Champagne Calls for more Early Stage Funding

The federal finance minister wants startups to have better access to large pools of capital.

Federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne

Federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne

Canada needs a method to help early-stage startups access pools of capital that are generally targeting larger companies to help develop national champions, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Wednesday.

In the closing fireside chat at Invest Canada, Champagne was interviewed by Benjamin Bergen, the Chief Executive of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, which hosted the conference in Halifax. The recurring theme of the minister’s talk was that investors around the world want to put money in Canada for many reasons, but mainly because this country offers trust and stability in an uncertain world.

Focusing on the innovation economy, he spoke several times of the importance of channelling more capital into small businesses and startups.

“We need to improve the pathway for startups to access capital, so we can build the next Canadian champions,” the minister told journalists following the discussion.

Invest Canada is the flagship conference of the CVCA, which is the country’s main association for private capital. Meeting in Halifax for the first time since 2007, the conference took place as the federal government has introduced several initiatives to encourage investment in the Canadian economy. These include a $1.75 billion pool of money to encourage more investment in startups and innovation-driven companies.

While $1 billion of that pool has been earmarked for the Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative, which will invest in large private VC funds, questions remain about how the government should spend the remaining $750 million. Officially, the government wants the money to go to “early growth” companies, seen by many as a vague term. The CVCA has called for it to be used to support major funding for growth-stage companies, while the National Angel Capital Organization has proposed a plan to support angel funding that targets pre-seed- and seed-stage companies.

When asked by a reporter where he thinks that $750 million portion should be directed, Champagne immediately said, “Early stage.” While that would seem he’s leaning toward the NACO plan for the money, one observer noted that “early stage” in the context of this discussion likely means Series A or B rounds, which would probably mean funding rounds of $5 million or more.

A few times in his speech, Champagne said small companies and startups desperately need capital to help them grow, but they are often asking for small amounts of money that fall below the thresholds of many investment funds. The country needs some way to channel these major sources of capital into the bank accounts of the startups that need funding, he said.

Through most of his speech, Champagne made the case for Canada’s growing attractiveness as a destination for international capital.

“There is a lot of private capital in various parts of the world that is genuinely interested in investing in Canada,” he said, adding that the country offers huge opportunities in such areas as energy, critical minerals, food, technology and defence.

Bergen noted that one economic file the Carney government has not yet acted on is tax reform and asked if there were plans for a royal commission on tax reform. Champagne responded, “I love commissions but I prefer action.” The government understands reforms are needed and it might be best simply to do them, he said.

However, he added that Canada’s marginal rate of taxation on investment is actually the lowest in the G7 group of major economies. What’s more, the government has already implemented some reforms such as improvements to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program, known as SR&ED.

Arken Lands Investment from MaxWave

The Dartmouth company helps firms in regulated industries make crucial decisions.

Dartmouth-based AI company Arken Innovations has received a round of investment from MaxWave Capital Inc., cementing a relationship in which the Arken technology will be used across the MaxWave portfolio of companies.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Sam Sanandaji, Arken has developed a product called the Knowledge Fusion Engine, which employs artificial intelligence to help clients in regulated industries make crucial decisions. It bases these decisions on a closed universe of data so that the user knows that the decision-making process has not been corrupted by extraneous information floating around on the web or in the cloud. It will only make a decision if it has all the validated data at hand.

"In the industries we serve — maritime, defence, healthcare, legal — a wrong answer isn't a bad user experience,” said Sanandaji in a statement announcing the investment. “It's a grounded vessel, a missed compliance window, a patient harmed. Most AI platforms will give you an answer. ARKEN is built to know when not to.”

The investment is not a traditional venture capital round because MaxWave is neither a VC nor a traditional private equity company. Rather it is an “independent sponsor”, a class of investment vehicle that gathers and deploys capital on a deal-by-deal basis rather than building a fund that invests in many companies. What’s more, MaxWave is an activist fund so that it embeds its own “operators” in its portfolio companies so they act as senior management.

MaxWave has made three investments in the past two years, but the Arken investment is the first that it’s announced publicly. It timed the announcement to coincide with the Invest Canada 2026 conference taking place in Halifax this week.

For the Arken deal, MaxWave chose its principal George Palikaras, the former founder and CEO of Meta Materials, to join the management team of the target company. Palikaras serves as the company’s President and COO, while Sanandaji, who previously co-founded Halifax-based Modest Tree, serves as Arken’s CEO. Arken is now based at the COVE facility in Dartmouth. 

MaxWave, which is not revealing the size of the investment, has been working with Arken for more than a year and has invested in the company through a series of tranches.

The investment firm was impressed by Sanandaji’s technology, which is different from many AI products because it does not answer questions based on information gleaned from nebulous sources. The Knowledge Fusion Engine helps users arrive at important decisions based on a specific set of data determined by the governance of the company. The information used in making the decisions can be traced and measured by the system.

Dr. Peter J. Balafas, Managing Partner, MaxWave Capital, said in an interview the technology also has the ability to capture the knowledge of senior executives ensuring it remains with the company if they leave. That’s vital in today’s business climate because so many senior people are nearing retirement age.

MaxWave generally invests in companies with an enterprise value (the total value of equity and debt) of $50 million to $800 million with a strong focus on the Canadian market. Balafas admitted that Arken is smaller than its target but MaxWave did the deal anyway because it was a strategic investment.

Arken and MaxWave have built a symbiotic relationship that extends beyond the traditional interaction between an investor and its portfolio company. The other companies MaxWave has invested in (and will invest in) will use the Arken technology to ensure they make the best decisions on crucial issues. MaxWave itself, will also use the Knowledge Fusion Engine in its own investment decisions.

“Private equity has traditionally relied on experience, pattern recognition, and operational playbooks,” said Balafas. “What ARKEN enables is the institutionalization of decision-making itself — not as a concept, but as deployable infrastructure.”

Tribe AI Stream Accepting Applications ​

Tribe is seeking founders for Cohort One.

Tribe Network, the Halifax hub that supports BIPOC entrepreneurs, is seeking applicants for its Tribe Innovation Hub: AI Stream, a 16-week applied venture validation program for Nova Scotia founders who are building AI-enabled startups.

In a newsletter, organizers say the program can help founders whether they are shipping their first MVP or have a business idea in mind.

The program offers:

* Bi-weekly applied builder sessions.
* Milestone-driven coaching and mentorship.
* Peer accountability pods.
* A complete AI-supported venture building toolkit: ICP, GTM, pricing, pitch deck, and traction tracking.
* Access to investors, ecosystem partners, and pathways into accelerators, pilots, and grants.

Applications close June 22

Apply here

Lastwall Closes $16M Funding Round

The cybersecurity company's deal brings VC funding to $23M in NB so far this year.

Lastwall CEO Karl Holmqvist

Lastwall CEO Karl Holmqvist

Fredericton-based cybersecurity company Lastwall has closed a $16 million round led by BDC Capital’s StrongNorth Fund and plans to use the money to expand sales to the Canadian government.

The round also included investments from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Frostbite Capital and existing investors Blue Bear Capital, 18West and Blue Wing Ventures.

Lastwall develops identity and authentication technology designed for government, defence and critical infrastructure networks. The company said its systems are built to operate across cloud, hybrid and disconnected environments, including low-bandwidth and air-gapped settings.

The company said it has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense (now the Department of War) since 2017. It recently received FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, a U.S. federal cybersecurity certification that allows vendors to operate within federal government systems.

“We proved our model in the world’s most demanding federal market,” said Lastwall Founder and CEO Karl Holmqvist in a statement. “We earned FedRAMP Moderate Authorization, secured U.S. government systems, and built a platform for the realities of modern cyber warfare. Now, we’re bringing those trusted capabilities home to help strengthen Canada’s cyber resilience at a defining moment for national security.”

Holmqvist emphasized that the focus on Canada is not a pivot away from the U.S. Rather, the company wants Canada to receive the same level of protection as the U.S. government. “Lastwall intends to be at the center of the mission to protect our continent, which means helping defend critical systems on both sides of the border,” he said.

This funding round is important for the New Brunswick innovation community for two reasons. First, it’s an eight-figure deal in the cybersecurity sector, which is a segment of the economy New Brunswick has targeted as a pillar of its innovation strategy. The financing also marks the first cybersecurity investment made through the StrongNorth Fund, which was launched to support Canadian technologies related to national security, defence and economic resilience.

Second, it’s the largest New Brunswick venture capital round since Fredericton’s Sonrai Security (also a cybersecurity company) raised US$50 million in October 2021. It comes as New Brunswick is emerging from a few dry years on the VC front. The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association says that New Brunswick booked three VC deals worth $6.9 million in the first quarter of 2026 – the only VC activity in the Maritimes in the period. NBIF officials last week said they’re noticing more big deals on the horizon in the province, both in terms of funding and exits.

“New Brunswick has built a strong advantage in cybersecurity, and NBIF is proud to back companies like Lastwall that are turning that strength into global opportunity,” said NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White. “This financing reflects our strong conviction in the team, the technology, and the market opportunity ahead as the company scales its trusted solutions in some of the world’s most security-sensitive markets.”

Peter Suma, managing partner at BDC Capital, said the investment aligns with the StrongNorth Fund’s mandate to back Canadian companies developing defence-related and dual-use technologies.

The company said governments and infrastructure operators are facing increasing cyber threats targeting sectors including energy, telecommunications, transportation and defence.

Lastwall is also working on quantum cybersecurity or protecting systems against quantum computing hacks. Quantum computing is a revolutionary field of technology that is expected to enable systems to solve highly complex problems exponentially faster than standard binary computing. It is believed to be years away from wide-spread adoption but companies and governments will have to make sure their systems are protected by “quantum-resistant” algorithms before cybercriminals are able to use the technology.

As part of the financing announcement, Lastwall said Peter Dawe, BDC’s vice-president of defence strategy, has joined the company’s board of directors.

HealthEMe Signs MOU with Mexico

The digital health company’s new partnership runs for two years.

HealthEMe co-founders Faten Alshazly and Ashwin Kutty

HealthEMe co-founders Faten Alshazly and Ashwin Kutty

Halifax-based health-monitoring venture HealthEMe has signed an MOU with Mexico's Ministry of Economy that allows the use of the platform in Mexico and collaboration on research and training.   

