person close to me is dealing with serious health problems,” he said. “I even reached out to local medical doctors, etc., to try to help prior to Carebrain coincidentally calling me.”

Of course, by this time Critch also had another career as a songwriter and singer. He began to sing and write songs when he was about 13 and got his first recording equipment. After researching the names of leading K-pop producers, recording specialists and record executives, he contacted several of them online. Though most of these entreaties went unanswered, a few did respond and he built up his connections in the industry. He has visited Seoul, helping his music career and satisfying his love of travel.

He is now represented by Universal Music Korea and publishes songs through a division called Melogram. You can find his songs on Spotify or YouTube.

Looking ahead, Critch is planning to stay long-term in Newfoundland and Labrador, though he won’t rule out spending some time in California. And he doesn’t believe he has to choose between startups and music, because they complement one another and “occupy different parts of my brain.” He points to The Chainsmokers, an electronic duo from the U.S. who not only top the music charts but also run their own venture capital fund. It is possible to excel in technology while having an artistic pursuit, he says.

“They involve very different parts of the brain,” he said. “There’s not a lot of overlap. Doing two things that use the same parts of the brain at the same time, that’s hard. But with this, there’s no overlap.”

 

Vimy Forge Accelerator Seeks Applicants

The Fredericton-based program helps startups with defence-related products.

Vimy Forge, a Fredericton-based startup accelerator, has opened applications for its inaugural cohort focused on Canadian defence and national security innovation.

The accelerator is targeting early-stage Canadian startups developing technologies aligned with the priorities of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. According to Vimy Forge, the program is intended to help founders navigate defence-specific challenges such as capability development, procurement processes, compliance requirements, and long-term adoption within the military.

The program is open to startups at Technology Readiness Levels 3 to 6, a stage that typically includes validated concepts and early prototypes. Eligible companies must be Canadian and working in areas relevant to defence and dual-use applications, including advanced manufacturing, aerospace, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, sensing, and communications technologies.

“Canada needs a stronger pipeline of homegrown defence companies that understand the operational needs of the Canadian Armed Forces and can deliver solutions at pace,” said Vimy Forge CEO Duncan McSporran in a statement. “Vimy Forge exists to help Canadian founders translate advanced technologies into real, deployable capabilities that align with DND and CAF priorities.”

Selected companies will take part in a hands-on accelerator program that includes guidance on aligning products with CAF requirements, understanding defence procurement and security processes, and building technologies that support readiness and interoperability. Participants will also have access to defence-sector advisors, experienced operators, and mentors, as well as introductions to investors, industry partners, and other stakeholders.

Applications – which can be found here – for the first cohort are open until Dec. 22. The inaugural program is scheduled to begin in March.

 

TechNL Urges New Procurement Processes

The IT association has proposed a new framework for tech procurement in NL.

TechNL has released a policy framework proposing changes to how the Newfoundland and Labrador government procures technology, with the goal of supporting local technology companies and increasing the economic impact of public spending.

The report, Scaling Up Innovation Champions in Newfoundland and Labrador, argues that a significant portion of provincial technology procurement currently flows to suppliers outside the province. It outlines measures intended to keep more of that spending within Newfoundland and Labrador by modernizing procurement rules and processes.

According to techNL, the framework was developed in response to feedback from local technology firms that describe public procurement as a major barrier to scaling their businesses in the province. The organization said the work was informed by months of research into procurement practices used in other provinces, federally and in international jurisdictions.

“Members have told us for years that complex, lengthy procurement processes are holding back their growth,” said techNL Board Chair Johanna Brown in a statement. “This report offers a constructive way forward. It shows how Newfoundland and Labrador can modernize procurement in a way that delivers better services for residents, while growing local companies and talent.”

The report recommends introducing value-based procurement criteria that consider economic impact alongside price, as well as creating innovation sandboxes and pilot programs that allow governments to test emerging technologies with local suppliers. It also calls for clearer and more streamlined procurement processes for small and medium-sized enterprises, and better data collection on where government technology dollars are spent.

TechNL said Newfoundland and Labrador’s technology sector contributes more than $1.8 billion annually to the provincial economy and grew by 24 percent between 2016 and 2023. The organization argues that aligning procurement policy with economic development objectives could accelerate that growth, including in sectors such as defence and security, where national spending is increasing.

The framework also recommends targeted supports for public-sector buyers and local companies to improve participation in innovation-focused procurement.

TechNL said it plans to work with the provincial government, Crown corporations and other public-sector partners to explore how the recommendations could be implemented. The organization added that Brown and CEO Florian Villaumé have met with the province’s new chief procurement officer, Frank Butler, to review the report and discuss potential next steps.

 

Arcturus Closes US$2.3M Funding Round

The company will use the money for more pilots at sports venues

Arcturus, which is developing immersive 3D coverage of live sports, has raised US$2.3 million (C$3.2 million) in equity funding to advance its platform for capturing and sharing games from multiple viewpoints.

The company, which has dual headquarters in Halifax and San Francisco, said last week the round was led by LDV Capital, with participation from Myelin VC, Vanderbilt University and angel investors. In 2021, it closed a US$5 million round from a group of VC investors that included Halifax-based Build Ventures.

“Our real focus is in North American sports,” said the Halifax-based COO Fraser McArthur in an interview. “We are looking to branch into European sports as well, but our target clients now are the sports broadcasters who have the media rights for the leagues or the teams in the North American market.”

In 2023, the original team merged with a group that previously worked on Microsoft’s HoloLens and volumetric video business. The merger came after Microsoft decided to exit the business and the team working on it joined with Arcturus.

Arcturus was founded by an executive team with experience in such household names as Netflix, Google and Pixar, and they set out to enhance the entertainment value and analysis of sports broadcasts by allowing a play to be viewed from any angle. The company places small synchronized sensors throughout sports venues so that the broadcaster can present the action from any angle, allowing for an immediate understanding of what happened with a play.

The footage is processed into a high-definition, 3D display that can be viewed on TV or used interactively on mobile devices, desktops or virtual reality headsets.

Arcturus, whose 10-person team is split evenly between San Francisco and Halifax, has conducted pilots with several sports organizations, including a team each in Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.

McArthur said the company is using the funds to execute the venue pilots. The company says it will also use the money to further develop the core technology and production workflow, with an emphasis on reducing turnaround time.

The COO also said Arcturus is gaining traction, but added that teams, broadcasters and leagues will have to commit to capital expenditures within the venues for a complete and seamless adoption of the technology.

“The technology is getting there but where we are right now is at a point where . . . [broadcasters] all want this and they all understand there is a large fan demand. At the same time, it involves upgrades to stadiums and it calls for the most modern cameras. So there is a tipping point that we’re expecting to see.”

 

Copsys Makes DIANA 2026 Challenge Program

The company will be part of the six-month defense program in Prague.

Copsys Technologies, based in Logy Bay, NL, is one of 150 companies joining the NATO DIANA 2026 Challenge Program Cohort.

The company’s solution, Copsys Intelligent Digital Skin (CIDS) is a surface technology that remotely monitors coating integrity and introduces new layers of active asset protection. The product was chosen under the DIANA Critical Infrastructure and Logistics Challenge.

The six-month DIANA cohort is designed to help startups broaden their networks in the defense industry with the long-term goal of landing contracts in the defense sector.

Described as a paint with feelings, CIDS is said to be the only paint to exist within the Internet of Things (IoT). It is expected to disrupt corrosion and biofouling, two of the most prominent and persistent challenges to critical marine infrastructure and to naval fleet readiness, the company said in a press release.

Being selected for the DIANA Accelerator validates the technology as strategically vital and grants unparalleled access to NATO's defense experts, testing facilities, and a transatlantic network of investors and partners, the company said.

Over the next six months, the company will work with Defence Hub CzechInvest in Prague and will engage with DIANA’s network of experts, mentors, and test centres to refine the solution and shape it to operational needs.

“We’re particularly looking forward to engaging with end-users, gaining early feedback, and building a pathway towards adoption by NATO and Allies,” the company said.

 

AlterBiota Moves DeltaC to Commercial Production

The company says its flagship property can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete by up to 30%.

AlterBiota CEO Mark Masotti

AlterBiota CEO Mark Masotti

Sydney-based cleantech company alterBiota has announced its flagship concrete additive, deltaC, has graduated from the R&D phase to commercial production as construction industries seek lower-carbon materials.

DeltaC is a liquid admixture made with biochar, a carbon-rich material produced from forestry byproducts. According to alterBiota, the additive can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete by up to 30 percent while also improving how concrete mixes and hardens.

Concrete producers commonly use admixtures to modify strength and workability, but deltaC is designed to store carbon as well, allowing for emissions reductions without necessarily cutting the amount of cement used.

"After nearly five years of intense R&D, it is deeply rewarding to introduce our deltaC product to the concrete market." said alterBiota CEO and Co-Founder Mark Masotti in a statement. "With customers like CarbonRun, producer partners like Casey Concrete, and a world class innovation ecosystem in Nova Scotia, we have been able to successfully demonstrate a practical, scalable, renewable, and cost-effective way to achieve net new decarbonization of concrete."

The company – which raised $4 million in 2024 in an equity round led by Invest Nova Scotia – tested its commercialization efforts this summer, supplying more than 100 cubic metres of concrete for projects such as sidewalks, curbs, and structural pads. AlterBiota reported that these projects achieved carbon-reduction levels ranging from 10 to 22 percent, depending on whether the producers also reduced cement content.

One of the largest demonstrations took place in collaboration with CarbonRun, the Dartmouth-based company that deploys river-restoration technology. Casey Concrete of Truro supplied deltaC-enhanced concrete for the foundation of a limestone-storage silo in a remote location. The concrete mix was required to reach a strength of 35 megapascals in 28 days, but alterBiota says the mix surpassed that target after only three days.

The higher early-stage strength allowed installation of the silo ahead of schedule and lowered the foundation’s embodied carbon by 22 percent through a combination of cement reduction and carbon storage in the biochar.

Casey Concrete reported that the admixture integrated easily with its existing production process and produced concrete with consistent handling and finishing characteristics. CarbonRun added that the accelerated strength development helped speed the project while meeting its environmental goals.

AlterBiota described deltaC as a cost-saving alternative to materials such as silica fume and as an option that avoids supply-chain challenges associated with fly ash and steel slag, which are becoming scarcer as coal-fired power generation and blast-furnace steelmaking decline. The company also highlights the product’s reliance on forestry byproducts, which were previously absorbed by a now-reduced pulp-and-paper sector.

"The performance improvements we saw with deltaC were impressive,” said CarbonRun Co-Founder and CTO Eddie Halfyard. “Achieving our required strength in a fraction of the expected time helped accelerate field deployment while reducing the embodied carbon of the project.”

 

Mulli Swing Wins No-Pitch Competition

The competition, hosted by Profitual, assesses business plans rather than pitches.

After winning two startup competitions already this year at University of New Brunswick, Mulli Swing Solutions has captured the $10,000 first prize at Profitual’s second No-Pitch Competition.

Profitual is a Fredericton-based company whose software assesses young Canadian companies’ prospects by analyzing their financial models and performance. Earlier this year, it launched its No Pitch Competition so startups could seek a $10,000 first prize based simply on the financial information they input into the application form. The idea is to assess founders’ business plans rather than their public speaking skills.

Fredericton-based Mulli Swing has developed sensors that attach to the grip of a golf club, producing data that helps golfers and their coaches analyze the player’s grip and swing. Its co-founders are Brycen Munroe, Alex Khoshbakhtian, Matthew Ryan, and Ethan Belliveau.

In March, the company won $5,000 in UNB’s Student Pitch Competition, and followed that four months later with a $1,500 win at the demo day for the university’s Master of Technology Management and Entrepreneurship program. 

"Mulli Swing Solutions' recent success winning the $10,000 cash prize in the Profitual No-Pitch Competition is a powerful testament to our core belief:that with the right tools and support, non-finance entrepreneurs can build exceptional financial models,” said Profitual Co-Founder and CEO Raymond Fitzpatrick. “These models don't just help them understand their business fundamentals; they are the key to preparing for successful fundraising. We are absolutely thrilled to celebrate this significant win with the Mulli Swing Solutions team." 

The second competition attracted 72 qualified submissions from across Canada, and each of these companies received an assessment of their financial model.

Profitual’s list of five finalists included one other Atlantic Canadian company: Riverview, NB-based CandidateHub. CandidateHub, which was also a finalist in the first No-Pitch Competition, is a candidate relationship management platform that helps companies solve the problem of identifying top candidates for their open roles.

 

Tracktile Closes $1.25M Seed Round

The funding comes as the PEI company increased recurring revenue 900% year-on-year.

Jordan Rose, left, and Jarred Kennedy

Jordan Rose, left, and Jarred Kennedy

Charlottetown-based Tracktile, which brings operational intelligence to food and beverage manufacturers, has closed a $1.25 million seed round that will accelerate plans to offer AI-driven operating systems to clients.