HealthEMe has developed its own platform which supports pre, during and post care for individuals with chronic diseases.

“Paired with HealthEMe’s expertise in digital health technology, this partnership has the potential to create real, lasting change for patients and communities across North America,” said Ashwin Kutty, President of HealthEMe.  

In detail, the MoU includes the following:

1   The use of the platform in Mexico.

2   HealthEMe to provide for training and mentorship of talent as they look to reform healthcare delivery.

3   HealthEMe to provide policy advice on person-centred care and its delivery.

4   A collaborative research partnership to see researchers from both countries exploring the continued use of the platform and its evolution beyond chronic disease management.

The company was spun out of Halifax ad agency WeUsThem in early 2023 as a separate software business unit. Its first product imTEEN was originally released by WeUsThem and allowed youth to track and manage their mental health. Much of the platform was based on the research of Dr. Stan Kutcher, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Dalhousie University.

HealthEMe now uses a business-to-business revenue model, selling subscriptions to organizations like government agencies, healthcare institutions and the post-secondary sector including universities and colleges. The company said its platform is in use in seven countries around the world.

The platform is now a white label SaaS product that allows users to focus on managing a wide range of health problems.

Ashwin Kutty, who co-founded both businesses with CEO Faten Alshazly, said the platform is modular and flexible, bringing patient-focused cultural context.

"Our eventual and long-term focus is the whole of healthcare, supporting patients across various levels of care,” he said.

The founders originally noticed a structural problem facing healthcare globally: a worker shortage. The medical labour force worldwide, including for mental healthcare, is failing to keep pace with population growth, with the World Health Organization projecting a shortfall of 10 million workers by 2030.

In 2020, Alshazly and Kutty won the Nova Scotia Health Authority's Health Challenge pitch competition, which bagged them $100,000 and a commercialization deal with the province.

The company now employs seven people and plans to raise funds after bringing more users to the platform.

ACOA Supports Expansion of MERGE

The MERGE Program connects startups with municipalities.

Fredericton area economic development agency IGNITE has announced new funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to support the launch of the second cohort of its MERGE program at startup hub Planet Hatch.

The MERGE program connects municipal needs and startup solutions, creating opportunities for new startups to validate their businesses while offering cost-effective solutions to community challenges, the group said in a statement.

Ignite launched MERGE early last year after receiving initial funding from ACOA. Startups that participate receive mentorship, business support, and project funding of up to $25,000.

The new $529,375 contribution will allow the work to develop.

“In our second year of MERGE, we’re expanding both the number of startups and our municipal partners, creating even more opportunities for companies to bring their solutions to market,” said Andrew Lockhart, Director of Entrepreneurial and Economic Growth.

The first cohort brought together five startups and five municipalities to complete projects that addressed challenges such as accessible and sustainable transportation, recreational tourism, water source identification, and blue trail enhancement.

The second cohort will feature four pre-selected community projects, along with two open-to-pitch opportunities where startups can present their ideas to municipalities, the group said.

Throughout the cohort period, startups will have access to Planet Hatch’s full range of programming and support services.

CVCA Will Gather in Halifax This Week

One topic to watch is how Ottawa should deploy a $750M fund for high-growth companies.

When Canada’s leading venture capitalists gather in Halifax this week, one hot topic will be a $750 million tug-of-war over the best way for Ottawa to support the innovation economy.

The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, is hosting its annual Invest Canada conference in Halifax Tuesday through Thursday. It will be the first time the CVCA has met on the East Coast since Tom Hayes, then the head of GrowthWorks Atlantic, chaired the conference in Halifax in 2007.  It’s also the first Invest Canada conference to be held since Benjamin Bergen, the former President of the Council of Canadian Innovators, became the new Chief Executive of the CVCA in January.

The Invest Canada meeting comes at a critical time for Canada’s innovation economy. Both the CVCA and the National Angel Capital Organization, or NACO, have released data in the past month showing a weak environment for investing in high-growth companies. And both these organizations are lobbying the federal government on the most effective way to deploy a $750 million wad of cash earmarked for startups and high-growth companies in the federal budget.

See also: Data shows angel funding is weak both regionally and nationally.

The budget in November pledged $1.75 billion to spur the country’s innovation sector. One billion dollars of that total are earmarked for the fourth iteration of a program dating to about 2010, which will now be called the Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative, or VGCCI. It’s essentially a fund-of-funds that would invest directly in venture capital funds and incentivize institutional investors like pension funds to back VC as well. The other $750 million is to be used, according to the budget, for a new strategy “to support Canadian firms facing early growth-stage funding gaps.”

The problems arise from how you define “early growth-stage”.

While both NACO and CVCA are pleased that the VGCCI will replenish Canada’s venture capital funds, they disagree on how the $750 million tranche should be used.

The CVCA defines “early growth” as Series B funding rounds or later and says the $750 million should be used to fund “champion” companies so that the country’s most successful startups can find major funding at home. In its most recent report on VC funding, the association noted an “absence” of Canadian Series D rounds or later in the first quarter. 

NACO, which held its annual Summit in Ottawa this month, wants the focus on early-stage companies, saying we can’t have large companies without first supporting small companies. It’s advocating $500 million of this figure should be used for a matching fund that would invest $1 for every $2 invested in pre-seed- or seed-stage companies by an angel investor in a recognized network.

It would like the remaining $250 million to finance a five-year operational funding initiative to develop the infrastructure needed to identify, educate and support angel investors. The goal is to develop a national framework of angel investors to support early-stage companies, which are suffering from severe funding weakness right now.

"“The $250 million is critical to seeing that the matching fund is truly national,” said NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas in an interview. “Angel networks bring resilience to the ecosystem. The $250 million would establish more regional strength and has the potential to bring serious multiplying power to the matching funds.”

One note from an East Coast perspective: this region does not have a broad-based angel network spanning all four provinces. NACO executives say the $250 million could help develop the operational infrastructure for a group in Atlantic Canada, which would enable the deployment of more private capital.

The waters have been muddied somewhat as a third national group, the Canadian Startup Capital Association, has emerged recently under the leadership of Saskatoon-based angel investor Jesse Wiebe. According to the Globe and Mail, it is looking for about $75 million to $150 million to encourage more wealthy people to become angel investors and develop the infrastructure needed to support them.

The Invest Canada delegates will no doubt be listening for hints on how this problem will be resolved on Thursday morning, when Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will be interviewed by Bergen in a fireside chat.

Reports Show Dearth of Angel Funding

NACO warns of weak angel investment in Canada while Entrevestor found a similar trend in Atlantic Canada.

NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas

NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas

Angel investment in both Atlantic Canada and the country overall was distressingly weak in 2025, recent data shows, prompting calls for more capital to be channeled into early-stage startups.

The National Angel Capital Organization, or NACO, issued a paper last week saying that investors within its network deployed $113.8 million via 490 funding rounds in 2025. That amount of capital was down 22.1 percent from the previous year and marked the lowest level of angel investment in five years.

“The contraction is structural, not cyclical,” said the NACO report. “The 2025 figures describe the conditions that federal early-stage capital is intended to address: macroeconomic uncertainty, trade tensions, and tighter capital markets that disproportionately affected pre-seed and seed-stage activity in a year when Canadian founders most needed first cheques.”

What’s more, NACO found that the average angel cheque size declined to a five-year low. The average investment size per deal was about $232,000 in 2025, reflecting sustained capital constraint at the earliest stages of Canada's startup community.

See also: NACO and CVCA in $759M tug-of-war over federal funding. 

Closer to home, Entrevestor released its 2025 Atlantic Canada Startup Data Report, which showed that East Coast startups last year raised $15.9 million from angel investors. While that represented a 14 percent rebound from 2024, it was also the third year in a row that angel funding in Atlantic Canada fell below the $20 million mark.

NACO represents angel and early-stage investors from across Canada, including more than 4,000 individual investors.

Its latest research shows cumulative angel investment since 2010 has surpassed $1.92 billion. However, it has also identified a perennial shortfall in funding for early-stage companies in Canada, which it says amounts to about $1.6 billion over a five-year period. This shortfall in funding is preventing younger startups from reaching the growth stages needed to truly drive the innovation economy. 

NACO  also found that Northern Ontario has the strongest angel community in Canada on a per capita basis. The region recorded about 36 deals per million people in 2025, roughly 64 percent more than Southern Ontario, said NACO. In an interview, NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas attributed the success of the northern region to the strong and consistent support for angel investing by Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, or FedNor.

NACO says that participation by women in angel networks reached its highest level on record in 2025. Women now represent 40 percent of members in the country’s angel networks – about 5 percentage points more than in 2024. Female representation has nearly tripled since 2017, says the group.

The organization called on governments to come up with policies, backed by funding, to encourage more private and public investment in early-stage, high-growth companies.

“Federal policy support is needed to expand the early-stage capital available to Canadian founders,” said NACO. “Closing the documented US$1.6 billion gap in Canadian early-stage capital will require matching mechanisms that pair federal capital with angel deployment, alongside continued federal support for the angel networks operating across every region of Canada.”

NBIF Showcases Optimism, Maturity in NB

After a few rocky years, the New Brunswick group sees big deals in 2026-27.

Jeff White, CEO of NBIF

Jeff White, CEO of NBIF

After 20 years of focused efforts to nurture the innovation economy, New Brunswick can now claim a more mature ecosystem with stronger companies emerging, said Jeff White, CEO of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.

Speaking at the Venture Capital Outlook held Wednesday in Fredericton’s Planet Hatch, White said the new environment is an improvement on the unpredictability of the last few years, which he described as “a test of endurance, requiring hard decisions for NBIF.”

White and Daniel Armali, who joined NBIF in October as Vice-President of Investment, told the gathering that they are working with a few innovation-driven companies that should have exciting announcements in the coming months. For example, Armani highlighted that there are "liquidity opportunities" -- a term that usually means exits -- in the works that could close, if all goes well, in 2026.

He also said NBIF is working on leading Series A rounds, which are usually worth $5 million to $15 million. Multiple companies are candidates for these rounds, and Armali expects the first of these funding rounds to close by the end of October.

In the first quarter of 2026, New Brunswick accounted for three of four Atlantic Canadian deals, according to the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, with New Brunswick startups raising a total of $6.9 million. The other deal was in Newfoundland and Labrador, worth $15.5 million.  