The company issued a press release this week saying the round was led by the BDC Seed Venture Fund and Island Capital Partners, with participation from Toronto-based Graphite Partners, BDC and Island Capital previously invested in the company through its $575,000 pre-seed round, which closed in July 2024.

Founded in 2019 by Chief Executive Jordan Rose and Chief Technology Officer Jarred Kennedy, Tracktile offers a suite of tools for managing operations, such as inventory tracking, traceability of ingredients and smart hardware. With the advent of generative artificial intelligence, the company has recently been launching AI-driven products to help clients become more efficient.

“It’s an evolution really,” said Rose in an interview Tuesday. “The new technology is just improving on what we’ve always done. Our company mission is still what we set out to do which is to bring the best technology to the food and beverage manufacturing industry.”

We first reported on Tracktile in the summer of 2024, when the team won Propel’s Gerry Pond Award, given to the company in Propel’s programs that achieved the greatest success in implementing repeatable sales strategies. As the company has grown (it now has 17 employees) and included AI in its offering, it has maintained its culture of sales and even improved the processes.

In the last year, Tracktile has grown 900 percent year-over-year in terms of recurring revenue. “It’s just a testament to  . . .  improving every metric in the sales process,” said Rose. He added that he’s stepped back from sales duties in the past few months and the account executive who filled the gap has closed more sales than Rose himself did previously.

“At Graphite, we look for founders who intimately understand a customer’s pain point and deliver software that becomes indispensable in their daily operations,” said Graphite Ventures General Partner Craig Leonard in the statement. “Tracktile fits that profile perfectly. The team's deep domain expertise, the mission-critical nature of their platform, and the consistently strong feedback from operators are exactly what we look for in companies. With strong capital efficiency and accelerating momentum, they’re demonstrating the ability to scale with discipline while building a durable business.”

According to the company’s announcement, the new capital will be used to expand product development and scale Tracktile’s AI capabilities, which are designed to provide manufacturers with real-time operational data. The company says its system can automate data capture, identify production issues earlier and generate predictive insights aimed at improving yield, traceability and plant efficiency.

Tracktile’s platform digitizes production runs, traces materials in real time and streamlines internal documentation such as audits and recall procedures. The company reports that customers using its software have recorded improvements including more accurate inventory tracking, faster onboarding for new staff and reduced waste through quicker decision-making on the production floor.

The seed round will also support the expansion of the company’s sales efforts and its growth in North American markets. Though Tracktile has focused on small and mid-sized food and beverage producers, the company said it plans to extend its technology into other manufacturing sectors with similar operational challenges.

Said Rose: “This is really just an inflection point for us. We have goals for growth of 5x over 2026 in terms of total revenue. It’s just a matter of heads down and getting it done.”

 

 

Procedureflow Unveils AI Products

AI Search and AI Process Designer are designed to speed up information flows within companies.

Saint John-based Procedureflow has released two artificial intelligence tools aimed at improving how employees locate information and create procedural workflows, the company announced Tuesday.

The new products, called AI Search and AI Process Designer, are designed to speed up response times and simplify process creation in customer service and support environments. They apply across human support teams, automated bots, and self-service systems.

“Our goal has always been to make knowledge actionable and accessible,” CEO Daniella DeGrace said in a statement. “With AI Search and AI Process Designer, we’re empowering teams to find answers and create processes faster than ever while maintaining accuracy and compliance.”

AI Search is intended to help users locate information by interpreting natural language queries and user intent. According to the company, the tool is built to identify relevant internal processes even when queries are vague, with the goal of reducing the time employees spend searching for answers.

The AI Process Designer tool is built to convert written procedures into visual process flows. Users can import text-based content and automatically generate editable flow charts. Procedureflow says this feature is aimed at reducing the manual work often required to develop or update procedural documents.

In its announcement, the company cited Gartner research stating that artificial intelligence and machine learning do not remove the need for structured knowledge management, and that poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million annually.

Procedureflow, whose last funding round was an $11.8 million raise in 2022, develops knowledge management software built to organize internal procedures into structured, governed workflows. The company markets its platform to organizations seeking consistency in customer service, operational visibility, and the ability to scale support systems.

 

NL Again Leads Region in Funding

When it comes to funding innovation companies, The Rock rocks.

When we finally tally all the Atlantic Canadian startup funding for 2025, we’re going to end up with two major groups: A. Newfoundland and Labrador, and B. everyone else.

While that’s not a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention this year, what is surprising is that Group A. will likely be almost four times as large as Group B.

With a few weeks left to go in the year, innovation-driven companies based on The Rock account for almost four-fifths of equity funding booked this year. The main reason is the huge funding rounds by four St. John’s companies: Kraken Robotics, Colab Software, Spellbook, and Sparrow BioAcoustics.

In deals announced so far this year, Newfoundland and Labrador companies have raised $295.5 million, while those based in the Maritimes have secured $82.2 million. That means NL accounts for about 78 percent of this year’s announced deals as of Dec. 8. What’s more, Newfoundland and Labrador companies also accounted for more than half the funding in the region in 2024.

Sparrow’s recent announcement that it closed a $10 million funding round was somewhat overshadowed by the other NL raises. (We admit it: we missed the Sparrow round altogether.) But this young medtech company is one of the region’s biggest magnets for investment, with this round coming just a year after it finished a $13 million, multi-tranche funding exercise.

"This round ensures we can scale responsibly through this critical phase, supporting hospitals and patients with the same focus on quality and outcomes that brought us here," said Sparrow CEO Mark Opauszky in the announcement. "It's about maintaining the momentum we've built while continuing to deliver real clinical value where it's needed most."

When we gather funding data at Entrevestor, we include any innovation-driven company based in Atlantic Canada as long as they’re producing a product for global distribution. We look for funding from any one of six sources: founders; friends and family; angels; venture capital; strategic partners; and stock markets. Most of the data that we’ve collected so far has come from major deals; we’ll learn more about the smaller deals and stealth rounds as founders complete our 10-question survey.

The funding news this year has been dominated by the four big rounds in Newfoundland:

Kraken Robotics

In July, the maker of next-generation sonar systems closed a $115 million, oversubscribed sale of shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The company said the new capital would position it to pursue strategic acquisitions and expand its global footprint. With its share price more than doubling this year, Kraken broke through the $1 billion valuation mark in September and is now worth $1.84 billion.

CoLab Software

CoLab in November announced a US$72 million (C$100.9 million) Series C funding round, the largest VC financing in Atlantic Canada in the past two years. The Y Combinator alum makes collaboration software for 3D modelling and in June launched its first AI agent, which it calls AutoReview. The company said at the time it was on pace to nearly triple revenue in 2025.

Spellbook

Spellbook, which makes AI products for law firms, closed a US$50 million (C$70 million) Series B round in October led by Khosla Ventures, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. Based in St. John’s and Toronto, Spellbook said the deal valued the company post-money at US$350 million, or C$490 million. About 115 people worked at Spellbook at the time of the deal, and CEO Scott Stevenson believes that number will double in the next year or two.

Sparrow BioAcoustics

Sparrow said the $10 million in new capital would support its next phase of growth as it aims to sell its FDA-cleared Stethophone platform to hospitals across North America. The company calls Stethophone the world's first cardiac AI platform delivering bioacoustic detection of structural and rhythmic heart anomalies directly through a smartphone. "In the past year, about 40,000 patients and practitioners have used Stethophone, uncovering thousands of cardiac anomalies that might otherwise have gone unnoticed until later stages of disease," said Dr. Yaroslav Shpak, the company’s Chief Medical Officer. Killick Capital and Klister Credit led the round with participation from Pelorus VC, 98827 Newfoundland & Labrador Inc., and Brinex Capital.

All of which is not to say there have not been big deals in the three Maritime provinces. In Nova Scotia, the two-year-old medtech company Sound Blade Medical, which has developed a handheld tool that cuts tissue with sonic waves, closed a US$16.5 million Series A funding round in January. And Mara Renewables, the Halifax company that produces omega-3 products from algae, raised US$9.1 million in July. (We did not include the $52 million raised by GoodLeaf Farms even though the company was founded in Halifax. It is now based in Guelph, Ont.)

One final note about the provincial breakdown in funding is that this is the second year in a row that Newfoundland and Labrador has owned the podium, so to speak. In 2024, NL companies raised a total of $146.9 million, which was 57 percent of the $259.1 million raised by Atlantic Canadian startups in 2024.

Here’s another stat that’s worth chewing over: Since Jan. 1, 2023, innovation-driven companies in Newfoundland and Labrador have raised $518.5 million. That’s half-a-billion dollars of capital injected directly into the province’s fastest-growing companies, substantially owned by Newfoundlanders. And that’s on top of the benefits the province received from the landmark US$2.75 billion acquisition of Verafin by Nasdaq in 2021.

It will be interesting to see what happens on The Rock in 2026.

 

Nucliq Biologics Partners with Medavie Blue Cross

St. John's-based Nucliq is a specialist in gut microbiome science.

Nucliq Co-Founders Purvikalyan Pallegar and Nikitha Kendyala

Nucliq Co-Founders Purvikalyan Pallegar and Nikitha Kendyala

St. John’s-based Nucliq Biologics, a specialist in gut microbiome science, has partnered with Medavie Blue Cross to provide its Gut Health program. 

The program will combine registered dietician consultations with Nucliq’s Gutcheck or Gutcheck VIVO test kits in one program called Gut Health. It will be available to plan members through Medavie Blue Cross’s digital health services platform, Connected Care. 

The collaboration improves access to microbiome-based testing as a tool to support digestion, immunity, metabolic health, and overall wellbeing, the company said in a press release.

“Gutcheck and Gutcheck VIVO were designed to give people a clear understanding of how their gut microbiome may be influencing their health,” said Dr. Nikitha Kendyala, company CEO and cancer biochemist. 

“We see this as an important step in making microbiome science more accessible and more practical for everyday use." 

Gutcheck is a microbiome test that analyzes the balance of bacteria in the gut and provides a personalized report with actionable guidance. The assessment identifies imbalances, highlights diet-related factors that may be contributing to symptoms, and offers specific, evidence-grounded nutrition and probiotic suggestions. 

Gutcheck VIVO includes the full Gutcheck assessment along with additional insights tailored for women. The report provides a deeper understanding of the connections between gut health and hormonal regulation, skin health, bone health and other factors relevant to women’s health. It offers personalized, actionable food and probiotic recommendations. 

The gut microbiome comprises the microbes such as bacteria, viruses and fungi present in a user’s intestines. GutCheck asseses microbiome by testing stool samples. 

“You are what you eat, and what your microbes eat,” Co-Founder Purvikalyan Pallegar, a molecular biologist, told Entrevestor in a previous interview. “Feed your microbes, feed your bacteria."

 

COVE Unveils At-Sea Testing Program

The system will allow the testing of towed-array devices.

COVE, the Dartmouth-based marine technology hub, has launched a new at-sea testing capability designed to support the development of underwater sensing and defence-related marine technologies.

The containerized system will allow researchers and companies to conduct trials of next-generation towed-array devices without using Royal Canadian Navy vessels. According to a press release on Thursday, the unit can be installed on a variety of commercial and research ships, enabling more frequent testing in different marine conditions.

The federal government is committing $9.7 million for the project to support equipment, testing, and related research activities.

“Canada’s marine and defence innovation ecosystem is built on collaboration, expertise, and ambition,” said COVE Chief Executive Melanie Nadeau in the statement. “This project showcases the power of partnership between industry, government, and research leaders to advance critical underwater sensing and intelligence technologies.”

The testing platform is being developed in collaboration with Defence Research and Development Canada, Ultra Maritime Canada, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The press release said the initiative is intended to advance dual-use technologies that can be applied in both defence and commercial sectors, including long-range surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

Ultra Maritime plans to supply its Sea Tracker system, which can be integrated with a range of active and passive towed sensors. Defence Research and Development Canada will use the system to support experimentation and test concepts for anti-submarine warfare.

COVE has recently been selected as a Canadian accelerator site for NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic and is participating in a new defence innovation hub in Halifax. Federal officials say the new testing system will contribute to research collaborations, national security objectives, and technology commercialization opportunities for Canadian companies.

 

Versos AI Closes $1.85M Round

The Saint John company aims to ensure the ethical use of video in training AI.

Saint John-based Versos AI has closed a $1.85 million equity round that will help to develop its platform, which the company says will ensure ethical and legal use of video in training artificial intelligence.

Founded three years ago by tech veteran Chris Keevill, Versos says it is building the world’s most advanced video intelligence platform, purpose-built for rights-cleared video training data. It gives AI developers and aggregators the ability to source, build, manage, measure, and track compliant, rights-verified video at scale.

Lawsuits have already been filed against tech companies that allegedly use copyrighted material in the training of AI, and Versos helps AI practitioners develop content with the knowledge that they are sourcing legitimate material. The company provides the platform infrastructure, intelligence, and chain-of-custody verification needed to turn raw video into AI-ready datasets. It is also developing a marketplace where AI builders can license data with confidence in provenance, rights, and attribution.