In his talk, White outlined several government policies that are supporting innovation.

The lack of funding for high-growth companies is being addressed by the federal government. Last year’s budget provided $1.75 billion for the task. Of this, $1 billion will go to growth-stage venture capital. Various parties including Ottawa, the CVCA and the National Angel Capital Organization are discussing how the remaining $750 million should be deployed.

New Brunswick’s provincial government has boosted its small business investor tax credit by expanding the types of instruments eligible, and increasing the tax credit for companies from 15 percent to 25 percent.

NBIF is now feeling ambitious and is focusing on scaling (growing) globally competitive companies, said White.

Armali added that New Brunswick is now the nation’s densest cybersecurity investment cluster.

White hinted at major growth for one particular New Brunswick company, recalling that 11 years ago, investor and ecosystem pioneer Gerry Pond said: “We need the billion-dollar company to come out of New Brunswick.”

Someone in the audience shouted that the time had come. White agreed: “We are now seeing that.”

Showcasing Eight Rookie Companies

Introducing our most recent list of Rookie All-Stars

Ethan MacLeod's Infralytix won NBIF's breakthru competition.

Ethan MacLeod's Infralytix won NBIF's breakthru competition.

Eight first-year startups have been named to our list of Rookie All-Stars, which we publish each year in our Atlantic Canada Startup Data Report to showcase promising young companies.

While several of the companies are in the artificial intelligence space, the list this year touches on a range of disciplines, from creating packaging from seaweed to modernizing the weighing of trucks. All of these companies came to our attention in 2025 and were highlighted in our 2025 data report, which was released Wednesday.

To be frank, this is always the most subjective part of the report because we never have the metrics for young companies that we’d need in order to flag the true rising stars. But highlighting the new companies that are creating buzz is a worthwhile exercise.

Here, then, is our all-star roster for 2025 (and apologies if a few of these founders were working on the companies before Jan. 1, 2025):

Alaagi

Halifax

Alaagi is a Halifax-based cleantech startup developing biodegradable, seaweed-based packaging as a sustainable alternative to plastic food packaging. The company was founded by Saint Mary’s University student Sheheryar Khan. Despite its early stage, Alaagi achieved significant traction by September, securing more than $12 million in commercial letters of intent and launching pilot programs with major food companies including Sobeys and High Liner Foods. Alaagi’s packaging uses seaweed to create materials that can naturally break down, addressing the growing environmental concerns around single-use plastics in the food industry. The company has gained international recognition, being named among the top 100 global startups in the Nestlé and UNESCO Youth Impact: Because You Matter program.

Ebben.ai

New Brunswick

Ebben.ai is building a new kind of intelligence platform designed to eliminate the fragmentation that slows modern teams down. Instead of scattering work across tools and losing critical context in chats, documents, and meetings, Ebben.ai creates a connected system that remembers, learns, and amplifies how teams actually operate. By preserving strategic intent, project history, and decision‑making context, it enables AI to deliver deeper, more relevant insights—not generic advice. Co-Founders Kerry Knee, David Alston and Derek Hatchard are a team of experienced entrepreneurs whose pedigree makes Ebben a startup to watch.

Final

St. John’s

Serial entrepreneur Mathias Nielsen started Final in January 2025 to build a drag-and-drop tool to help retailers build customized point-of-sales systems without writing code. Merchants can create full‑featured, flexible POS systems, while resellers can build tailored solutions for their clients. Using a visual editor or preset templates, teams can craft custom checkout flows and run them across in‑store terminals, self‑service kiosks, mobile devices, or bespoke applications. Fifteen months after its founding, the company already has about 30 employees, according to LinkedIn.

Infralytix

Fredericton

Infralytix is the brainchild of Dr. Ethan MacLeod, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Brunswick who has been working with advanced bridge weigh-in-motion technology. It aims to improve infrastructure monitoring and overweight enforcement with minimal installation. Infralytix uses data to help infrastructure owners make better decisions about roads and critical assets, bringing a faster, more modern approach to infrastructure management. The company won a $100,000 investment from NBIF for the first place in the 2026 breakthru competition. Infralytix also took home the $2,500 Viewer’s Choice Award, receiving the most in-room votes following the five live pitches at the breakthru live event.

Mulli Swing

Fredericton

Fredericton-based Mulli Swing Solutions has rapidly gained recognition for its golf‑tech innovation after winning several competitions in New Brunswick. The company created grip‑mounted sensors that generate data to help golfers and coaches analyze and improve swing performance. Founded by Brycen Munroe, Alex Khoshbakhtian, Matthew Ryan, and Ethan Belliveau, Mulli Swing has won UNB’s Student Pitch Competition, the Masters of TME demo day at UNB, and Profitual’s No‑Pitch Competition.

OmaScan

St. John’s

Co-founded by Memorial University engineering students Rohith McKim, Liam French, and Jordyn O’Brien, OmaScan modernizes home safety by using smartphone 3D scanning to help occupational therapists and families create accessible home environments. The company won the $25,000 first prize in the 2026 Mel Woodward Cup hosted by the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Studley AI

Halifax

Studley AI has developed a tool that uses AI to help students study for their exams. They simply paste the material they need to know into the dashboard and it produces digital flashcards in seconds. The company’s website says it is now used by more than 2 million students in many of the world’s top universities.

Writing Battle

Halifax

Founded by Navy veteran Max Bjork, Writing Battle is an online creative writing platform that hosts competitive short-story contests for writers around the world. Participants receive prompts – such as a genre, character, or object – and must write a short story within a limited timeframe. The platform emphasizes community feedback and skill development while offering cash prizes for top stories. Writing Battle describes itself as providing contests “for writers, by writers,” combining friendly competition with collaborative critique to help writers develop. The company has generated a lot of buzz in the Halifax tech community.

Major Companies Shone in 2025

Big deals and greater traction were the main story of the 2025 Atlantic Canada Startup Data Report.

Big deals and greater traction were the main story of the 2025 Atlantic Canada Startup Data Report.

Near record funding. A rebound in new company launches. Megadeals in Newfoundland and Labrador. Notable strength in AI and medical technologies. Persistent concerns about early-stage funding.

Those are the headlines from Entrevestor’s 2025 Atlantic Canada Data Report, which we’re launching today at the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation's Venture Capital Outlook in Fredericton. But the most consequential story in this report runs deeper.

It is the growing number and economic strength of the Elite and Scaling startups in Atlantic Canada. These high-growth, innovation-driven companies generally have more then 10 employees and $1 million in annual revenues, and have raised more than $2 million.

We’ve identified 98 of them, or 13 percent of the community, more than ever before. In 2025, they expanded their workforces by more than 15 percent, achieved strong revenue growth, and raised over $330 million in equity capital. Their performance provides compelling evidence that Atlantic Canada’s long-term investment in innovation-driven companies is delivering results. It’s what so many of us envisioned when we began to discuss the startup economy’s potential 15 to 20 years ago.

The second most important story is probably the surging influence of artificial intelligence, which has impacted nearly every major trend in 2025.

First, AI was a driving force behind a surge in funding. Atlantic Canadian startups raised $482 million in equity capital – the strongest annual total of the decade, and possibly the highest on record. A major contributor was the performance of two St. John’s-based AI companies, CoLab Software and Spellbook, which together attracted $171 million in venture capital – more VC than the rest of the community combined. The only concern in the funding realm – and it’s been a problem for a few years – is the weak funding by pre-seed and young companies.

AI also powered company formation. The IT sector – which we now refer to as the AI & IT sector – accounted for nearly three-quarters of all new startups. In 2025, we identified 136 new companies, along with several that had previously operated in stealth. This strong pipeline marks a meaningful shift after two years of concern about a shrinking pipeline and declining community size. While the total number of startups in our database declined to 741, the resurgence in new company creation offers clear grounds for optimism.

Employment trends tell a similar story. Startup employment grew for the first time in three years, reaching approximately 8,900 workers by the end of 2025, up from 8,400 a year earlier. Larger AI firms such as CoLab and Spellbook played an important role, but so did a growing cohort of smaller AI startups. Many of these young companies are able to generate early revenues and secure non-dilutive funding, allowing them to sustain operations and contribute meaningfully to overall job growth.

Revenue Growth

Revenue growth across the ecosystem was also strongly influenced by AI. Based on survey data, we estimate average revenue growth of 30.8 percent in 2025. Several larger companies reported that their revenues more than doubled. While data is incomplete, the overall trend is clear: AI-enabled companies are accelerating both the speed and scale of revenue generation.

The influence of AI extends beyond individual companies to the ecosystem. Groups such as Volta, DeepSense, and the Genesis AI Garage are among those offering programs in AI development. Meanwhile, support organizations are encouraging startups to prioritize rapid product development and early revenue generation using AI tools, rather than focusing primarily on fundraising.

There were also notable developments outside the AI sphere. St. John’s-based oceantech company Kraken Robotics surpassed a $1 billion valuation and continued to expand. Listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, the company raised $115 million – exceeding even the Spellbook and CoLab financings – and is well positioned to book the largest funding round again in 2026. Atlantic Canada has determined it will be a global force in oceantech and it’s a huge accomplishment to have a billion-dollar-plus company in the sector. Also, the huge funding deals by Kraken, CoLab and Spellbook are the cornerstones of an exceptional year of startup development in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The life sciences and medtech sectors also delivered strong results. These industries saw robust company formation and revenue growth exceeding 70 percent. Several medtech firms – including ABK Biomedical, Sound Blade, and Sparrow BioAcoustics – raised eight-figure funding rounds, while another life sciences company Mara Renewables secured US$9.1 million.

Greater Focus on M&A

In terms of exits and transactions, Atlantic Canadian companies are increasingly acting as acquirers rather than targets. Fredericton-based Remsoft, a long-established forestry software firm, received strategic investment from San Francisco private equity firm Banneker Partners and used the capital to acquire Lim Geomatics. With Banneker’s support, it made another acquisition in 2026. Four companies exited during the year, with the most notable being Charlottetown’s Abbey Island Foods, which sold for $20 million plus future considerations.

Beyond financial metrics, the ecosystem is evolving in other important ways. Environmental and diversity priorities have receded somewhat on the national policy agenda, while there’s an increased focus on economic and defence concerns. That means new opportunities have emerged for startups, particularly those with technologies applicable to defence and security.