“The industry is waking up to a simple truth: AI needs video, and that video must be rights-cleared, structured, and traceable,” Keevill, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. “Versos is solving the hardest part of the AI training data supply chain — connecting rights holders to data buyers through a platform that ensures compliance, attribution, intelligence, and scale.”

The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation is providing $750,000 of the $1.85 million round. The other investors in the funding package are Montréal-based Innovobot Resonance Ventures, Waterloo-based Velocity Fund, Toronto-based RiSC Capital, and Island Capital Partners of Charlottetown. Betakit reported that Innovobot led the round, and that Versos had previously raised $1.5 million through a simple agreement for future equity, or SAFE.

NBIF first invested in Versos is 2023 and has so far invested a total of $1.4 million in the company, including the most recent round.

The Saint John-based investment group East Valley Ventures lists Versos AI among its portfolio companies, also saying that it first invested in the company in 2023. East Valley had also backed Keevill in his previous venture, a marketing startup called InNetwork, which he sold to Barrie, Ont.-based gShift in 2016.

Versos said in its statement it will use the money from the current round to accelerate platform development, expand its global studio onboarding pipeline, and support the launch of its video intelligence platform.  With a global network of content and technology partners, the company expects to announce additional marketplace partners and product milestones early in 2026.

Earlier this week, Versos AI received the Startup of the Year award at the 2025 InnovateNB celebration, which recognizes leaders in innovation in New Brunswick.

“Having a repeat founder like Chris Keevil at the helm of Versos is a tremendous advantage,” said NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White in the statement. “Chris’s proven leadership and track record of innovation give us great confidence in the company’s ability to scale and compete globally. His vision and expertise are not only driving Versos to the forefront of AI training data, but are also setting new standards for how technology and rights management can work together for global scale.”

 

Bisson, Pound Join Propel Board

The additions bring the tech accelerator's board to nine members.

Barry Bisson and Christine Pound

Barry Bisson and Christine Pound

Atlantic Canadian virtual tech accelerator Propel has added two new members to its board of directors, appointing Christine Pound and Barry Bisson.

“We are very pleased to welcome Christine and Barry to the Propel board,” said Interim CEO Elaine McKinnon in a press release. This is a particularly exciting time as we bring our expanded programming, new subject matter experts and AI-focused workshops to our founders. We look forward to the strong stewardship and industry insights that Christine and Barry will bring to our team.”

Pound is a corporate and commercial lawyer who advises clients on transactions of all sizes, both domestic and international, as well as their day-to-day operational and governance needs. A former Propel CEO, Bisson has also served as the J. Herbert Smith Chair in Technology Management and Entrepreneurship in the UNB Faculty of Engineering and the President of Shad Valley International (now SHAD Canada).

In addition to Pound and Bisson, the Propel board comprises:

  • Cathy Bennett, Co-founder Sandpiper Ventures and Volunteer Lead, Taskforce NL;
  • Sreejatta Chatterjee, Co-founder HiVanya and Co-founder LeadSift (acquired);
  • Craig Haney, Head of Ventures, AltaML;
  • Jennifer LaPlante, Deputy Minister, Department of Cybersecurity and Digital Solutions, Government of Nova Scotia;
  • Gerry Lawless, CEO, discoverygarden;
  • Nicole LeBlanc, Partner, Woven Capital;
  • And Sean Power, CEO and Co-founder, Musical AI.

Propel works with both pre-revenue and revenue-generating companies. The accelerator marked its 20th year in 2023, and says it continues to play a role in developing the technology startup ecosystem in Atlantic Canada. The organization’s programming offers founders access to coaching, mentorship, and structured support aimed at helping startups scale.

More than 1,000 startups have participated in Propel programming to date. Its virtual delivery model is designed to connect founders with coaches and mentors without requiring travel, allowing companies from across Atlantic Canada to access programming.

Propel says it assists startups in validating product-market fit, identifying repeatable customers, and raising financing. The organization is currently encouraging founders to apply for upcoming cohort programming. You can find more information here.

 

Launching Our 2025 Startup Data Survey

We need Atlantic Canadian startup CEOs to take 3 minutes to answer 10 questions.

We’re calling on all East Coast startups to complete our latest quick-and-confidential Atlantic Canadian startup survey, which is the backbone of our coming 2025 Entrevestor Atlantic Canada Startup Data report.

The startup report provides a benchmark used by governments and support organizations for the entire innovation sector in the region. Entrevestor is completely independent, absolutely agnostic in terms of sector or jurisdiction, so we provide an objective view of what’s happening in our sector.

Each year for the past decade, we’ve launched our survey to gauge the state of the startup community. It’s a mere 10 questions so founders don’t have to spend a lot of time on it, and it's 100 percent confidential. All data is aggregated. We’re hoping as many founders as possible can take about three minutes to fill it out.

You can find the survey by clicking on this image:

Why should you take time from your ferociously busy schedule to complete the survey? Two reasons:

First, it helps to produce meaningful metrics on the startup community, which results in better programs. Policy-makers and support organizations rely on our Atlantic Canadian Startup Data report as the benchmark for this segment of the economy. Your participation helps us collect the best data possible. And once again this year, the report will be open to the public, although all information provided is confidential and anonymous and we only publish aggregated data. In 2022, for example, 352 people downloaded the report from our website, which is striking penetration when you consider the size of our ecosystem.

Second, it helps Entrevestor provide free news on and for our community. The startup data report is a pillar of our business model, and it means we can continue to report on what’s happening in the startup world.

For responses to be accepted, founders need to meet our three criteria for a startup: 1. An Atlantic Canadian-owned company; 2. Commercializing innovation; and 3. Making a product for a global market.

As we have said, your responses to the survey will be 100 percent confidential. We do NOT publish data on individual companies, only aggregated data. If there is a particular question you feel uncomfortable answering, please just leave it blank.

This post marks the beginning of our campaign to encourage readers to complete the survey – a bit earlier than in previous years, as we want to get the report out earlier than in the past. (We’ve asked for year-end data for employment and full-calendar-year data for revenue and funding. We assume anyone filling in the survey this month will have a good idea of what the year-end figures will look like.)

We apologize in advance if it’s bothersome, but it’s critical for us to collect as much data as possible.

By taking just a few minutes to answer these questions, you can support Entrevestor’s work and develop important metrics for the community.

Please contact me at peter@entrevestor.com with any queries.

Thank you.

 

 

Ocean Supercluster Unveils 4 Projects worth $13M

All four projects feature participation by partners based in the St. John's area.

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster on Monday announced four new projects totaling $13 million, each involving companies or organizations based in the St. John’s region.

Based in Atlantic Canada, the Ocean Supercluster is a private-public organization established by the federal government and it is charged with developing the country’s ocean economy. Its goal is to quintuple the size of Canada’s ocean economy to $220 billion by 2035. It’s best known for helping to fund innovation-driven projects.

The largest initiative announcement Monday is the $7.7-million Ripple: AI for Ocean Platforms Project, led by Visual Defence of Richmond Hill, Ont. The other participants are Compusult Ltd. of Mount Pearl, NL, and AXYS Technologies of Sidney, B.C. The Supercluster will contribute $3 million, with the remainder coming from project partners.

Ripple will develop a customizable artificial-intelligence platform for ocean applications, including tools and hardware that enable edge AI – systems able to operate without server connectivity. The project will support real-time maritime monitoring and analytics and is expected to be applied in areas such as coastal surveillance, port operations, and inspection of underwater infrastructure in low-connectivity environments.

Three additional projects announced Monday are led by St. John's-area companies or organizations.

Genoa Design International of Mount Pearl will lead the $2.4-million Digital Ship Vessel Sustainment Project, undertaken in partnership with SSI of Victoria, BC. The Supercluster will put up $815,000 for this project. It aims to create a digital platform aimed at improving in-service support, the sustainment phase of a ship’s lifecycle. The partners say the platform is intended to improve the maintenance and operation of vessels and may also support improvements across ship design, construction, and lifecycle management.

Virtual Marine of Paradise, NL, will lead the $1.1-million Marine Human Performance Digital Thread Project, in partnership with Thales Canada of Quebec City. The Supercluster will provide $588,000.

The project will develop advanced simulation technology for training marine personnel. Using AI and machine-learning techniques, the simulators will be designed to detect and evaluate human performance during training exercises and adjust learning modules to the needs of individuals or teams.

The final project is the $1.7-million Atlantic Canada Aquaculture Innovation Studio, led by Oceans Advance of St. John’s in partnership with Hatch Blue of Cork, Ireland. The Supercluster will contribute $600,000, with additional contributions of $571,250 from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and $37,500 from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

This initiative will implement Hatch Blue’s Aquaculture Innovation Studio program in Atlantic Canada. The program is intended to help address sector-level challenges by supporting startups developing technologies to improve operational efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and strengthen resilience in the aquaculture industry. The project will connect Canadian partners with entrepreneurs from several global aquaculture markets, including Europe and Asia.

 

Sperri Donates 120K Meals to Food Banks

The Halifax company donated the meals rather than let them pass their expiry dates.

Halifax-based Sperri , which makes plant-based meal replacements, has donated 120,000 meals to food banks across Canada. The company said on LinkedIn that it has recently rebranded and decided to donate the meals rather than allow them to go unused past their expiry dates.

“To date, we have partnered locally with Feed Nova Scotia and nationally with the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank, Food Banks Alberta, and Food Banks BC,” the company said.

Born out of the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Sperri’s drinks are available in supermarket chains and are used by health authorities. Sperri is said to be Canada’s first organic and allergen-free plant-based meal replacement beverage and was founded on the principles of medical nutrition therapy, which uses specific nutrition plans to treat chronic conditions.

The company was co-founded by CEO Gregg Curwin and Dr. Mary Lynch, physician and pain management specialist. A serial entrepreneur, Curwin was the founder of indoor farming company Trueleaf Sustainable Agriculture, which has been taken over by McCain Foods and now does business as Good Leaf Farms.

Curwin teamed up with Lynch in 2019 to found Novagevity, Sperri’s corporate name. Lynch is an expert in pain management who had previously co-founded Panag Pharma, which exited for about $27 million in 2018.

Back in September last year, the company closed a round worth more than $4million to fund a U.S. expansion, and drive product innovation. The round was led by Nàdarra Ventures and supported by Invest Nova Scotia. Sperri also announced in September 2022 it had closed a seed round worth $2.5 million.

 

ONSIDE Offers Free Courses for Under-Represented Founders

The first event is later this week.

Halifax-based ONSIDE, which assists rural and under-represented entrepreneurs, is offering several free sales-focused events, including one this week:

The sessions are virtual.

ONSIDE runs the Start Now Incubator, which offers programming that helps underserved Canadian women entrepreneurs explore and launch their businesses through a hybrid community, run with the support of the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy.

 

 

InnovateNB Recognizes 10 Individuals, Organizations

The awards presented in Saint John on Thursday honour innovation leaders across NB.

InnovateNB Hall of Fame Inductee Marcel LeBrun

InnovateNB Hall of Fame Inductee Marcel LeBrun

The 2025 InnovateNB Awards brought together a sold-out crowd of more than 440 people at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre on Thursday evening to celebrate the people, companies, and organizations driving innovation across New Brunswick.

This year’s event featured a keynote address by Cathy Bennett, Founding and Managing Partner at Sandpiper Ventures, as well as remarks from Premier Susan Holt.

"Innovation is about people who turn ideas into impact,” said federal Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Sean Fraser in a video address. “Tonight’s nominees and winners reflect the creativity, collaboration, and determination that make New Brunswick a leader in the innovation economy."

The InnovateNB Awards were founded by a coalition of organizations committed to advancing innovation in New Brunswick, including TechImpact, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, the McKenna Institute at the University of New Brunswick, and Propel, along with local economic development partners. The 2025 Host Economic Development Partner was Envision Saint John.

"This year’s Hall of Fame inductee, Marcel LeBrun, is a powerful reminder that innovation is not limited to one industry," said TechImpact CEO Cathy Simpson in a statement. "Marcel’s journey from building a global tech company to creating solutions that address housing and homelessness reflects the very best of New Brunswick leadership. Our province excels when bold ideas meet purpose, and tonight’s winners show the breadth of talent shaping New Brunswick’s future." 

Ten awards were presented, recognizing innovators making an impact across the province:

2025 InnovateNB Hall of Fame Inductee
Marcel LeBrun
Over 30 years, LeBrun has co-founded multiple technology companies. He helped launch iMagicTV, one of the first companies to commercialize Internet Protocol television (IPTV) technology. He went on to co-found Radian6 in 2006 with technologist Chris Newton and former NBTel colleague Chris Ramsey. In 2011, Salesforce acquired Radian6 for nearly $350 million, marking one of the largest technology exits in Atlantic Canadian history.

The Beacon Award for Women in Innovation and Leadership
Dr. Alli Murugesan
Murugesan is a health innovation and biomedical translational researcher on the faculty of the University of New Brunswick. An experienced biotechnologist and cancer researcher, she is also the Founder and CEO of BioHuntress Therapeutics Inc.