In our Ecosystem section, we note that governments and support organizations are constrained by huge fiscal deficits on the part of federal and provincial governments. However, we once again find a surfeit of support organizations – 64 overall, of which only 17 make equity investments. At the end of the report, we make a case for the 65th member of the ecosystem – Entrevestor. While the ecosystem is plagued by multiple groups providing duplicated services, Entrevestor plays a unique role in providing deep and timely information to all parts of the community. We’ve issued a call for leaders to work with us on a plan to maintain this service after its current owners retire.

In these belt-tightening times, we appreciate the organizations that didn’t pull their belts so tight that it strangled funding for our data report. A huge thanks to these groups that supported our research: Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Invest Nova Scotia, NBIF, Halifax Partnership, Propel and the Nova Scotia Department of Growth and Development.

VidCruiter Launches AI Interview Scoring

The Moncton company is now in its second year of profitability,

Moncton-based VidCruiter, a global leader in using video in the hiring process, has launched a new artificial intelligence tool designed to score pre-recorded video interviews using client-approved rubrics.

The product, called AI Interview Scoring, is intended to help employers evaluate large numbers of candidates while reducing differences in how recruiters assess interview responses. The company said the system applies the same scoring criteria to every candidate answering a specific question and provides written explanations for each score.

"For too long, hiring teams have been forced to choose between speed and consistency, and the AI tools available to them have only deepened that problem by hiding their reasoning behind a black box," said CEO Sean Fahey in a statement announcing the launch.

"AI Interview Scoring is our answer. Every score is rubric-driven, every decision is explainable, and every evaluation is auditable end-to-end. If an AI can't show its work, it should not be making hiring decisions.”

The launch of AI Interview Scoring is the latest chapter in the decades-long story of VidCruiter, which has become one of the region’s venerable tech companies. Fahey started the company in 2009 and went through the first cohort of Propel’s Launch36 accelerator.

Though he limited his fundraising to angel investors, he grew the company to a global concern employing 140 people. It is used by more than 125,000 hiring professionals at about 660 enterprise customers, including such household names as Bell, the Canadian government and the Montreal Canadiens.  Most important, the company became profitable in its last fiscal year and will increase its profit this year.

“It's a profitable business now, which we're happy about and proud of,” said Fahey in an interview. “Last year was the first year we became profitable. There's a lot of growing and expanding for us to do in this market still today, so we plan to continue to do that.”

The company now boasts $15 million to $20 million in annual revenue, he said. Its sales were increasing about 50 percent annually during the pandemic, and Fahey said its annual growth rate is now “hovering in the teens”.

In its statement, VidCruiter said the technology is designed to address concerns about “black-box” AI systems in hiring by making the scoring process transparent and auditable. The company added that clients must approve the evaluation rubrics before interviews are assessed and can modify the criteria at any time.

Fahey said the system was developed to balance speed and consistency in recruitment while allowing hiring teams to review the reasoning behind each decision. He added that it offers flexibility so the AI system can interview and evaluate candidates, or humans can be involved in all phases of the process.

The company said the software evaluates only what candidates say during interviews and does not analyze biometric data such as facial features or speech patterns. VidCruiter said the exclusion of biometric analysis is intended to improve fairness and support compliance with emerging hiring regulations.

Chief AI officer Andrew Buzzell said in the statement the system was built to support validation testing and bias audits required by large employers and regulators.

Halifax Hosts Top 7 Over 70

The group celebrates new achievements by older adults.

Top 7 Over 70

Top 7 Over 70

Calgary-based non-profit Top 7 Over 70 held an awards ceremony in Halifax last week which celebrated the recent successes of adults over 70. It was the first time the awards were held outside Alberta and organizers said the program is expanding rapidly.

The movement began nine 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 Gray aimed to highlight new ventures started by seniors.

In Halifax, last week, the fight against agism was front and centre.

Dr. Ed Leach, co-chair of the Atlantic gala, said everyone has a responsibility to fight prejudice against older people.

He said that in the past he had allowed himself to be groomed to believe negative things about aging. Last week, he exhorted attendees to “Get it done. Find something that matters to yourself and the community you live in.”

Nominee Dr. Olive Bryanton told host Steve Murphy that: “Agism stops us from doing the things we really want to do because we’re all so indoctrinated.”

John Hamblin was nominated for his work in teaching older people about technology. He also endorsed rebelling against the idea that seniors “sit in a chair and do nothing’. He drove his message home with a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Grey, Grey Matter Matters’, a slogan he first heard in a speech given by well-known New Brunswick entrepreneur and investor Gerry Pond.

According to Statistics Canada, the country now has more people aged 65 and older than children under 15. The aging of the population is particularly evident in Atlantic Canada. Ed Leach said that if 25 percent of the 65+ population continued to participate in the workforce through 2035 it would add another 70,000 people to the regional workforce and reduce the pressure on inward migration. Further, the older workers could be targeted for jobs in tourism and other sectors that do not require year-round employment.

The Atlantic 2026 nominees were:

Dr. Olive Bryanton:  A champion for dignity, voice, and possibility in aging whose advocacy demonstrates that later life can be a time of leadership, discovery, and lasting impact.

Dr. Ken Lee: An internationally respected marine scientist advancing global ocean research while mentoring the next generation of environmental innovators.

John Hamblin: A leader in senior innovation and entrepreneurship championing technology solutions that help older adults remain engaged and connected.

Alan Syliboy: A Mi’kmaw artist, musician, and storyteller whose work preserves and celebrates Indigenous culture through contemporary creativity.

Carol Smith: A dedicated advocate working to build safer communities for women and families through leadership, courage, and community action.

Karen North: A champion for financial literacy helping individuals and families gain confidence and independence through education and mentorship.

Dr. Leslie Cake: A respected researcher advancing understanding of aging in Atlantic Canada and helping communities prepare for longer, healthier lives.

The gala was organized in partnership with Aging Well Nova Scotia.

NBIF To Host Data Report Launch Thursday

The annual Venture Capital Outlook will be held at Planet Hatch May 20 at 9 am.

We will release our 2025 Atlantic Canada Startup Data report at an event hosted by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation on May 20 at 9 a.m. at Planet Hatch in Fredericton.

The annual Venture Capital Outlook presentation, headlined by NBIF and Entrevestor, will examine venture capital activity, startup performance and investment trends across Atlantic Canada and in New Brunswick.

You can register here

Speakers at the event will include Jeff White, chief executive officer of NBIF; Peter Moreira of Entrevestor; and Daniel Armali, NBIF’s Vice-President of Investments.

White will provide an overview of NBIF and its perspective on current market conditions. Moreira will present findings from the 2025 Atlantic Canada Startup Data report, which tracks startup activity, funding trends and ecosystem growth across the region. Armali will discuss investment activity and developments within NBIF’s portfolio companies.

The event will conclude with a moderated question-and-answer session featuring all three speakers. Organizers said the discussion will focus on issues founders, investors and ecosystem partners should monitor in the current market.

According to the organizers, last year’s Venture Capital Outlook highlighted a tightening investment market and changing conditions in the regional startup ecosystem. This year’s event will update attendees on recent data and trends, while examining what may lie ahead for startups and investors in Atlantic Canada.

This will be the 12th year we have produced the Atlantic Canada Startup Data report, which has become the benchmark for the health of the region’s startup community.

Aeon Blue Wins National Cleantech Award

The Sydney e-fuel company is raising $4m to finance its first pilot project.

Aeon Blue CEO Lark Meadows pitching at the NACO Summit last week.

Aeon Blue CEO Lark Meadows pitching at the NACO Summit last week.

Sydney-based e-fuels company Aeon Blue, which is raising $4 million to finance its first pilot project, has been named the Startup Venture of the Year at the Canadian Cleantech Awards.

The sibling team of CEO Lark Meadows and CTO Deóis Ua Cearnaigh received the award Wednesday evening at the ceremony in Vancouver. The awards were hosted by Foresight Canada, which promotes climate-tech innovation.

Aeon Blue is developing technology that delivers sustainable e-fuels while simultaneously capturing carbon dioxide and generating high-value co-products. Its integrated hydrogen and carbon capture technology uses wind energy, seawater, and captured carbon dioxide to make cost-efficient e-fuel. The company plans to launch its first pilot project, which will produce jet fuel from sea water and CO2, in Cape Breton later this year.

“Let’s keep it simple: sea water in; jet fuel out,” said Meadows in her pitch last week at the 2026 NACO Summit in Ottawa, where Aeon Blue pitched as one of the “Moonshot Ventures”, a selection of leading startups from across Canada.

Research so far has shown that for every tonne of jet fuel the process produces, 37 tonnes of CO2 are either removed from or never injected into the atmosphere, said Ua Cearnaigh

The thing about the technology that the founders emphasize is that the white papers conclude that Aeon Fuel technology can produce carbon-negative fuel at the same price as natural gas. Put another way, they foresee a day when Canadian industry can access a reliable source of fuel, without the environmental damage caused by hydrocarbon extraction or worries about supply chain disruptions, and without paying more than the current systems.

“By bridging the gap between legacy industrial needs and net-zero targets, Aeon Blue is scaling a global solution for gigaton-level carbon removal while ensuring critical freshwater resources remain protected for local communities,” said a statement from Foresight Canada announcing the award winners.

Meadows is now raising capital with a target of $4 million to finance the first phase of its pilot project, in which a single reactor will be developed at Sydport in Sydney with a capacity to produce one tonne of jet fuel per year. The company has so far raised $295,000 from Cape Breton Capital as well as angel investors.

In laying the foundations for this pilot project, Aeon Blue has partnered with Eskasoni First Nation, whose site in Sydport has been earmarked as the location of this first reactor. The parties are working toward a long-term partnership, said Meadows, which they hope will result in the first clean fuel company owned by a Mi'kmaw community.

Phase II of the project will require $28 million in capital and result in a larger reactor capable of producing 30 tonnes of jet fuel per year.  They’re targeting a 2028 launch for this phase.

“Over the next year and a half – that’s when we’re going to experience more growth,” said Meadows.

If these two pilot projects are successful, Meadows and Ua Cearnaigh have set their sights on a commercial project, which would employ 100s of people during construction and employ 80 people in operations once the facility is operational.