Emerging Innovator Award
Pascale Michaud
Trained as a molecular biologist, Michaud is the Co-founder and CEO of Moncton-based AgroGene Solutions, which provides hive monitoring services for beekeepers.

Innovative Product or Service Award
MedReddie
Led by Founder and CEO Kara LeBlanc, Saint John–based MedReddie has developed a platform that helps hospitals and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) manage increasingly complex purchasing decisions for medical technologies. Earlier this week, MedReddie announced it had closed a $1.55 million equity funding round and secured $500,000 in grants.

Public Sector Transformation Award
Centre of Excellence for Digital Innovation
Based in Fredericton, the Centre helps K–12 students expand their knowledge of digital technologies and emerging technological innovations.

Startup of the Year Award
Versos AI
Saint John–based Versos AI, led by CEO Chris Keevill, is a video intelligence platform that transforms large libraries of unstructured video into searchable training data for AI. With multimodal search, advanced video segmentation, and a built-in chain-of-custody system, Versos enables data buyers to discover, license, and integrate rights-cleared video directly into AI models.

Scale-up of the Year Award
Resilia Inc. (does business as Uresta)
Founded in 2004, Shediac-based Resilia has developed a product that has been clinically tested and referenced in several global medical journals. Clinical studies have shown that 97 percent of women saw a reduction in leaks when using Uresta. Led by CEO and Co-founder Lauren Barker, Resilia closed a $3 million funding round earlier this year to support its planned launch in the United States.

Inclusivity and Empowerment Award
Bloom Funding
Saint John–based Bloom Funding, led by Co-CEOs Elizabeth Murphy and Colúm Connolly, helps businesses and nonprofits diversify revenue streams, maximize SR&ED refunds, and align business goals with social and environmental responsibility. As of this month, Atlantic Canadian organizations have raised $26 million through working with Bloom.

Innovation in Academia and Research Award
Moulay Akhloufi, Université de Moncton
Akhloufi is the founder and head of Perception, Robotics and Intelligent Machines (PRIME) at Université de Moncton. PRIME is a research laboratory focused on machine learning, deep learning, computer and robot vision, drone vision, augmented reality, and intelligent machines. It is now working on applied AI in areas such as defense and security, medical diagnosis, intelligent robotics, smart sensing, and sport analytics.

Impact Innovation Award
SmartSkin Technologies
Fredericton-based SmartSkin Technologies, led by CEO Evan Justason and CTO Kumaran Thillainadarajah, uses industrial Internet-of-Things technology to improve the efficiency of production lines in the bottling industry. Last December, SmartSkin received the award for Best Manufacturing/Processing Innovation at the 2024 World Beverage Innovation Awards.

Feds Commit $29M to New Defence Hub

The DISH innovation hub will link innovators with the defence community.

The federal government has committed $29.4 million to Canada’s first Maritime Defence Innovation Secure Hub (DISH), which will be developed at COVE in Dartmouth.

The federal government has announced it will spend $29.4 million to establish the hub that will be focused on resilience and collaboration with the Canadian innovation ecosystem and like-minded partners.

“Today’s investment connects the needs of the Canadian Armed Forces with the next generation of Canadian innovators," said Defence Minister David McGuinty in a statement. "We need to set up our industry for success – and we cannot do that if our armed forces and businesses are unable share critical information. As Canada rebuilds, rearms and reinvests in our armed forces, we will build a strong industry to support our workers and communities across the country”

This is the first in a national network of secure, purpose-built spaces, where Canadian researchers and scientists and their partners can co-develop, test, and validate emerging technologies requiring classified handling, said the press release.

The Department of National Defence has signed collaboration agreements with COVE and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The work is being undertaken under BOREALIS – the Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science – which is charged with fast-tracking innovation for Canada's defence and security.

It’s intended that a network of hubs will focus on areas of defence research and development essential to a resilient Canadian innovation industry and include quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, autonomous systems, Arctic research, space, and—in Atlantic Canada—ocean technology.

The Maritime DISH will unite defence and security partners, including industry, academia, naval and joint operators, and federal departments and agencies, to develop, test, and transition new maritime technologies.

  • Areas of focus will include:
  • undersea domain awareness;
  • uncrewed and autonomous systems;
  • advanced sensing and surveillance technologies;
  • And AI-enabled maritime analytics.

Canada is navigating a rapidly changing global environment where shifting power dynamics and advances in technology are affecting the foundations of Canadian security and prosperity, the government said.

MedReddie Raises $2M in Capital

The medtech company raised $1.55M in equity and $500K in grants.

The MedReddie team: Kara LeBlanc, Steven Fyke and Erik Huebner

The MedReddie team: Kara LeBlanc, Steven Fyke and Erik Huebner

Saint John- and Waterloo-based MedReddie, which helps to streamline hospital procurement, has raised $1.55 million in equity financing and secured $500,000 in grants, bringing its latest round of capital to $2 million.

The equity round, announced Tuesday, was led by MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, with participation from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Business Development Bank of Canada’s Thrive Lab, and strategic angel investors. The company said the new capital will support international expansion and further development of its AI-driven procurement platform.

The raise follows MedReddie’s $782,000 pre-seed funding round in the summer of 2024, which included BDC’s Thrive Lab, The Firehood, New York-based Forum Ventures, NBIF and government grants. That earlier funding was used to grow the team and advance product development as the company moved to scale its presence in Canada and enter the U.S. hospital market.

“This high-potential company, and its Founder and CEO, Kara LeBlanc, represent the innovation and tech leadership that continues to emerge from Atlantic Canada,” said NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White in a press release. “MedReddie is addressing a pressing health-care system need, and this funding positions them to scale quickly and achieve real impact.”

MedReddie’s platform is designed to help hospitals and group purchasing organizations, or GPOs, manage increasingly complex purchasing decisions for medical technologies. Hospitals are contending with higher costs, supply chain uncertainty and tighter timelines to evaluate equipment and digital tools, while regulatory regimes in the United States and Europe are evolving.

The company’s AI agent generates sourcing documentation and aggregates regulatory, clinical and performance data into a single interface. MedReddie says this gives procurement teams a clearer view of options and helps them move more quickly on value-based purchasing decisions.

LeBlanc launched MedReddie after more than a decade working in medical procurement, including senior roles at Service New Brunswick. She created the company to address inefficiencies she observed in managing complex requests for proposals and contracts for large health systems.

The company’s clients include major group purchasing organizations and health systems representing thousands of hospitals across North America. MedReddie says its software has demonstrated improvements in both speed and data quality in complex procurement processes.

With the new funding, MedReddie plans to advance its international strategy, beginning with Europe. The company will showcase its platform at MedTech Europe’s Value-based Procurement conference in Brussels in December, where it intends to demonstrate how its AI system can support value-based procurement under European regulatory frameworks.

BDC’s Thrive Lab, which backs women-led businesses with a social impact lens, also highlighted the alignment between MedReddie’s mission and its mandate to support companies building data-driven tools for systemic challenges in healthcare. “MedReddie is helping hospitals navigate the shift in healthcare with better data and better decision-making tools,” said Sévrine Labelle, Managing Director of the Thrive Lab and the Thrive ETA Fund. “This investment is very much aligned with BDC’s purpose as a development bank.”

Said MaRS Discovery District CEO Grace Lee Reynolds: “MedReddie is strengthening a part of the health system that has long needed better tools. Hospitals everywhere are under pressure to make high-quality decisions in a short window. MedReddie gives them the intelligence they need to reduce risk and improve outcomes.”

Solace Inks US$3.8M Deal with Boeing

The deal is the largest aerospace contract in the NL company's history.

Mount Pearl, NL-based Solace Power has secured a US$3.8-million (C$5.4 million) contract with Boeing, the company’s seventh engagement with the aerospace giant and the largest aerospace contract in its history.

The Newfoundland and Labrador company develops wireless power and data transfer technology for aerospace, defence and other sectors. Under the new agreement, Solace will supply its patented aerospace and defence platform to Boeing to support advanced functionality using fully decoupled wireless power and data transfer.

The contract follows a previous phase of work in which Solace delivered flight-qualified wireless power solutions to Boeing. The new phase will add feature upgrades and extend integration and flight qualification to include both wireless power and wireless data. According to the company, this work is expected to expand its intellectual property portfolio and strengthen its compliance record in regulated aerospace and defence markets.

“This contract represents another major milestone in our partnership with Boeing,” said Solace CEO Neil Chaulk in a press release. “We have been trusted strategic partners for years, and this latest project reflects Boeing’s continued confidence in our technology as well as the team. It demonstrates how deep-tech innovation from Newfoundland and Labrador can transform the global aerospace and defence industry.”

Colin Ryan, chief operating and financial officer at Solace, said demand from aerospace and defence customers has increased over the past year, and that Boeing and other partners are using the company’s technology to simplify system architectures, reduce maintenance requirements and add new capabilities to their platforms.

The contract also builds on Boeing’s earlier $10.3 million investment in Solace under the P-8 Industrial and Technological Benefits program, announced in January. That program is intended to channel work and technology development to Canadian companies as part of Boeing’s obligations tied to defence procurement.

Al Meinzinger, president of Boeing Canada, said the latest agreement represents a further stage in Boeing’s collaboration with Solace and cited the role of Canadian suppliers in advancing the company’s aerospace technology, particularly in rotorcraft systems.

Solace Power provides wireless power and data technology for aerospace and defence, automotive, industrial automation and telecommunications applications. The company has previously received recognition from Boeing and from national and regional business award programs.

QuickFacts Wins IBAO Best InsurTech Award

IBAO awards innovation, collaboration, and leadership in Ontario’s broker community.

QuickFacts Co-Founders Jeff and Christy Barsalou

QuickFacts Co-Founders Jeff and Christy Barsalou

Halifax-based QuickFacts has been named Best InsurTech at the 2025 Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) Awards. 

Co-founded by Christy and Jeff Barsalou, QuickFacts offers a platform that lets insurance brokers view packages from competing insurers side by side for easy comparison. The company says it can reduce the time brokers spend searching for information by 10 to 20 times. It also says the platform offers brokers more depth of information than competitors.

“Winning the IBAO Best InsurTech award is a reflection of our entire team …Every feature we build, every client relationship we nurture, comes from that shared drive to make a difference in this industry,” said Christy Barsalou, President and CEO.

Generative AI has opened up how information flows through the industry, from underwriting and claims to client service, the company said online.

QuickFacts sees potential in building on its existing AI tools to reduce the friction in brokers’ daily work and give them clearer, faster access to what they need to serve clients. The goal is to strengthen the broker's role by building technology shaped by the people who use it every day, the company said.

In September, QuickFacts was chosen to attend InsurTech NY’s InsurTech Match program in New York.

A member of the Atlantic FinTech community, the company raised $2 million in August 2024, and the Barsalous identified New York as the beachhead for their U.S. expansion.

Eight Honourees at Tech Forward Awards

The awards, organized by Digital NS, celebrate diversity and success in Nova Scotian tech.

Nova Scotia’s technology sector recognized eight companies and individuals Thursday night at the 2025 Tech Forward Awards in Halifax.

The event, organized by Digital Nova Scotia, honoured 24 finalists selected from nearly 200 nominees across the province. Organizers say the awards highlight activity in the province’s information and communications technology sector, which they value at $3.6 billion.

“We saw nearly double the number of nominations this year, which really shows how fast our tech community is growing and innovating,” said Digital Nova Scotia CEO Owen Sagness in a press release. “From farming solutions to digital innovation, these finalists are tackling some of our most pressing issues and showing that local tech can really make a global difference.”

The Tech Forward Awards are intended to showcase companies and individuals working in or alongside the ICT sector in Nova Scotia.

The winners are:

● Talent Champion Award

Maplewave, Dartmouth 

Headed by CEO Adam Baggs, Maplewave provides integrated software and retail solutions to the telecommunications industry, helping companies optimize their omnichannel customer experiences.

● Tech for Good Award

DeepSense, Halifax 

DeepSense, led by Executive Director Iaian Archibald and affiliated with Dalhousie University, provides businesses with industry-ready applied AI solutions that improve efficiency, boost productivity, and unlock new opportunities for growth.

● Thinking Forward Award

Dr. Rita Orji 

Computer Science Professor at Dalhousie University

Dr. Orji is the Canada Research Chair in Persuasive Technology and her research focuses on human-computer interaction, persuasive technology, artificial intelligence, games for change, and digital health.

● Provincial Spotlight Award

45Drives, Sydney 

Led by Doug Milburn, 45Drives provides enterprise-grade data storage and virtualization solutions by combining hardware and open-source software to avoid vendor lock-in. 

● Best of Tech Award

Palladium MC, Bedford 

Palladium MC, whose CEO is Olesya Shyvikova, is an agtech company building AI-powered tools that help farmers optimize land use, improve productivity, and modernize operations using their existing equipment.

● One to Watch Award

Irene Saliendra, Halifax

Saliendra is the Founder and CEO of Fem Entity, which hosts a wellness platform designed to connect women with a network of trusted wellness and medical practitioners who specialize in women’s health. 