Meadows added that Aeon Blue’s process produces side industrial quantities of products as well, such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide and ultra-pure water, and these substances could be used as feedstock for other industries, including complementary e-fuel businesses.

The co-founders kicked off their fundraising mission by pitching at the NACO Summit and its Moonshot Ventures event, which Meadows called “amazing.”

She said: “The exceptional thing was the NACO staff. We’ve never been in an event where they were so supportive of our goals.”

Feds Support Five Businesses in HRM

Grants have gone to companies working in a range of areas.


The federal government has awarded grants of $197,250 to five Halifax-area companies to help them hire experts, streamline operations, increase production, and reach new markets.

The funding is provided through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program.

The companies receiving funding are:

Halifax Honey Company, Bedford, Nova Scotia 

Received: $33,750

The Halifax Honey Company is engaging expertise to optimize production processes as it scales to meet growing demand across Canada. This initiative will help the company expand into new markets.

Pricing for Profit, Fall River, Nova Scotia

Received: $50,000

The project enables Pricing for Profit to engage expertise to move and rebuild the Pricing2Profit platform on a more secure and scalable system. It also supports the creation of marketing materials to strengthen the company’s online presence.

RFINE Biomass Solutions, Halifax, Nova Scotia 

Received: $50,000 

RFINE Biomass Solutions is hiring a food scientist to lead product development and bring new food-grade ingredients made from spent coffee grounds to full-scale production.

SudDrop Laundry Services, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Received: $36,000 

SudDrop Laundry Services is hiring a marketing development officer to strengthen outreach, attract new clients, and build partnerships to help expand the business locally.

Greenii Inc. Halifax, Nova Scotia

Received: $27,500 

Greenii is upgrading its manufacturing processes. The company is also increasing on-site capacity to improve storage and streamline operations. The venture aims to grow its eco-friendly packaging production and expand in Canadian and international markets.

CVCA Finds Weak VC Investing in Q1

Q1 saw three deals in NB, one in NL and none in NS or PEI.

Atlantic Canada suffered a weak first quarter for venture capital investment, says the country’s main private capital association, highlighting weak investment across Canada and around the globe.

The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA, released its first quarter data today, revealing that only four Atlantic Canadian companies closed VC rounds from January to March, with a total value of $22.4 million. It was a steep drop from the first quarter of 2025, when the region’s startups raised $36 million in seven deals.

The weak showing on the East Coast was part of a disappointing quarter for VC investment across Canada. The CVCA said the country reported 104 transactions worth a total of $936.3 million in the first quarter, compared with 116 deals worth $1.26 billion in the same period in 2025. In particular, the association noticed weak investment in growth-stage companies.

David Kornacki, the CVCA’s Director of Data and Product, noted in a statement that activity was “near zero” in the earlier stages and growth stages.  "One quarter does not confirm a structural shift, but the data is consistent enough that the absence of domestic growth capital warrants attention,” he said. “That is the stage where foreign participation increases, domestic ownership dilutes, and acquisition becomes more likely than IPO."

The CVCA also said that the number of transactions in Canada in the first quarter was the lowest of any quarter since 2017.

There were a few bright spots in the Atlantic Canadian numbers. There was one major deal in Newfoundland and Labrador worth $15.5 million, and New Brunswick startups reported three deals worth $6.9 million. The New Brunswick numbers were especially heartening given that the province only raised a total of $15 million in VC in all of 2025.

There were no venture capital deals reported in Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. We believe it was the first time since we’ve been monitoring the CVCA data 15 years ago that Nova Scotia reported no VC funding at all.

At a global level, venture capital investment this year is characterized by massive deals in AI infrastructure and a poor performance in the rest of the market, said the CVCA. Four AI infrastructure deals in the U.S. accounted for 57 percent of the total global venture capital deployed in the quarter, it said. In Europe, the value of VC deals dropped 40 percent from the first quarter of 2025, with seed-stage investment down 44 percent.

Myomar Molecular Closes $3.5M Round

The seed round comprises $1.6M in equity and $1.9M in non-dilutive funding.

Myomar Molecular COO Ryan Marshall and CEO Rafaela Andrade

Myomar Molecular COO Ryan Marshall and CEO Rafaela Andrade

Halifax-based Myomar Molecular, which has developed a urine test that assesses muscle health, has closed a $3.5 million seed round that will help it expand into the U.S. and Asia.

In an interview, Co-Founder and CEO Rafaela Andrade said the round comprised $1.6 million in equity investment, led by the Northern Ontario Angels, and $1.9 million in non-dilutive funding. The organizations contributing to the round include the Ontario Centre of Innovation and the Ontario Heritage Fund. The $3.5 million total exceeded the company’s original goal of a $3 million raise.

Myomar’s test assesses whether patients’ muscle mass has deteriorated, which is essential in treating degenerative diseases or monitoring the health of seniors. Clinics across Canada are now using the tests, and the company is executing on expansion plans in the U.S. and Japan.

“We are scaling the company right now,” said Andrade in the interview. “We just opened a lab in Aurora, Colorado, so that lab will feed the U.S. operations. It's a centralized lab to help with the shipping of urine across the U.S. for analysis.”

The tests need to be assessed in a lab, and shipping urine samples across the Canada-U.S. border can be complicated, she said. So the company needed to establish a lab in the U.S. to allow its expansion in the world’s largest economy.

The company also has a major partnership with the Japanese supplements giant Suntory Wellness, which invested in Myomar in the latest round. The company will study the use of Myomar tests to assess changes in muscle density amoung the users of its supplements, and this is spearheading the Halifax company’s growth in Japan.

"Myomar Molecular’s groundbreaking approach to non-invasive muscle health testing aligns perfectly with our commitment to addressing global challenges like aging populations and wellness," said Suntory America Director of Strategy and Business Development Yoshio Kinoshita in a statement. "We are excited to support their growth and contribute to advancing preventative health solutions.” 

Andrade added that the company has major partners in Singapore and South Korea, which will also help with Asian growth.

Myomar has recently begun true marketing campaigns for the first time, and has begun working with major clinics in Canada and the U.S., those with millions of customers each. The result has been a surge in revenues.  

“In the last quarter, we doubled the sales from the past quarter,” said Andrade. “We’re still not as big as we'd like to be, but now that we just started selling in the U.S., we think it's going to speed up quite fast.”

She added that changes in the marketplace bode well for the company. For example, about 20 million people are now using GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic or Wegovy, and there are concerns these weight-loss drugs could reduce muscle mass as well as fat. Capturing a mere  0.1 percent of this market could mean a $5 million boost in revenues for Myomar, said Andrade.

Now that the funding round is closed, the Myomar team, which currently comprises eight staff and two full-time contractors, has set its sights on product development and geographic expansion.

“In 2026, we want to finalize our at-home test, which is going to be revolutionary because people will be able to detect muscle degradation at home using a strip,” said Andrade. “And we want to open up the business development in Asia.”
 

Novonix Spins Off Two Halifax Companies

Chris Burns will head Dryve Battery Materials, which is commercializing cathode materials.

Dr. Chris Burns, inset, is the CEO of Dryve Battery Materials, whose pilot facility is in Dartmouth.

Dr. Chris Burns, inset, is the CEO of Dryve Battery Materials, whose pilot facility is in Dartmouth.

Dr. Chris Burns, the former CEO of Novonix Battery Technology Solutions, has taken the battery innovator’s Halifax operations private, setting up two new companies, each with a distinct focus.

 Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Novonix said last week it had completed the transaction, which will result in the creation of a consultancy business called Avrion Battery Labs and a product-focused business called Dryve Battery Materials Inc.

Burns is the CEO of Dryve, which will aim to commercialize a platform for lithium-ion cathode materials. Novonix has taken a 15 percent stake in Dryve and seeded the startup with US$2 million (C$2.7 million) in working capital.

“Dryve is built to fundamentally simplify how cathode materials are made,” said Burns in a statement announcing the new company. “Our dry, pCAM-free synthesis platform eliminates conventional precursor steps and enables a more efficient, lower-cost, and scalable path to cathode production.”

Cathode materials are the positive electrode components in batteries that dictate a battery's energy density, voltage, and lifespan by managing lithium-ion flow during charging and discharging.

Burns came up through Jeff Dahn’s battery innovation lab at Dalhousie University, leaving it in 2013 to set up a company to accelerate R&D in batteries and battery materials. It was bought out by the company that would become Novonix, which is now listed on Nasdaq with a market capitalization of US$160 million.

In an interview, Burns said Novonix has grown to specialize in a few disciplines, with its Tennessee operation focused mainly on producing large-scale synthetic graphite. “The operations in the U.S. are bigger and different than those in Canada, so it made it complex to run,” he said.

The different operations needed to focus, so the board decided to spin off the Halifax operations so the various businesses could each concentrate on best practice in their respective markets. It maintained a stake in Dryve to benefit from any upside as the spin-off brought its cathode products to market. 

The divestiture was achieved by Burns paying 1 US dollar for the Halifax operations, with Novonix retaining its stake in Dryve and providing working capital.

Still a pre-revenue company, Dryve now has 16 employees and a 100-tonnes-per-annum pilot facility in Dartmouth. Burns said he is looking at raising equity capital for the company at some point, and is especially interested in strategic investment from industrial companies that would benefit from its cathode materials research.

Burns said the market is looking for battery technology to improve in many different ways, but something that is always paramount is lower costs, and the Dryve team is focusing on this area. He said the team’s work has produced a 30 percent capital cost decrease and a 50 percent drop in operational costs (outside of cost of materials).

Avrion Battery Labs, meanwhile, is a battery research consulting business, or as Burns says, “very similar to where we started 13 years ago.” The 20-person company helps clients – from blue chip companies to startups – conduct research and development on lithium-ion batteries with the goal of helping these companies build new products. Its capabilities range from helping to build prototypes to evaluating performance in extreme conditions, such as high temperatures.

The consulting company will be led by Lori McLeod, who has served as President of Novonix Battery Technology Solutions for the past three years.

NB Proposes Tax Credit Improvements

The proposed changes are intended to improve incentives to invest in NB businesses.

New Brunswick has proposed changes to its Small Business Investor Tax Credit program that will improve the incentives for companies and individuals investing in the province’s startups.

The provincial government issued a statement last week saying the proposed amendments are aimed at improving access to capital for New Brunswick startups while encouraging investment in sectors considered strategically important to the provincial economy.

“Through the promotion of strategic, targeted investments, we are recognizing the importance that strategic sectors play in the province’s economy and export potential,” said Finance and Treasury Board Minister René Legacy.

Among the proposed changes is an increase in the tax credit rate for corporate investors to 25 percent from 15 percent. The government also plans to raise the maximum net tangible asset threshold for eligible companies to $50 million from $40 million, expanding the number of businesses that can qualify for the program.

The amendments would also allow the use of convertible debentures as an eligible investment vehicle, giving investors and businesses more flexibility in structuring deals.

The Small Business Investor Tax Credit program provides non-refundable income tax credits to investors who put money into eligible New Brunswick businesses and community economic development corporations. Individual investors would continue to receive a 50 percent credit, which the province said is the highest rate in Canada.

The government is also proposing a two-tiered structure that would offer higher investment limits for companies operating in strategic sectors. Under the proposal, investors in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, manufacturing, architecture and engineering, digital media, performing arts, and information technology could invest up to $1 million.

Investment limits for non-strategic sectors would remain unchanged at $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporate investors.

The changes would apply retroactively to investments made on or after March 17, 2026, if approved.

Three East Coast Startups at NACO’s Moonshots

Aeon Blue, Aurea and Tracktile all pitched to investors from across Canada.

Three Atlantic Canadian startups – Aeon Blue, Aurea Technologies and Tracktile – were selected to pitch to investors at the 2026 NACO Summit held in Ottawa this week.

The three companies were among 27 pitching at Moonshot Ventures, which was a group of innovation-driven companies from across Canada. They were chosen from more than 100 ventures nominated by member organizations of NACO, or the National Angel Capital Organization, which represents more than 4,000 Canadian angel investors.

NACO said the ventures pitching at Moonshot this year had collectively raised more than $190 million.

The three Atlantic Canadian representatives were:

Aeon Blue

Sydney

Lark Meadow, CEO

Aeon Blue is developing a solution that delivers sustainable e-fuels while simultaneously capturing carbon dioxide and generating high-value co-products. The company plans to launch its first pilot project, which will produce jet fuel from sea water and CO2, in Cape Breton later this year.

Aurea Technologies

Dartmouth

Cat Adalay, CEO

Aurea is the cleantech company behind the Shine and RISE turbines, portable wind energy systems designed for outdoor recreation, emergency preparedness, and defense applications. Lightweight, collapsible, and powerful, these systems enable clean energy access wherever the grid doesn’t reach, the company says.

Tracktile

Charlottetown

Jordan Rose, CEO

Founded in 2019, 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.

 

Disclosure: The CEO of Aurea Technologies is the daughter of the owners of Entrevestor. 

Ledwell Targets Investment, Infrastructure in Review

The new PEI BioAlliance CEO outlines her vision for the Island's biocluster.

PEI BioAlliance CEO Lauren Ledwell

PEI BioAlliance CEO Lauren Ledwell

When Lauren Ledwell talks about her vision for the Prince Edward Island life sciences community, it doesn’t take her long to mention two words: investment and infrastructure.

These two words are likely to play a big role in the strategic review now being carried out by the PEI BioAlliance – the organization that named Ledwell its new CEO last autumn.

Under her predecessor, Rory Francis, the association for the life sciences cluster on the Island boasted several decades of growth. In fact, its 40-plus private-sector members booked $634 million in revenue in 2024 (the most recent figures available). And one goal of the strategic review is to boost that figure to $1 billion by 2030.

“We have to continue the growth trajectory that we're on,” said Ledwell in an interview. “And there are in 2026, based on the geopolitical environment we find ourselves in, levers that we'll have to pull in order to hit that $1 billion ambition by 2030, which kind of feels some days like it's just around the corner.”

Source: PEI BioAlliance

 

Ledwell spent the first few months in her new role meeting with members of the Island’s bio-cluster to learn first-hand how its members were doing and what their concerns are. It’s helped to shape the strategic review, which will be formally released in the fall. The overall message is that things have been going well and a few improvements will be needed to ensure the growth continues.

Private investment will be a big part of it, and it’s a subject familiar to Ledwell. Her CV includes stints as the Managing Partner of the Women’s Equity Lab in Atlantic Canada and as a Principal at Sandpiper Ventures, the all-female VC fund. She says there is a gap in seed and pre-seed funding in Atlantic Canada that needs to be filled, and doing so in life sciences is especially challenging because the investment cycles tend to be longer and more complicated than in other sectors.

“My view is that we can and should be doing a better job of attracting capital to our early-stage companies and our scaling companies,” said Ledwell. “I think investment readiness is a function that we need to [improve] here on P.E.I., and that's something that we'll do as part of our new strategy. The second is building a stronger investor network beyond the region.”

Investors in other parts of Canada and the U.S. need to become aware of the success of the cluster, including the fact that two Charlottetown bio-ventures have reached billion-dollar valuations. In 2024, Indiana’s Elanco Animal Health sold its P.E.I. operation to Merck & Co. for US$1.3 billion, or C$1.75 billion. Later that same year, Charlottetown drug manufacturer BIOVECTRA, which Miami-based H.I.G. Capital bought for US$250 million in 2019, was sold again for US$925 million or C$1.27 billion, to another U.S. entity.

The second aspect of the strategy that Ledwell emphasizes is infrastructure. Ledwell described it as a “key pillar” because the PEI cluster’s core disciplines – bio-manufacturing, animal and aquaculture health, nutraceuticals, etc. – require specialized facilities for R&D and production.

The BioAlliance has made huge strides in this area, overseeing the development of the BioCommons Research Park on the outskirts of Charlottetown a few years ago. The next piece of this puzzle will be the $50 million BioAccelerator, which will provide 38,000 square feet of workspace when it opens in September.

A third facet of the review will be people – an area that includes education, training, immigration, and ensuring that venturesome folk are encouraged to start companies and are supported through their journey.

The BioAlliance launched the Canadian Alliance for Skills and Training in Life Sciences, or CASTL, a few years back to help people upgrade their skills in the sector. The group opened its Biomanufacturing training facility in 2022.

As well as CASTL, the BioAlliance is working with post-secondary institutions to ensure their curriculum matches the modern job market. Ledwell also noted that Lab2Market, which helps researchers assess whether their research could lead to a commercial venture, is now working with University of PEI to flush out commercially viable projects from its research complex.

While P.E.I. is the main focus for Ledwell and the BioAlliance, they strive to help improve the ecosystem across Atlantic Canada. A major component of the organization is the Emergence life sciences incubator, which works with companies from all four eastern provinces.

“PEI is great,” said Ledwell. “And you know what? My mandate is certainly centred on driving the cluster in P.E.I., but I think we can work together as a region as well. And so I'm working with my peers in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland to make sure that we're aligned and in sync on what each of us are focusing on.”

Venture NL Model Showcased at NACO

The first fund returned $21M to shareholders and is still valued at $50M.

The NACO Fireside Chat: Moderator Camila Gonzalez, left, Chris Moyer and Claudio Rojas.

The NACO Fireside Chat: Moderator Camila Gonzalez, left, Chris Moyer and Claudio Rojas.

Pelorus Venture Capital and the Venture NL Fund took centre stage at the 2026 NACO Summit on Wednesday, drawing applause for funding successful ventures, returning money to shareholders and attracting more capital.

Pelorus Founding Partner Chris Moyer was featured Wednesday in the first fireside chat at the National Angel Capital Organization’s annual get-together in Ottawa. Joined by NACO CEO Claudio Rojas, Moyer told how his group grew from a single $14 million fund in 2015 to now being on the verge of closing its third fund, worth $50 million. Its portfolio companies include CoLab Software and Spellbook, which together raised US$120 million last year.

NACO represents more than 4,000 angel investors, and Moyer noted that one of the strengths of the Venture NL model is that it draws capital from angel investors as limited partners. Many of these private investors decide to become angels in the companies that Pelorus backs, ramping up the support for Newfoundland and Labrador startups.

“These angels are a key for us,” Moyer told the session. “They invest in us and they invest alongside us, and that has become a real strength in Newfoundland.”

The story began in 2015 when Daryl Genge – then a civil servant in the provincial economic development department and now the CEO of Springboard Atlantic – began discussing how Newfoundland and Labrador could address the lack of early-stage funding in the province. He didn’t want a Crown corporation or government department investing directly in companies, said Moyer.

The provincial government decided to become a limited partner in a new fund, the Venture NL Fund, and put up $10 million, asking for other investors. Local angels and the Business Development Bank of Canada came in with a further $4 million and Pelorus was hired to manage the $14 million fund.

That fund invested in some great companies, like Spellbook and CoLab, and in 2025, it returned $21 million to investors – or $1.50 for every dollar invested. Not only that, the remaining companies in that first fund are worth $50 million today, said Moyer.

Pelorus has since raised a second Venture NL fund, with a value of $26 million and is nearing the close of Venture NL III with a value of $50 million – some $15 million of which is coming from the provincial government. Moyer noted that the NL government has increased its commitment with each new fund, but claimed a smaller percentage of each subsequent fund because the private investment keeps growing.

Rojas said the Venture NL model could and should be repeated in a lot of smaller markets across Canada, and he mentioned Yukon and Victoria, B.C., as markets that would be well suited to its blend of government and private funding.

“This shouldn’t be news,” said Rojas, referring to the success of the Venture NL program. “It’s a loss to the country that it is news.”

Cape Breton Capital Backs Petite Riviere Farming

The agrifood startup landed $100K from the investment group.

The Cape Breton Capital Group has invested $100,000 in Petite Riviere Farming Company, a Nova Scotia startup focused on agricultural innovation and value-added food products.

The company, founded by Gregg Curwin, produces nutritional supplements made from freeze-dried micro-greens and operates under the GoMicro brand.

“From the outset, what stood out most [about Petite Riviere Farming] was the team,” said the investment group in a statement.” They are practical, execution-focused, and deeply committed to building something meaningful in Atlantic Canada. That kind of alignment matters – especially in early-stage investing – and it’s been a pleasure working alongside them.”

Curwin said the investment reflects confidence in the company’s direction and team. He added that collaboration with Cape Breton Capital has been positive and emphasized the importance of local investors supporting innovation in Nova Scotia.

Cape Breton Capital said the company’s GoMicro platform is an example of integrating agriculture, technology and processing to create new opportunities in the agri-food sector.