● Role Model Award

Jennifer LaPlante, Halifax

Currently the Deputy Minister of Cyber Security and Digital Solutions for the government of Nova Scotia, LaPlante was previously the Chief Growth and Investment Officer at Canada’s Ocean Supercluster and the Executive Director of DeepSense.

● Diversity & Inclusion Champion Award

Turtle Island Technology Solutions, Millbrook First Nation

Founded by CEO Michael Herbert, Turtle Island is an Indigenous Cree business that provides services in cybersecurity,  data centres and cloud, networking, end-user computing and compliance.

GoodLeaf Closes $52M Equity Round

The money will finance new farms in Quebec and Alberta, and an R&D centre.

Guelf, Ont.-based GoodLeaf Farms, which began life as Halifax-based TruLeaf, has raised $52 million in equity financing to expand its vertical farming operations in Western and Central Canada and establish a new R&D centre in Ontario.

The company, which bills itself as Canada’s only national vertical farming operator, said the money will be used to increase production at its farms in Alberta and Quebec and to advance new growing technologies at its Agricultural Centre of Excellence in Guelph.

GoodLeaf CEO Andy O’Brien said demand for the company’s baby greens, microgreens and blends climbed sharply in the past year.

“We entered 2025 with incredible momentum, and by April, demand for our products nearly doubled as Canadians from coast to coast embraced Canadian-grown greens,” O’Brien said in a statement. He added that the new funding will allow the company to double the capacity of its two largest farms in 2026.

TruLeaf was founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneur Gregg Curwin, who began exiting the company several years ago as frozen food giant McCain Foods became its largest shareholder. Curwin is now the Co-Founder and CEO of Halifax-based Sperri, which makes plant-based meal replacements and raised more than $4 million last year.

GoodLeaf’s latest round included both new and existing investors, among them Farm Credit Canada (FCC), Power Sustainable Lios and McCain Foods.

Adam Smalley, Managing Director of FCC Capital, said the investment aligns with FCC’s mandate to support local food production and strengthen Canada’s food economy. Power Sustainable Lios Managing Partner Jonathan Belair said the ability to raise funds in the current market reflects investor confidence in vertical farming as part of the solution to food security and sustainability challenges.

Part of the capital will fund a new research and development centre in Ontario focused on improving the efficiency and sustainability of GoodLeaf’s growing practices across its three vertical farms.

McCain Foods, an early backer of GoodLeaf, is maintaining its support. Charlie Angelakos, McCain’s Vice President of Global External Affairs and Sustainability, said the company sees GoodLeaf as a Canadian innovator helping to transform agriculture and advance sustainable food production.

Food Web To Launch Platform Dec. 8

The Halifax company matches under-used commercial kitchens with food entrepreneurs.

FoodWeb Co-Founders Justin Andrews and Keegan Francis.

FoodWeb Co-Founders Justin Andrews and Keegan Francis.

Food Web, a Halifax startup that connects commercial kitchens with food entrepreneurs, will officially launch its new Food Web Kitchens platform on Dec. 8.

The digital platform allows kitchen owners to rent out unused hours in their licensed facilities and gives food businesses a central place to find and book space. After two years of research and community engagement across Atlantic Canada, the company says the system is now live for kitchen owners to begin listing their spaces. Kitchens that sign up before Dec. 8 will receive a 25 percent off discount on platform fees for one year.

Food Web is targeting a common problem in the region’s food sector: licensed kitchens that sit idle for much of the week, while small food businesses struggle to find affordable, legal places to work. The company cites demand from farmers’ market vendors, caterers, meal prep companies, bakers, packaged food brands, immigrant-led businesses and other early-stage entrepreneurs who often require only part-time access.

“One of the clearest insights to emerge from our work over the past two years is just how widespread the challenge of kitchen access really is,” said the company in a press release.

“Farmers’ market managers told us about talented vendors who couldn’t scale because they couldn’t secure consistent kitchen time. Economic development officers spoke about entrepreneurs in their regions who were ready to grow but stalled out waiting for a licensed space. . . . Across rural communities, small towns, and even in Halifax, the barrier was identical: finding a kitchen to rent was confusing, inconsistent, and often impossible.”

Through Food Web Kitchens, owners of facilities such as churches, community centres, restaurants, cafés and event venues can create listings, set availability and hourly rates, and manage bookings. The platform handles administration including payments, agreements and messaging, and connects kitchen owners only with businesses that have supplied required documentation and insurance.

Food entrepreneurs can search for licensed kitchens across the region, join a waitlist if none are available in their area, upload documents to a central profile and book space directly through the platform. The system is intended to make legal requirements clearer and reduce the informal, ad hoc arrangements that have often characterized kitchen rentals.

The launch follows several years of research and pilot work. Food Web took part in Dal Innovates’ Lab2Market Launch program, during which it interviewed more than 80 food businesses across Atlantic Canada about kitchen access, pricing and regulatory hurdles. The company also worked with Dalhousie University’s College of Sustainability for two consecutive years, with student researchers examining shared-use kitchen models and local food infrastructure.

Co-Founder and CEO Justin Andrews draws on his own experience as a chef, farmers’ market vendor and food educator who struggled to secure consistent kitchen access. Co-founder and CTO Keegan Francis leads product and engineering. Designer and brand architect Mariah Pelley-Smith oversees user experience and branding.

Food Web also works with a group of advisors from the restaurant industry, academia, shared-use food facilities, software development and local food advocacy. The company is offering weekly webinars and one-on-one demo calls for kitchen owners and food entrepreneurs interested in the platform.

NS Researcher Wins Mitacs Award for Fabric Tick Repellent

N.S. is said to have the highest number of ticks per capita and the most cases of Lyme disease in Canada.

Nicoletta Faraone

Nicoletta Faraone

Wolfville, N.S.-based Acadia University researchers have created an all-natural and long-lasting fabric spray tick repellent. The work was conducted under the supervision of Nicoletta Faraone, recently appointed to head up the new Canadian Tick Research and Innovation Centre. The work has earned Faraone a national Mitacs Innovation Award — Outstanding Innovation. 

Faraone, an associate professor in the chemistry department at Acadia University, strives to understand the tick smell and taste systems, including how ticks behave at a molecular level.

“Mitacs really opened up possibilities for research that I didn’t know were possible,” said Faraone, who is pursuing her research in Canada after completing undergraduate, Master’s and PhD degrees in Italy.

“As researchers, we need that strong belief in what we are doing in order to answer important questions,” she said in a press release.

Part of the problem, she said, is that ticks have not been studied enough. It’s only during the last decade that the medical community has tied Lyme disease to tick bites, and researchers are just starting to understand how differently ticks behave compared to mosquitoes.

Because ticks are nearly blind, they depend on smell to find hosts to feed on. The Acadia researchers discovered that when ticks are exposed to certain essential oils their ability to smell is impaired, preventing them from finding hosts.

That discovery led to the development of an essential oil-based spray repellent, created in partnership with Nova Scotia-based AtlanTick Repellent Products and expected to be on the market by next summer. The all-natural fabric spray repels ticks for up to one week and alleviates health concerns associated with synthetic or chemical products that can lead to user hesitancy. 

Faraone’s team is also studying the effect of climate change on tick populations, including how warmer winters could be strengthening ticks’ ability to fight off repellents, making them less effective. Another project is examining the potential of using a fungus native to Nova Scotia as an all-natural insecticide, given its ability to kill ticks.
 



 

InnovateNB Nominees Announced

The awards for innovation in New Brunswick will be presented Nov. 27 in Saint John.

The organizers of the InnovateNB Celebration and Awards 2025 have announced the nominees for the innovation awards in nine categories.

The awards program recognizes individuals and organizations contributing to innovation across New Brunswick. According to organizers, the program is intended to spotlight achievements in a range of fields, from startups to social impact initiatives.

This year’s ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 27 at the Saint John Trade & Convention Centre. Tickets for the event are still on sale but sales close Wednesday. You can buy tickets here.

The event is organized by TechImpact in partnership with the McKenna Institute, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Envision Saint John, and Propel.

Here are the nominees in nine categories:

EMERGING INNOVATOR AWARD

  • Punita Bhargava – Shreem Breeze Export Ltd
  • James French – White Pine Medical
  • Dr. Alli Murugesan – University of New Brunswick
  • Daniel Lirette – FloraTrack AI Inc.
  • Clodualdo Jr. Aranas – University of New Brunswick
  • Nathan MacDonald – ClinicForward Technologies Inc.
  • Shanthi Shanmugam – Urai AI Corp.
  • Brody Hanson – Work Water Inc.
  • Kara LeBlanc – MedReddie
  • Aaliyah Lahai – Gáamai Hair Inc.
  • Dustin Bowers – PLAEX Building Systems Inc.
  • Isaac Barkhouse – Victory Advanced Technologies
  • Lopsii Olagoke – Nezz
  • Brendan Wood – SnapTrade
  • Adetunji Adelakun – Scantranx
  • Gerrard Kilfoil – INNOV
  • Pascale Michaud – AgroGene Solutions
  • Jade Yhap – InteractiveNB

 

IMPACT INNOVATION AWARD

  • Thales
  • Anessa
  • SmartSkin Technologies
  • Eigen Innovations
  • CCNB-INNOV
  • Introhive

 

INCLUSIVITY & EMPOWERMENT AWARD

  • Amandipp Singh – Enabled Talent
  • Flora Gassier – Opportunities New Brunswick, Government of NB
  • Kateryna Omelianchenko – Southeast RSC
  • Kate Saeedi – Promise Partnership
  • Cree School Board
  • Karen Cummings – Centre for Youth Care
  • Pablo Montreuil – CCNB and JEDI
  • Roisin Connolly – Bloom Funding
  • Leon Morris – JEDI

 

INNOVATION IN ACADEMIA & RESEARCH AWARD

 Individuals:

  • Dr. Mohsen Mohammadi – University of New Brunswick
  • Edward Wilson-Ewing – University of New Brunswick
  • Dr. Barry Blight – University of New Brunswick
  • Dr. Alli Murugesan – University of New Brunswick
  • Dr. Anna Ignaszak – University of New Brunswick
  • Moulay Akhloufi – Université de Moncton
  • Kenneth Kent – University of New Brunswick
  • Erik Scheme – UNB
  • Jennifer Woodland – University of New Brunswick
  • Dr. Marc Surette – Université de Moncton

Organizations:

  • Partnering for Patti (Dalhousie Medicine NB + UNB + NBCC)
  • AgroGene Solutions
  • Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity
  •  University of New Brunswick – Institute of Biomedical Engineering
  • UNB Faculty of Nursing + SPECTRAL Spatial Computing Research Centre

 

INNOVATIVE PRODUCT OR SERVICE AWARD

  • AgroGene Solutions
  • Pathific
  • Parados
  • NLU Technologies
  • Bubbles Haircare for Kids
  • SpatialOne
  • MedReddie
  • Uresta
  • SnapTrade
  • hatch + parley

 

PUBLIC SECTOR TRANSFORMATION AWARD

  • NB Department of Education & Early Childhood Development
  • Project & Advisory Services, Government of New Brunswick
  • Anglophone East School District (ASD-E)

 

SCALE-UP OF THE YEAR AWARD

  • Kognitiv Spark
  • TrojAI
  • PLAEX Building Systems Inc.
  • SmartSkin Technologies

 

STARTUP OF THE YEAR AWARD

  • ASETS-CA
  • Premium Accounting Solution Services Inc.
  • saltwinds coffee
  • SpatialOne
  • MedReddie
  • Uresta
  • Bubbly Cup
  • Versos AI
  • ClinicGlide Technologies Inc.
  • Victory Advanced Technologies

 

THE BEACON AWARD FOR WOMEN IN INNOVATION & LEADERSHIP

  • Olga Palazhchenko – University of New Brunswick
  • Dr. Alli Murugesan – University of New Brunswick
  • Abby David – The McKenna Institute at UNB
  • Madison Bell – Promise Partnership (with Catherine Kerr and Kate Saeedi)
  • Laura Richard – Saltwinds Coffee
  • Kara LeBlanc – MedReddie
  • Josée Landry – Innov (CCNB)
  • Nancy Butler – Mariner

Top 7 Over 70 Seeks Nominations

The search to recognize entrepreneurial seniors is expanding to Atlantic Canada.

Aging Proactively President Ed Leach

Aging Proactively President Ed Leach

Calgary-based non-profit Top 7 Over 70 will hold its awards ceremony in Halifax in May next year. The group runs an awards program that celebrates the recent successes of adults over 70 and it is the first time the awards will be held in Atlantic Canada.

The public is now invited to nominate people over 70 in the region who are creating new work in the worlds of business, science, arts, culture, health, fitness, education, philanthropy and volunteerism.   

The contest began eight years ago when senior Jim Gray, a businessman and philanthropist, established a program to challenge stereotypes about seniors. Other award programs often celebrate lifetime achievements but this one aims to highlight new ventures started by seniors, the group said.

“These awards highlight that there’s lots of gas left in seniors’ tanks,” Ed Leach, who is the local president of Aging Pro Actively and chapter ambassador of Aging2.0 Nova Scotia, previously told Entrevestor. Leach is leading the local effort along with Rick Emberley, founder of Seasoned Pros.  

Leach said that including older people in the workforce makes sense.

“It’s being smart. It’s not about diversity and inclusion. With aging societies and labour shortages, it’s also economic.”

The group said that Statistics Canada figures show that Canada now has more people aged 65-plus than children under 15. And, by 2036, seniors could number between 9.9 million and 10.9 million. Half of the people born after 2007 will live to be 103, according to a 2009 article in The Lancet, led by Danish epidemiologist Professor Kaare Christensen. 

The event will be held at Halifax Convention Centre on Thursday May 14th.

You can find more information here.

7 Fathoms Makes a Splash on Dragons’ Den

The NL company uses seaweed bioactives in skin and haircare products.

7 Fathoms co-founders Terrence and Courtney Howell

7 Fathoms co-founders Terrence and Courtney Howell

Grates Cove, NL-based skincare company 7 Fathoms recently appeared on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, where they successfully pitched their business to one of the show’s investors.

The company is making skin and hair products incorporating the bioactives found in North Atlantic seaweed, one of the province’s most abundant natural resources.

On the show, the two founders, married partners Courtney and Terrence Howell, secured a partnership with investor Manjit Minhas. The founders asked for $100,000 for 12 percent and Minhas offered $100,000 for 20 percent, which was accepted. 

In the pitch, Terrence described himself as “a professional patient” after 40 years suffering with Crohn’s disease. He said he developed contact dermatitis after becoming allergic to the plastics in a medical device. Walking along a beach, he touched Laminaria digitata, a type of seaweed, and found it cured his dermatitis after three days.

The couple said the difficult conditions of the North Atlantic trigger seaweed to produce powerful protective compounds which they are now harvesting and using in their products.

During the pitch, the founders gave investors the chance to touch thick, glistening fronds of raw seaweed they had brought along and which dripped with raw, gelatinous compounds. 

The company is currently selling to health stores, health practitioners, and certain pharmacists. The five-year-old venture has worked with Bounce Health Innovation, the National Research Council, Natural Products Canada, and taken part in the Emergence incubator at PEI BioAlliance,

CVCA Says Region Booked $35M in VC in Q3

The Q4 data will include two mega-deals from NL totaling $170M.

Atlantic Canadian startups raised about $35 million in venture capital in the third quarter of 2025, says Canada’s main VC body, which is small change compared to the total coming for the fourth quarter.

The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, known as CVCA, on Wednesday released its VC data for the first nine months of the calendar year. It showed the four eastern provinces amassed a total of $96 million in VC funding in the January-September period. We subtracted the $61 million reported in the first six months to come up with the third-quarter total of $35 million.

Though we don’t know what the VC totals will be for the final quarter of 2025, we do know they will include two mega deals from Newfoundland and Labrador. In October, Spellbook, which makes AI products for law firms, announced a US$50 million funding round, then this week Colab Software, which makes AI-driven collaboration software for engineers, unveiled a US$72 million Series C round. Those deals alone will ensure the region will book more than C$170 million in the fourth quarter.

The latest CVCA report shows Nova Scotia accounted for five VC deals in the third quarter, worth a total of $33 million. There were also five deals in New Brunswick, though their total value was only $2 million. There were no deals reported in Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland and Labrador in the third quarter.

Among the Nova Scotian deals, the largest was a US$9.1 million (C$12.6 million) round by Mara Renewables, the Halifax company that produces omega-3 products from algae. The investment came from S2G Ventures.

Halifax-based medical data provider Blue Charm Adherence raised a $4 million seed round co-led by Crédit Mutuel Equity of France and Invest Nova Scotia.

Other notable rounds that were publicly announced were: a $1.83 million pre-seed round by Voltai, a Dartmouth-based cleantech company developing ocean and renewable energy technologies; a $1.7 million round by Dartmouth-based RFINE Biomass Solutions, which upcycles spent coffee grounds; and a $1.1 million pre-seed round reported by Gia, a Halifax startup that provides AI-driven growth tools for consultants and boutique professional services firms.

The CVCA data and the two big deals from St. John’s show that Atlantic Canada will report at least $266 million in VC deals in 2025, which is the most since St. John’s-based Verafin closed its record-setting $515 million equity-and-debt deal in 2019. The top year for VC funding so far in this decade was 2021, when Atlantic Canadian startups raised $256 million.

The CVCA report also mentioned a couple of Atlantic Canadian funding bodies. The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation was named the second most active “government fund” in the first nine months, as it was involved in 10 deals worth a total of $5 million. Invest Nova Scotia placed eighth on this list, participating in seven deals worth $38 million.

For Canada overall, startups raised a total of $1.8 billion across 123 deals in the third quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to $4.9 billion from 386 deals. A statement from the organization said Canada’s venture market so far this year has been operating above pre-pandemic levels in total dollars invested, even though deal counts remain slightly lower.

“Canada’s venture investment ecosystem is finding its footing in a more disciplined cycle,” said David Kornacki, Director of Data and Product at the CVCA. “Investors are deploying capital with greater precision, favouring companies that demonstrate strong fundamentals and scalability. The rise in average deal size and stability in total dollars invested suggest a market that’s selective but confident.”

Templar Targets Electric Boat Market

The company will manufacture vessels on the South Shore of Nova Scotia.

A new company on Nova Scotia’s South Shore is setting out to electrify transportation on the water.

Based in Pleasantville, Templar Marine will produce a range of fully electric boats — from commercial craft and tour boats to water taxis — all completely emissions-free. The vessels are approved by both the U.S. Coast Guard and Transport Canada.

“We’ve seen what’s happened with electric cars and how quickly that market has grown,” said CEO Topher Kingsley-Williams in an interview last week. “As people who spend a lot of time on the water, we see no reason why electricity shouldn’t be more widely adopted in the marine sector.”

Templar Marine’s origins date back to 2017 in Kelowna, B.C., where entrepreneurs Mark and Jennifer Fry began designing their own electric boats after failing to find models that met their needs. Their company gained early traction but was forced to pause operations during the pandemic.

Recently, Kingsley-Williams and his father, Steven Williams, a naval architect, learned about the company and decided to make an offer for it. Kingsley-Williams is a serial entrepreneur whose previous venture, Moncton-based Porpoise, helped businesses collaborate with their employees on charitable initiatives. The pair purchased Templar Marine last month, loaded the assets into a truck, and moved operations to Nova Scotia.

“Our intention was to move everything to Nova Scotia, where there’s a rich boatbuilding tradition,” said Kingsley-Williams. “We want to use this [venture] as a platform to explore electrification across the entire marine industry.”

Templar’s website currently lists three models on offer: the Picnic 20, a simple pleasure craft; the Cruiser 26, a cabin-equipped cruising boat; and the Water Taxi T26. A fourth model, the Sedan 26, similar to the Cruiser but powered by lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, is coming soon.

Two demonstration boats are already on display in Pleasantville, and the company plans to begin production later this year or in early 2026 at Snyder’s Shipyard in Bridgewater.

Templar Marine is now building interest among potential customers, including operators exploring a water taxi service for Halifax Harbour and the Northwest Arm — an initiative that could help reduce traffic congestion on the peninsula.

Kingsley-Williams said the company has raised some capital already and hopes to raise more in order to have sufficient working capital. In addition to building boats, Templar is investing in R&D focused on electric drivetrains.

“One thing we’re exploring is how our drivetrain system can be retrofitted into existing workboats and fishing fleets in Atlantic Canada,” said Kingsley-Williams. “The real innovation we’ve developed lies in the drivetrain and the batteries.”

Martin ‘Tweaks” Genesis Programs in Year 1

The former Clockwork Fox CEO celebrates his first anniversary as Genesis CEO

Genesis CEO Ed Martin

Genesis CEO Ed Martin

Sitting at the centre of the region’s hottest startup market, Genesis has undergone changes in the last year that the guy in charge says are really a few “tweaks”.

Just after his first anniversary as Genesis CEO, Ed Martin spoke with Entrevestor in a phone interview and discussed the evolution of the innovation hub over the past 12 months. The changes have come about as the advent of artificial intelligence has accelerated the development of products and funding has dried up for early-stage startups – all of which led Genesis to modernize its programming.

“The essence of it all is it’s all basically the same; we’ve just made some tweaks,” said Martin. “We’ve done more work around ideation, so we have a new program called Startups 101.

“One reason we want to get more people thinking about startups is it’s never been easier to get started. You can spin out a basic MVP in a couple of days whereas it might have taken you months before.”

Martin’s CV shows he has the experience to lead founders in the early stages of startups – not to mention the later stages of their entrepreneurial journey. He founded Clockwork Fox Studios, creator of the popular education platform Zorbit's Math Adventure, in 2014, and sold the company to Carnegie Learning seven years later.  In 2022, Martin became the Director of the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship, helping students and others in the university community launch companies.

Last November, Martin took the helm at Genesis, an organization with a clearly defined progression of programs. New entrepreneurs, many having come through MCE programs, joined Genesis by going through an introductory program called Evolution for about 10 weeks. The best graduates of Evolution went on to Enterprise, a three-year residency at Genesis during which participants ideally launched a product and gained customers.

That has changed so the progression now looks like this:

Startups 101

This two-hour virtual workshop teaches all the basics of launching a new business, and Martin says that all starts with “finding good problems” for the entrepreneurs to solve. It includes lean methodology with an emphasis on talking to lots of potential customers and other people. It also features a sprinkling of AI instruction and how to use large language models to develop tools quickly.

Martin emphasized this program is open to a broad range of people, not just students. “We really think there’s a lot of people interested in starting a business, especially the mid-career professionals who think startups are too much of a risk (to leave their jobs),” he said. “We help them to understand you can get going within that safety blanket of the full-time job.”

Evolve

Evolution has been replaced by a similar program called Evolve, and the big difference is in the emphasis. The main emphasis of Evolution was teaching founders to pitch, with the goal of helping them to raise the capital needed to grow the company.

“We’ve now moved away from the idea of ‘the pitch’ to focus on really deep problem validation . . . acute enough and repeatable enough to build a product around,” said Martin. Evolve works with the founders on deep market research and truly understanding the problem they have set out to solve. With so many founders attacking similar problems, Genesis aims to help its founders to understand their problem better than anyone else, said Martin.

Membership

Genesis used to celebrate welcoming founders into its cornerstone Enterprise program, then celebrate their graduation three years later. Martin said the organization wanted to get away from that focus on a three-year period and place all the emphasis on success. With AI changing methodology, he said, three years is a long time.

“We really opened things up at Genesis and now we just say, ‘Welcome to Genesis and you can access our community,’” he said.

There are still resident companies at the Genesis facility halfway up Signal Hill, but there are also co-working spaces for entrepreneurs who are in the centre sporadically. Overall, there are now about 45 companies enrolled in Genesis.

The Genesis AI Garage

This new component of Genesis isn’t so much a program as a part of what Genesis offers the St. John’s startup community. The AI Garage pairs recent AI grads with founders and alumni to build smarter, faster, more scalable technology, usually over a three- to four-month period.

Martin said Genesis aims to bring three benefits to the startup community through the AI Garage: first, to increase capacity by increasing the portion of the community involved in AI; second, to develop AI talent as more people grow familiar with using and developing the new technology; and third, to generate more startups as AI specialists at the Garage get their own ideas for companies.

One thing to bear in mind about Genesis is that it’s at the centre of the hottest startup community in Atlantic Canada, and Martin and his crew are determined to keep the party going. February will mark the fifth anniversary of Nasdaq announcing it was buying Verafin for US$2.75 billion – by far the largest exit ever in the region. Since then, new champions have emerged like Spellbook (which announced a US$50 million funding round last month) and Colab Software, which this week unveiled a US$72 million Series C round. Then there’s a gaggle of emerging companies coming up behind them, such as SiftMed, Trophi.ai, Sparrow BioAcoustics, and Swiftsure Innovations.

“It’s on fire,” said Martin of the Newfoundland and Labrador startup community. “Spellbook and CoLab are two unbelievably fast-growing companies. They are true Canadian success stories. I think any city across Canada would love to have a company like that and we have two of them right here in little old St. John’s.”

Startup Atlantic Exhibits at Elevate and SaaS North

The aim was to bring regional innovation to national audiences.

Startup Atlantic at SaaS North

Startup Atlantic at SaaS North

Startup Atlantic, a network that unites the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the four Atlantic Provinces, has been travelling with a two-stop national showcase of Atlantic Canada’s innovation economy.

The Startup Atlantic Fall Tech Roadshow included about  75 delegates representing the region’s entrepreneurs, investors, accelerators and innovation leaders at two of Canada’s premier technology events -- Elevate Festival in Toronto and SaaS North in Ottawa.

With funding support from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), the delegation included 43 participants attending Elevate Festival 2025 in October, followed by 35 innovators attending SaaS North last week.

The goal was to reflect the region’s momentum as a national innovation powerhouse, with growing strength in biotech, ocean technology, clean tech, and defence innovation, as well as a collaborative, founder-first approach, the group said in a press release.