Another area of focus is the company’s freeze-dried broccoli product. The process extends shelf life and reduces waste while maintaining nutritional value, positioning the product for use in food, health and export markets. Cape Breton Capital said such products could benefit from growing demand for shelf-stable and sustainable food options.

Petite Riviere Farming said it plans to use the funding to support growth and further develop its product lines and platform.

Last month, Petite Riviere Farming was one of three Nova Scotian companies named as finalists in the International Network of Michelin Cities Start Up Pitch Competition. They will compete in the finals in Italy in the autumn.

Curwin is one of the region’s leading innovators in the food space. He launched and exited from TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture, which grew into Guelph, Ont.-based GoodLeaf Farms. Curwin is also the CEO of Halifax-based Novagevity, which makes Sperri plant-based meal replacements.

Labs 4 Atlantic Supports Student Innovation

The program links new founders with post-secondary institutions.

Winter Participants

Winter Participants

A year after securing federal funding to lead the Atlantic region’s participation in the national Labs 4 network, the Nova Scotia Community College is celebrating a successful first year.

Labs 4 supports early-stage research commercialization with the aim of strengthening inter-institutional collaboration and helping student founders move closer to market, the group said in a press release.

As the Atlantic Hub for Labs 4, NSCC coordinates a network of post-secondary institutions that support students and recent alumni working at early technology readiness levels, the group said.

In one recent cohort, students from Dalhousie University and the College of the North Atlantic worked with a technical advisor based in New Brunswick to navigate the ethical approval process required for a medical device under development.

“We’re very intentional about avoiding collaboration on paper,” Barrinique Griffin, Manager of Entrepreneurship at NSCC, said. “The goal is real, practical support that meets founders where they are and accelerates their progress.”

Over the past year, the Labs 4 Atlantic network:

·         Put approximately $192,000 directly into student innovation through grants and stipends;

·         Supported 16 entrepreneurs across seven student teams;

·         Enabled participants to validate hypotheses, build prototypes and assess market demand;

·         And, achieved strong gender equity representation.

So far, more than 80 percent of supported ventures continue to develop their original projects. Several founders have advanced to subsequent funding programs and partnerships.

10 Companies Join ideaBUILD Spring Cohort

The program is for deeptech startups focused on creating physical solutions for a healthier world.

ideaBUILD launch event

ideaBUILD launch event

Emera ideaHUB, the Halifax-based early-stage, deeptech incubator, has named 10 startups that have been accepted into its Spring 2026 ideaBUILD program.

Designed to help founders transform ideas into real-world solutions, ideaBUILD supports physical product development. The 10-month program offers founders a $10,000 grant towards prototyping materials, a 12-week bootcamp, and leading industry advisers who work alongside them to validate and build their product’s first operational prototype.

“We’re excited to welcome this talented group of founders into the Emera ideaHUB community for our Spring 2026 cohort,” said Jordan Martin, Program Manager at Emera ideaHUB in a statement. “Each team brings a unique perspective and innovative solution to tackle a real-world problem. We look forward to supporting them as they move from idea to prototype.”

The participants are:

Abbatek Group Inc.: Abdul-Latif Alhassan, Jackie Ray Bauman, Ivo Arrey.

The company provides a microplastics detection ecosystem. Its flagship SaaS platform, MPConnect, uses AI to integrate spectral and image analysis, cutting research time and increasing accuracy. They are currently developing MPDetect, a quantum-enabled sensor to provide real-time, in-field quantification of microplastics for environmental and industrial monitoring.

Aegisnova Inc. Brandon Watson, Elricko Watson

Aegisnova is for patients who take medications that require regular blood test monitoring. With the critical problem of long wait times, travel burden, and delayed results from traditional labs, the product is a pharmacy-based healthcare kiosk with automated blood collection and onsite testing. It provides fast, convenient, clinically reliable results, with optional same-day virtual consultation.

EsseReale Kevin Easom, Muhammad Adeel Ahsan

EsseReale is developing Yo-Go, a next-generation hands-free seated mobility device that uses intelligent self-balancing and intuitive body-based control to make personal movement safer, easier, and more accessible. The venture is focused on bringing advanced robotics into everyday mobility to give people a more natural and independent way to move.

Feedr Steven Kelly

The venture is developing a high-resolution grid monitoring platform that enables electric utilities to detect, classify, and locate electrical disturbances on distribution networks in real time. By turning fast electrical data into actionable insights, the solution helps utilities improve reliability, reduce outage durations, and better manage modern grid challenges such as distributed energy resources.

Locus Fit Jackson Chambers

The company is building self-configuring sensor nodes that eliminate manual workout logging for athletes and coaches. Each “neuron” uses RFID and Motion capture technology to automatically identify equipment, register athletes, and capture every rep. No apps to open, no data to enter. The same device can be strapped to the body to function as a low-cost motion capture system, delivering movement analysis capabilities that currently cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Mulli Swing Solutions Brycen Munroe, Ethan Belliveau, Alex Khoshbakhtian

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.

PetBuddy Rabjot Kaur, Parth Bindra

PetBuddy is an AI-driven smart collar that monitors health, activity, and behavior to detect issues early and strengthen communication between owners and pets. 

RespAI Bryce Mulley, Abdulmujeeb Abdulweed

RespAI is an exposure intelligence system for firefighters.

Stroke of Luck, Steve MacDougall, Ross MacDougall, Sarah MacDougall

Stroke of Luck is a health technology company developing AI-powered solutions to improve stroke rehabilitation. Founded and led by stroke survivor Steve MacDougall, the company is driven by lived experience and focused on making high-quality rehabilitation more accessible, effective, and scalable.

Visum Neurotechnologies, Mohammad Habibnezhad

Visum is focused on improving cognitive assessment and intervention in older adults with emphasis on physiological biomarkers using novel technological developments.

23 Teams Enter Ocean Idea Challenge

The participants in the idea-stage program include 11 teams from Atlantic Canada.

The Ocean Startup Project has accepted 23 teams for its 2026 Ocean Idea Challenge, including 11 from Atlantic Canada.

The Idea Challenge is the OSP’s entry-level competition, in which novice oceantech entrepreneurs can conduct customer discovery and get an idea of whether their idea could lead to a viable business. Successful teams can graduate to the Ocean Startup Challenge, for teams developing a business.

Participating teams in the Idea Challenge will take part in a “customer discovery sprint”, interact with the OSP team and industry experts, and receive up to $8,000 in funding to support early validation, said the organization.

“The strength of this year’s applicant pool says something important about the momentum building in Canada’s ocean startup ecosystem,” said Natasha Legay, Ocean Challenge Director at the Ocean Startup Project. “More people are recognizing that ocean entrepreneurship is within reach.”

The statement said the organization received 83 applications (almost one-fifth more than last year) and that the selected teams are exploring a wide range of opportunities, such as aquaculture, marine safety, ocean data, coastal resilience, and renewable energy.

To date, 54 teams have completed the program, with 22 going on to the Ocean Startup Challenge — meaning more than 40 per cent of Ocean Idea Challenge teams have continued building through OSP’s later-stage programming.

The 2026 Ocean Idea Challenge participants from Atlantic Canada are:

● AquaPath AI (PEI): Developing AI-assisted diagnostic support software for aquaculture histopathology that helps pathologists identify suspicious regions faster and reduce backlog during disease outbreaks.

● Belon Autonomous Inc. (NS): Developing a versatile autonomous marine platform and ecosystem for persistent Arctic missions, utilizing moving-mass architecture to ensure tactical stealth and mechanical resilience.

● Kasis Clean Water Inc.  (BC / NB): Developing a redox-active material derived from chitosan that can be used in redox-flow batteries.

● Marine Critical Parts Supply Inc. (NL): Streamlining inventory analysis and procurement processes for vessel and offshore asset operators through an integrated platform that reduces downtime, delays and operational inefficiencies.

● Naavi Marine Intelligence (NS): Developing an edge AI system for small vessels that reduces cognitive overload and improves offshore safety by integrating with onboard instruments to deliver proactive intelligence, voice interaction and automated voyage logging.

● Nazara AI (NL): Building an AI-driven system for automated metocean data quality control that uses physics-informed machine learning to improve data accuracy in extreme offshore environments.

● Ochre Subsurface Inc. (NL): Improving fault identification in seismic data through an AI-assisted solution that helps offshore energy and carbon storage teams reduce subsurface risk and improve decision-making.

● SafeFish (NL): Helping small-scale fisheries improve safety at sea through an ocean intelligence platform that integrates satellite data, weather information and fisher knowledge to identify safer fishing areas and avoid environmental hazards.

● SeaGreen Solutions (NB): Producing seaweed-derived biochar and ocean-based bioproducts that permanently remove carbon while enhancing soil health, stormwater systems and low-carbon infrastructure.

● SentiShell (PEI): Enabling real-time risk detection for aquaculture lines with a self-powered tensile-tension sensor that provides alerts and predictive notifications for potential line failure from crop load and storm conditions.

● Zaab SeaMethanol (NL): Building modular, solar-powered systems that use photocatalysts to convert dissolved CO₂ in seawater into green methanol and hydrogen as a lower-carbon fuel alternative for shipping and industrial use.

The participants from Central and Western Canada are:

● Aquadrone (QC): Delivering precise and safe dredging in challenging environments through an ROV-operated sediment suction system that enables targeted sediment removal beyond the reach of traditional equipment.

● Aqua Sentry (BC): Developing a low-cost smart buoy system that acts as a check engine light for marine environments, using AI-driven analytics to enable accessible, real-time monitoring and anomaly detection.

● Argo (QC): Enabling real-time ship draft measurement through an automated solution.

● BioBoom (QC): Developing a deployable bioreactor boom that biologically degrades oil autonomously, enabling offshore cleanup in weather conditions that prevent traditional response operations.

● CB Imaging (BC): Developing an AI-assisted system to automate measurement of ships’ infrared signatures, enhancing detection, monitoring and maritime security.

● CoastWise (BC): Developing a smartphone-based change detection application for coastal and riverine erosion monitoring, enabling non-experts in remote communities to conduct repeat surveys using a smartphone and reducing reliance on costly survey teams and specialized equipment.