“By bringing our founders, funders, and ecosystem leaders together at major national events, we’re amplifying Atlantic Canada’s presence on the national stage and building the relationships that drive investment, talent, and growth back home,” said Lindsay Murray, Executive Director of Startup Atlantic.

Participants came from all four Atlantic Provinces, representing a cross-section of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, including Propel, Volta, Invest Nova Scotia, Tribe Network, TechNL, NBIF, Genesis, Venn Innovation, Tidal Ventures, Sandpiper Ventures and Ignite.

At each event a group of Atlantic founders pitched their innovations to national investors and industry leaders.

Yash Mehta, Co-founder and CEO of Mantomo AI said: “Attending these conferences, particularly SaaS North, was a transformative experience. Every conversation, whether with a seasoned founder or investor, challenged me to see Mantomo AI through a new lens. The insights, candid advice, and tough questions not only sharpened our vision but reinforced the power of collaboration within the Atlantic tech ecosystem. These gatherings elevate our entire region’s capacity to innovate, learn, and lead.”

CoLab Closes US$72M Series C Round

Two St. John's AI companies, CoLab and Spellbook, have closed US$122M in VC rounds in a month.

CoLab Software CTO Jeremy Andrews, left, and CEO Adam Keating

CoLab Software CTO Jeremy Andrews, left, and CEO Adam Keating

St. John’s-based CoLab Software on Monday announced the closing of a US$72 million (C$100.9 million) Series C funding round, the largest VC financing in the region in the past two years.

Founded by CEO Adam Keating and CTO Jeremy Andrew in 2017, CoLab makes collaboration software for 3D modelling and in June launched its first AI agent, which it calls AutoReview. Since then, more than 47,000 engineers have joined the waitlist for the product, further accelerating CoLab’s revenue growth with the company saying it is on pace to nearly triple revenue in 2025.

The Series C round announced Monday was led by Toronto-based Intrepid Growth Partners, a growth-stage fund backing the next generation of AI market leaders. The other investors included returning funders Insight Partners (which increased its position with a super pro rata investment), Y Combinator, Pelorus VC, Killick Capital, and Spider Capital.

“Behind every feat of engineering, there’s thousands of design decisions,” said Keating in the statement. “And the most critical decisions in industry still happen slowly — in 20-person meetings, weeks apart. CoLab is changing that. We envision a world where skilled engineers collaborate with AI agents that can access their entire company’s collective knowledge, collapsing design cycles from months to hours.”

The funding announced Monday was the largest venture capital round closed by an Atlantic Canadian company since Dartmouth-based CarbonCure Technologies raised US$80 million in July 2023. The CoLab Series C round also comes one month after St. John’s-based Spellbook, which makes AI products for law firms, closed a US$50 million funding round. These two deals mean that Newfoundland and Labrador is set to account for about 70 percent of the venture capital funding announced in 2025.

A graduate of the Y Combinator accelerator in Silicon Valley, CoLab last year closed a US$21 million Series B funding round led by New York’s Insight Partners. That followed up on its previous US$17 million Series A round a few years earlier. Last month, CoLab was named to the prestigious Deloitte Tech Fast 50, a list of the fastest-growing tech companies in Canada, placing 19th after its revenue increased 1,730 percent over a four-year period.

CoLab said it sells its engineering software to some of the world’s most advanced hardware companies — from next-generation vehicles to renewable energy and medical technology. Its clients include Ford, Lockheed Martin, GE Appliances, Johnson Controls, and Schneider Electric.

These companies’ engineering teams spend months running through countless design iterations, reviews, and tests, using sophisticated tools to predict how every part will perform long before anything physical exists, it said.

AI is transforming this process, accelerating every tool engineers use — from generative computer-aided design that can instantly propose new design concepts to AI-driven simulation that can test those concepts in seconds. But the critical step that AI can’t replace is deciding what’s right, said CoLab.

“Even with faster tools, engineering still depends on human judgment — the knowledge, intuition, and trade-offs captured in design reviews. That’s where CoLab comes in,” said Mark Shulgan, Co-founder and Partner at Intrepid Growth Partners, who recently joined CoLab’s board. “The company is building the decision-making layer that connects people, data, and AI so teams can apply their expertise faster and more effectively than ever before.”

CoLab plans to use the capital to develop new AI agents, build integrations with other engineering and AI applications, expand partnerships, and scale go-to-market teams. It plans to make several major product and partnership announcements before the end of the year, said the statement. In an email, Keating said the company's staffing level, now at 165, is forecast to rise to 200 in January and more than 300 by the end of 2026.

In addition to soaring demand for AutoReview, the company said it found market pull from executive teams at major clients.

“We’ve had executive teams – not just engineering leadership, but CEOs, CFOs, and cross-functional leadership – asking us to build their AI strategies with them,” said Keating. “Many are already making seven-figure bets with CoLab. It's clear AI isn’t just an interesting experiment anymore – it’s a competitive advantage in their top-down strategy.”

Bennett To Headline InnovateNB Gala

The event will take place Nov. 27 in Saint John.

Sandpiper Ventures Founding and Managing Partner Cathy Bennett will deliver the keynote address at this year’s InnovateNB Awards, scheduled for Nov. 27 at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre.

Bennett brings more than three decades of experience in sectors including construction, manufacturing, human resources, food service, industrial supply, and real estate. A former New Brunswick finance minister and past director with the Business Development Bank of Canada, she continues to play a leading role in advancing entrepreneurship and investment across Atlantic Canada.

Through her firm, Bennett Group of Companies, and her leadership at Sandpiper Ventures, she has been a prominent advocate for women in business and innovation. In her keynote, Bennett will speak about the role of innovation in driving economic growth and the importance of investing to strengthen the regional economy.

The InnovateNB Awards recognize individuals and organizations contributing to innovation throughout the province. Organized by TechImpact in partnership with the McKenna Institute, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Envision Saint John, and Propel, the annual program spotlights achievements across a range of sectors, from startups to social enterprises.

Awards will be presented in nine categories: Startup of the Year, Scaleup of the Year, Social Impact Award, Innovative Workplace Award, Student Innovator Award, Indigenous Innovator Award, Women in Innovation Award, Collaboration Award, and Innovator of the Year.

Organizers say this year’s celebration will highlight both emerging and established innovators shaping New Brunswick’s economy.

Tickets for the event are now on sale here.

CanXP AI Launches Canadian-Trained SLM

The Saint John-and Toronto-based company hosts a purely Canadian AI platform.

CanXP Co-Founders Eric Hubacheck, left, and Vince McMullin

CanXP Co-Founders Eric Hubacheck, left, and Vince McMullin

CanXP AI has launched MaplePT, a small language model (SLM) trained entirely in Canada, marking what the company calls a step toward “sustainable, sovereign AI” that is accessible to all Canadians.

Built and hosted exclusively within Canada, MaplePT was developed using CanXP’s distributed, low-energy training framework. The company says the system matches competitive reasoning and alignment performance while running on consumer-grade graphics processing unit – an approach that reduces the need for billion-dollar data centres or foreign cloud infrastructure.

“Canada doesn’t need gigawatt-scale AI data centres that strain our grid and environment just to satisfy the compute demands of foreign markets,” said Vince McMullin, co-founder and CEO of CanXP AI. “What we need is capital investment into applied computing, usable systems, and efficient models that every Canadian—from academics to professionals—can use.”

Based in Saint John and Toronto, CanXP launched in September. The company was co-founded by McMullin and Eric Hubacheck, who leads partnerships and commercialization efforts. The 15-member team includes contributors and advisors across infrastructure, AI training, and product development, with legal support from Toronto law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.

MaplePT is the company’s flagship model and part of a broader effort to build a Canadian federated AI network that connects models across research, education, and industry. Through the CanXP platform, organizations can deploy their own SLMs, keep them private or public, and contribute to a network governed under Canadian law and powered by clean energy.

McMullin said CanXP’s approach is a response to Canada’s reliance on large foreign tech firms. The company’s technology, he said, demonstrates that “we can support Canadians and Canadian businesses without involving U.S. big tech” or building “diesel-guzzling AI data centres in our backyard.”

CanXP’s roots trace back to early AI development work for General Motors before political and commercial shifts in the U.S. curtailed cross-border partnerships. “When U.S. companies pulled back, we decided to dig in and build for Canadians,” McMullin said. “Our goal is to make AI accessible to everyone—from students to professionals.”

The company said it has already attracted paying customers, including professionals and early enterprise adopters using its AI platform for research, writing, and privacy-sensitive applications. All data, McMullin emphasized, remains hosted within Canada to ensure compliance and residency.

CanXP operates on a subscription model, with tiers designed for students, professionals, and institutions. Enterprise licensing is also available for organizations requiring locally hosted AI solutions.

The company’s first publicly released model, MaplePT-Mini (v1), is available under an MIT license on Hugging Face and Docker Hub, accompanied by an open-access research paper. CanXP is now seeking partners across healthcare, education, legal, defence, and manufacturing sectors as it expands its network.

Current Investors include the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Business Development Bank of Canada, Golden Triangle Angel Network in Waterloo, and several smaller investors nationwide. CanXP is currently raising additional funding to extend its federated AI network.

“MaplePT proves that sustainability and sovereignty are the same fight,” said McMullin. “Canada can lead with models trained responsibly at home, governed by our laws, and accessible to every citizen and small business that wants to participate.”

UNB’s Summer Institute Celebrates Six New Ventures

Social enterprises benefit from funds, skills training and coaching at the Summer Institute.

The six companies that comprise the 2025 Summer Institute Cohort presented their work to the public last Friday, illustrating a range of new technologies.  

Now in its 12th year, University of New Brunswick's Summer Institute program teaches sales, marketing, and customer validation skills to companies making positive social and environmental impacts. 

The three-month accelerator offers founders more than $6,000 for living costs, $2,000 for prototyping, as well as skills training and coaching. Since it began in 2014, the program has graduated more than 60 ventures.

The 2025 participating companies are:

DeepREM Labs is a science-backed sleep enhancement app that uses AI, biometric monitoring, and sound technology to improve sleep quality. It integrates with popular wearables like Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch, offering a natural, non-invasive alternative to sleep medications.

HUNGY is a full-stack platform that modernizes food relief operations by replacing outdated tools with an all-in-one system for managing food from intake to distribution. It streamlines workflows, reduces waste, and turns daily activity into actionable data that enhances funding, efficiency, and community impact. Hungy serves as the operating system for food relief, empowering organizations to scale their mission sustainably.

Mulli Swing Solutions is developing a sensor-embedded golf grip that tracks grip pressure and swing motion in real time. Data is sent via Bluetooth to an app, giving players and coaches visual feedback to bridge the gap between “real” and “feel.” Unlike other tools that focus on ball flight and club movement, Mulli targets a key blind spot—grip pressure—while preserving the natural feel of a traditional grip.

Rocket Rank automates SEO content creation to boost online visibility. It generates keyword-optimized articles with images and publishes them directly to platforms like WordPress, Webflow, and Notion. By streamlining keyword research, writing, and posting, it saves time and drives organic traffic growth.

SeaGreen Solutions is an environmental tech startup that is turning seaweed into carbon-negative biochar for agriculture. Their eco-friendly soil conditioner boosts crop yields by improving soil health while locking away carbon. Rooted in Atlantic Canada’s coastal ecosystems, Seagreen promotes regenerative farming and environmental resilience.

Wellobit  is a digital health company that helps users manage stress in real time by translating physiological signals into simple insights. Its app guides users through quick breathing resets and gamified wellness experiences led by mascot Zenny. Combining tech, behavioral science, and breathwork, Wellobit empowers professionals to build resilience and improve daily wellbeing.

Six East Coast Startups Make Foresight 50

Calgary-based Foresight aims each year to find the country's most investible cleantech companies.

Six Atlantic Canadian cleantech ventures have been named to the 2025 edition of the Foresight 50, an annual exercise to find the most investible cleantech companies in the country.

Calgary-based Foresight Canada, which bills itself as Canada’s largest cleantech innovation and adoption accelerator, released the list of 50 leading Canadian cleantech startups earlier this week. In a report detailing the group, Foresight said it chose the companies based on four criteria: the team; environmental impact; probability of success; and investment readiness.

David Sanguinetti, Interim CEO of Foresight Canada, said in a press release that the 50 companies are Canada’s most de-risked and scalable cleantech investment opportunities.

"These honourees represent some of the most exciting prospects coming out of Canada's cleantech ecosystem,” said Sanguinetti. “Their innovation is actively transforming traditional industries into new strengths, securing economic competitiveness, and creating positive change in our communities and daily lives.”

The organization said this year’s honourees collectively employ more than 770 full-time workers and have raised over $377 million to date. Since it began the Foresight 50 in 2021, the total honorees have raised more than $2.6 billion, the group said.

The Atlantic Canadian companies named to the 2025 list are:

Aeon Blue

Sydney

Lark Meadow and Deóis Ua Cearnaigh

Aeon Blue’s solution delivers sustainable e-fuels while simultaneously capturing carbon dioxide and generating high-value co-products.

DeNova

Dartmouth

Brianna Orr Stratton

DeNova offers a novel, sustainable microbial protein called Psomi to the aquafeed market, addressing the instability and environmental limitations of traditional protein sources like fishmeal and soy.

Lillianah Technologies

Dartmouth

Benjamin Slotnick

Lillianah has a scalable and affordable solution to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using phytoplankton.

pHathom Technologies

Halifax

Kimberly Gilbert and Andrew Ray

PHathom is pioneering a new approach to carbon removal by capturing carbon dioxide from coastal biomass power plants, converting it into stable bicarbonate and storing it safely in the ocean for tens of thousands of years.

Picketa Systems

Fredricton

Xavier Hébert-Couturier, Levesque, Maxime Dumont, and Zachary Andersen

Picketa has developed an on-site crop nutrient assessment solution called the Leaf Evaluated-Nutrient System, or LENS. It allows agriculturalists to save about 50 percent on their fertilizer costs while reducing about the same scale of carbon emissions.

Sustane

Peter Vinall

Halifax

Sustane has developed a process of turning the least recyclable plastics into ‘drop-in’ feedstock for plastic production.

Jason Trask Named New MCE Director

Trask has founded several companies, most recently EcoBloc.

MCE DIrector Jason Trask

MCE DIrector Jason Trask

Jason Trask has been appointed Director of the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship (MCE) at Memorial University.

Trask, a longtime entrepreneur with ties to the St. John’s startup community, previously served as MCE’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence from 2017 to 2022. He succeeds Ed Martin, who last year left the centre to become the CEO of Genesis, the main innovation hub in Newfoundland and Labrador.

A serial entrepreneur, Trask founded his first business at age 15 and has since launched or operated several companies in sectors including technology, real estate, and seniors’ care. His ventures have taken him across the Americas and Asia, and he has participated in accelerator and incubator programs such as Techstars in three different countries.

Most recently, Trask was a co-founder and chief executive officer of EcoBloc, a St. John’s-based startup that develops chemical-free pest control technology for agricultural, commercial, and industrial facilities. EcoBloc’s products are designed to replace chemical-based methods that can harm wildlife and contaminate soils and water systems. Trask remains a director of the company, offering support to the team as needed.

MCE, based at Memorial University, provides programs, mentorship, and resources to help students start and grow new ventures. In a statement announcing the appointment, the organization said Trask’s experience and previous work with students position him to “lead the next chapter of MCE’s growth and drive even greater student success.”

UNB’s Summer Institute Demo Day Approaches

The three-month accelerator offers funds, skills training and coaching to social enterprises.

The six companies that comprise University of New Brunswick's 2025 Summer Institute Cohort will present their work to the public this Friday, November 7.

Now in its 12th year, the Summer Institute program teaches sales, marketing, and customer validation skills to companies making positive social and environmental impacts. 

The three-month accelerator offers founders more than $6,000 for living costs, $2,000 for prototyping, and skills training and coaching. Since it began in 2014, the program has graduated more than 60 ventures.

The presentation will occur this Friday, November 7 between 2pm and 4.30pm at the Wu Conference Centre at 6 Duffie Drive in Fredericton.

Register to attend here. 

PolyUnity Partners with 3 St.John’s Groups

The 3D printing company is now working with Polyamyna, Fonemed and the Genesis AI Garage.

PolyUnity Co-Founder and CMO Stephen Ryan at the opening of the new HQ

PolyUnity Co-Founder and CMO Stephen Ryan at the opening of the new HQ

As it opened its new headquarters in downtown St. John’s on Monday, PolyUnity Tech announced a series of partnerships aimed at advancing healthcare innovation across Canada.

The company said Monday that it will collaborate with Fonemed, Polyamyna Nanotech, and the Genesis AI Garage, all based in St. John’s, to combine expertise in virtual care, antimicrobial materials, and artificial intelligence.

PolyUnity designs and manufactures medical products through its digital i3D.Health platform, which allows hospitals to design, approve, and 3D print items locally through a regulatory-compliant process.

“These collaborations showcase what’s possible when local innovation addresses global healthcare challenges,” said Stephen Ryan, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of PolyUnity. “By working together, we can help make healthcare safer and more effective.”

Through the new partnership, Fonemed will work on PolyUnity’s Virtual Care Pod and Mobile Care Kit – technologies designed in Newfoundland and Labrador for use in global healthcare markets. The products use locally produced antimicrobial materials and allow remote biometric assessments, including cardiac and pulmonary monitoring and imaging, enabling clinicians to diagnose and treat patients at a distance, the company said.

Fonemed is a virtual care company that provides around-the-clock nurse advice lines and telehealth solutions to clients across North America.

Polyamyna – which is developing antimicrobial and antiviral materials – is collaborating with PolyUnity to develop PolyAura, a new antimicrobial 3D printing filament that reduces bacterial presence by 99.9 percent on printed medical components, said PolyUnity. The material is being integrated into products such as device handles and workstations to improve infection control in healthcare environments.

The Genesis AI Garage – a new division of the innovation hub Genesis – will support PolyUnity’s use of artificial intelligence to streamline product design, manufacturing, and logistics. The partnership will focus on predictive analytics and automation to enhance efficiency and compliance in the company’s operations.

PolyUnity’s new headquarters marks a milestone for Newfoundland and Labrador’s health technology sector, which continues to expand its presence in national and international markets.

Maple Acquires NB’s Beyond ADHD

Beyond ADHD will continue to operate from its Grafton, NB, base.

Toronto-based virtual care company Maple has acquired Beyond ADHD, a New Brunswick–based provider of virtual assessment and treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Maple announced the acquisition in a press release Tuesday, but did not disclose the price. It said the move expands Maple’s presence in the mental health space while keeping Beyond ADHD’s operations and team intact.

Beyond ADHD, headquartered in Grafton, NB, just west of Fredericton, was created to address what its founders saw as major gaps in ADHD care – fragmented services, long waits, and limited accessibility. The company offers a structured three-step virtual program covering assessment, diagnosis, and follow-up, while also supporting patients dealing with depression and anxiety. Care is delivered by licensed Canadian clinicians, the company says.

The company will continue operating as a subsidiary of Maple, with no interruption to patient services or staffing.

“Too many people struggle to receive ADHD assessment and support,” said Maple CEO and co-founder Dr. Brett Belchetz. “Adding Beyond ADHD to Maple improves access to timely, high-quality mental health care across Canada.”

Beyond ADHD founder and CEO Dr. Hanif Chatur said joining Maple will help the company reach more patients and strengthen the link between ADHD care and broader mental health and primary care systems. “We designed this platform with patients, not just for them,” he said. “With Maple’s scale, technology, and clinical leadership, we can accelerate our impact and continue delivering safe, consistent outcomes for patients.”

Chatur, a family physician and entrepreneur, is also the co-founder of ClinicGlide, a digital health platform that last month received funding from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and TLT. ClinicGlide provides workflow tools designed to improve efficiency in medical practices.

Beyond ADHD has built strong partnerships with health and student insurance providers and serves more than 20,000 patients across Canada. As part of Maple, it will have additional resources to expand responsibly and continue developing evidence-based ADHD treatment programs, the statement said.

ADHD affects an estimated 1.8 million Canadians, but diagnosis and treatment remain inconsistent across the country, said the statement from Maple. Research shows untreated ADHD can lead to significant productivity losses and related mental health challenges – gaps Beyond ADHD aims to close through its virtual model.

Bright Breaks Exits

Boston-based Wellable has bought the Halifax provider of wellness videos for an undisclosed price.

Bright Breaks Co-Founders Kiran Sachdev and David Howe

Bright Breaks Co-Founders Kiran Sachdev and David Howe

Halifax-based Bright Breaks, which streams wellness videos for its customers’ employees, has been acquired by Wellable of Boston for an undisclosed price.

The exit, announced Monday, will reward several local investors and is the latest chapter in the notable entrepreneurial journey of Bright Breaks Co-Founder and CEO David Howe.

Wellable, which provides employee wellness, rewards, and recognition solutions, has agreed to let Bright Breaks operate as an independent Halifax-based brand within the Wellable family. Howe said in an interview the acquisition will bring his team greater resources and experience as well as access to the Boston company’s customer base.

“The corporate wellness space is very competitive,” said Howe. “Wellable has been around for 14 years and they’re profitable. They grew by bootstrapping; they haven’t raised outside [equity] capital. Joining with them is very much a one plus one equals three scenario where we can tap into all their expertise.”

Bright Breaks sells corporations and organizations micro-breaks – videos of about seven minutes – that their employees can tune into for healthy breaks in their work day. These include such activities as meditation, stretching, dance, strength training, and mindfulness exercises. The platform also provides tips on finances, meal preparation, and other workplace wellness topics. A smart scheduler integrates with Outlook and Google calendars, automatically finding time for breaks without disrupting employees’ schedules.

The company said its approach is grounded in research showing that employees who take regular breaks for movement, stretching, or breathwork experience up to a 40 percent increase in productivity and lower rates of burnout.

Bright Breaks closed a funding round worth $2.5 million led by Build Ventures in 2023, and a $1.5 million round a year earlier. Its investors include Tidal Ventures, Concrete Ventures, Invest Nova Scotia, and Venture Grade.

With offices in Boston, San Diego, and Washington, Wellable serves organizations of all sizes with solutions designed to enhance workplace culture and employee health. The acquisition expands Wellable’s offerings by adding daily live breaks and a large on-demand library to its employee experience platform, the partners said.

Howe said that Wellable has been in business for 14 years while Bright Breaks has been in the wellness space for only five years. The Boston company has about 20 to 30 times as many customers, and thus the deal offers a huge re-selling opportunity for Bright Breaks.

Amanda Kuron, Wellable’s vice-president of content, said the acquisition aligns with her company’s goal of making wellness a seamless part of the workday. “By embedding micro-breaks throughout the workday, we empower employees to reset and recharge while fostering deeper motivation and connection,” Kuron said.

The Bright Breaks sale to Wellable is actually Howe’s fourth exit. He started and sold a landscaping business in university, then launched ToothbrushSubscriptions.com, which sold toothbrushes online. During this time, he met New Brunswick-born investor and startup specialist Dan Martell, who bet Howe $1,000 he couldn’t produce a profit of $15,000 in six months. Martell explained the stakes in the wager weren’t as important as the need for a young entrepreneur like Howe to learn accountability.

Howe lost the bet but the pressure taught him valuable lessons in marketing, pricing and growth strategies. He soon sold the toothbrush company to a competitor in New York.

After starting and selling a software company in California, Howe started a new venture based in Halifax that offered haircuts or hairstyling in people’s homes or places of business. Cribcuts gained traction until the pandemic hit and killed its business.

So Howe and co-founder Kiran Sachdev pivoted to offer online exercise and wellness videos, which evolved into the company they have now sold to Wellable.

“Startups are a long, hard, but rewarding journey,” said Howe on social media. “I could write a book on the last eight years about the highs and lows, lessons learned, and the hard-to-believe stories. But the book isn’t done yet, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to continue all of our hard work as we start a new and exciting chapter with Wellable!”

Atlantic Fintech Growth Network Launched

The program uses a broad network to help the region's fintechs to access the U.S.

Atlantic Fintech has launched the Atlantic Fintech Growth Network, a new program aimed at helping Atlantic Canadian fintech companies to expand into the U.S. market.

The initiative aims to provide startups with mentorship, strategic guidance, and introductions to key players in banking, payments, and financial technology, the Moncton-based organization said in a press release.

The first edition of the program, running until March, will focus specifically on U.S. market entry. Participating companies will receive regulatory advice, market insights, and networking opportunities with U.S. fintech institutions and investors.

Charles Potts, advisor at the National Fintech Organization (NFO) and former executive at the Independent Community Bankers of America, said the program addresses the challenges of international growth. “Expanding fintech innovation internationally requires not only market knowledge but also strong strategic partnerships and regulatory insight,” he said..

Atlantic Fintech said the program is unique in its use of senior executives embedded in the U.S. financial industry, enabled through partnerships with NFO and The Exchange. The Exchange is a peer-to-peer advisory network connecting executives across financial services, while NFO provides education and access to industry leaders for fintech growth.

“A program like the Atlantic Fintech Growth Network is a great addition to our U.S. go-to-market [strategy],” said Lori Weir, CEO of Four Eyes Financial, which is participating in the program. “Providing another avenue to connect with regulatory leaders in wealth management as we spread the word about how Four Eyes Financial is helping change the way trade surveillance and compliance is done globally,” she said.

The Atlantic Fintech Growth Network is supported by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Invest Nova Scotia, and Opportunities New Brunswick, reflecting a regional effort to position Atlantic Canadian fintechs on a global stage.

Atlantic Fintech leads initiatives to drive fintech innovation across the four Atlantic provinces, offering programs such as Fintech Concierge and Fintech Hub Atlantic Division, which focus on mentorship, market entry support, and ecosystem development.

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