● Inbridge AI (BC / QC): Transforming complex maritime regulations and operational procedures into real-time decision support and automated workflows through an AI-native platform that enhances safety, efficiency and environmental responsibility in shipping.

● Retide Labs (BC / ON): Improving global ocean cleanup efforts through AI and satellite fusion that maps plastic pollution and delivers audit-proof verification of plastic credits for a more accountable blue economy.

● Sentry Labs (QC): Providing real-time detection of water pollutants and harmful algal blooms in aquaculture environments through deployable molecular sensing systems.

● Sulys (QC): Combining environmental DNA analysis and artificial intelligence to optimize aquaculture production and reduce mortality.

● Waefa (ON): Providing real-time trust verification for Arctic navigation, communications and power systems through an edge-deployed cyber-physical assurance platform that fuses multi-constellation signals with environmental context under extreme conditions and hybrid threats.

● WaveGen Technologies Inc. (ON): Delivering continuous renewable power to coastal and remote microgrids through ocean wave energy infrastructure that uses adaptive offshore systems to maximize energy yield.

Propel Seeks Help with its Survey

The responses will help the tech accelerator assess the regional startup ecosystem.

Propel, Atlantic Canada’s virtual tech accelerator, is asking members of the Atlantic Canadian startup community to complete a survey to help it assess the ecosystem.

The organization has released its confidential survey – which you can find here – and is asking founders, CEOs and others to take the time to fill it out.

Propel in January welcomed James Geneau as its new CEO, and under his stewardship the organization is assessing how to improve the ecosystem in the region.

“Our goal is simple: to better understand what is working, where the biggest challenges exist, and how Propel can continue to evolve to deliver meaningful, measurable outcomes for founders - and value for the broader ecosystem,” said Geneau in a message to founders and CEOs. “Your input will directly inform our strategy, programming, and how we engage with partners moving forward. Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback.”

Propel works with founders developing “baby unicorns”, a fun term that former CEO Kathryn Lockhart used to describe companies valued at more than $50 million.  Its programs are delivered online and complemented by a network of startup coaches who work in person with founders throughout the region.

Tribe Moving to Volta Location

The group for BIPOC founders has been on Barrington Street for three years.

Tribe Network, the Halifax hub that supports BIPOC entrepreneurs, is moving to a new space at 1800 Argyle Street, the same space as tech hub Volta.

In a newsletter, the group said it is moving to facilitate a more integrated, collective approach to growth. 

“We’re establishing our home on the 8th floor of 1800 Argyle St, anchoring ourselves at the heart of the innovation ecosystem at Volta,” the group said. “That’s not a coincidence. Being closer to the people and organizations we work alongside, under one roof, in the same hallways …”

Earlier this month, Tribe and rural startup group IGNITE Atlantic announced a partnership to support BIPOC founders across the region. The partnership connects Tribe's community, coaching, and capital for Black and racialized founders with IGNITE Atlantic's rural innovation hubs in Cape Breton, New Glasgow, and Yarmouth, the partners said.

Savior Joseph, Founding Chair and interim CEO of Tribe Network, said the agreement is about ensuring support is in place for high growth, innovation driven companies with Black and racialized founders. 

In January, Alfred Burgesson, Tribe CEO, announced he was taking an immediate leave of absence to work with the federal government. The founder of Tribe said he had joined the Office of the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation as a Senior Advisor in Ottawa.

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.

The group will host a Tribe Social on June 3rd at 5:30 PM to welcome the community to their new space at 1800 Argyle Street.

Register here.

Cleantech Innovation in NB Funded

Nine projects have received funds through Net Zero Atlantic’s ECT-NB.

Net Zero Atlantic’s Emerging Concepts & Technologies Research Program has received funding from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, with a further $1.15 million investment from Natural Resources Canada.

NRCan’s funding builds on previous contributions and the program is now expanding in scale, the group said in a statement.

This, the program’s third research call, received 28 submissions, awarding nine projects through two funding streams. Six projects were selected under Stream 1, supporting early-stage concept development with awards of $50,000, and three under Stream 2, supporting the evaluation and adoption of external technologies with awards of $150,000.

“ECT-NB is designed to address early-stage research gaps and support the development of innovative solutions with strong potential for real-world impact,” said Tim Bachiu, Director of Research at Net Zero Atlantic.

Since its launch in 2023, ECT-NB has supported 13 early-stage R&D projects with $1.2 million awarded to accelerate solutions in clean energy, low-carbon technologies, and nature-based solutions, the group said.

The following projects were awarded funding:

  • Highly Transparent Organic Solar Cells Using NIR-Absorbing SnPc Donor and C₆₀ Acceptor with Transparent Electrodes (Stream 1) — Bassel Abdel-Samad, Université de Moncton
  • Innovative Thin-Film Radiant Heater Elements (Stream 1) — Pandurang Ashrit, Université de Moncton
  • Scrubbing CO2 from Biogas using Adsorbents Derived from Recycled Plastic Bottles and Aluminum Cans (Stream 1) —- Barry Blight, University of New Brunswick
  • Demonstrating Hydrogen Storage Capability with New Brunswick Manganese-Iron Resources (Stream 2) — Felipe Chibante, University of New Brunswick
  • Validation of Safe, Water-Based, Organic Redox Flow Batteries for Large Scale Energy Storage (Stream 1) — Adam Dyker, University of New Brunswick
  • High-Performance Aluminum Alloy Conductors for GHG Emission Reduction and Enhanced Grid (Stream 1) — Emad Elgallad, Université de Moncton
  • From Waste to Growth: Developing Sustainable Growing Media for Seedling Production (Stream 2) — Rafaella Mayrinck, University of New Brunswick
  • Pilot-Scale Organic Waste Diversion to Biogas: Derisking technology adoption in New Brunswick to Support Net-Zero Carbon Goals (Stream 2) — Danika Poitras, Collège
  • Communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB-INNOV)
  • High-entropy alloy (HEA) as electrocatalyst for hydrogen production (Stream 1) — Gobinda Saha, University of New Brunswick

UNB Adopts Profitual’s Platform

The platform will help students learn the intricacies of financial forecasting.

Ray Fitzpatrick, left, and Duncan MacDonald

Ray Fitzpatrick, left, and Duncan MacDonald

Fredericton-based Profitual’s accounting software is being introduced into the University of New Brunswick’s management curriculum, marking the startup’s first agreement with a university.

Profitual will be used to teach financial forecasting and analysis to students in the faculty of management. The Fredericton university said it is the first post-secondary institution to adopt the platform, which is already used by more than 600 startups in Canada and the United States.

The initiative is supported by a donation from Duncan MacDonald, a UNB graduate from 1968 and a chartered accountant who has backed several experiential learning programs at the university.

“We accidentally built an ed-tech tool where our ICP [ideal customer profile] is non-finance founders,” said Profitual Founder and CEO Raymond Fitzpartrick. “It includes features like tool tipping and videos on how to use the platform throughout. Also, our work with accelerators aims to teach entrepreneurs the basics. This extension into the classroom was natural.” 

UNB said the move is intended to update how financial modelling is taught. For years, students have relied on Excel-based templates to learn forecasting. While effective for teaching core concepts, these tools can be difficult to troubleshoot and are not widely used outside academic settings.

Profitual provides a software platform that allows users to build financial models while showing the effects of business decisions in real time. The university said the goal is to give students experience with tools that are used in industry, improving their job readiness whether they join established companies or launch startups.

The platform will be integrated into courses and a research project led by Dr. David Foord. It will also be available more broadly through UNB’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre.

Fitzpatrick said the product was originally designed for founders without financial backgrounds, with features such as guided prompts and instructional videos. Its adoption in the classroom reflects the company’s work with startup accelerators, which also focus on teaching financial fundamentals.

The company is now seeking to expand its presence in higher education. Fitzpatrick said Profitual plans to recruit 10 additional universities to join an early adopter program beginning in the fall term.

B-Line Ceases Operations

The company's app helped collect and assess data produced by buildings.

The B-Line team

The B-Line team

After a decade of developing smart building technology, Halifax-based B-Line has wound down operations.

Founder and CEO Aaron Short posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday that “with a mix of emotions” he and his team had taken the difficult decision to cease operations.

“This decision follows a prolonged period of financial uncertainty driven by significant delays in enterprise contracts and a decline in private sector revenues over the last year,” said Short.

“From our early days working with AI to optimize commuting networks and workspaces to automating building operations with incredible organizations in over 100+ countries, B-Line has been more than just a business—it’s been a mission, a challenge, and a community.

“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our customers, partners, investors, and, most importantly, our talented team. Your support, trust, and commitment made every milestone possible.”

Short started the company in early 2016 and attended that year’s cohort of the Propel accelerator.  By 2024 they were offering an app that used data about how building occupants interacted with a space to find insights that helped property managers and others run their buildings more efficiently and securely.

The company’s technology could be tied to a building’s access control system (which operates keycard-controlled locks) or it could access and analyze data from equipment like HVAC systems.

Short said that overall the team had an amazing run and that the relationships they built were nothing short of transformative. He added he would take a few weeks off to reflect and then connect with organizations involved in growth and innovation.

“As they say, what we call the beginning is often the end,” he wrote. “And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

Three NS Companies in INMC Finals

The health-related companies will attend the finals in Italy in October.

Bioteem40 Co-Founders Abdullah Kirumira and Glyn Davies

Bioteem40 Co-Founders Abdullah Kirumira and Glyn Davies

Three rural Nova Scotian companies – Bioteem40, Petite Riviere Farming, and Bramble Hill Farms – have been named finalists in the International Network of Michelin Cities Start Up Pitch Competition.

These health-related companies were selected at events this past weekend and will attend the international finals in Cuneo, Italy, in October.

The International Network of Michelin Cities is a global network of communities connected through innovation, economic development, and international collaboration. Selected startups will receive founder preparation and international readiness support throughout the summer and fall in advance of the October conference.

“This is more than a competition,” said the Bioteem40 team in a social media post. “It's a reminder of why we started: to build something that genuinely changes how people feel, every single day. We are so proud of how far this mission has come.”

Windsor-based Bioteem40 is the latest venture of serial entrepreneurs Abdullah Kirumira and Glyn Davies, who also lead the biotech company TheraPBios PHARMA LTD.

Bioteem40 tablets combine probiotics and nutritional supplements in a single pill, so consumers don’t have to keep many bottles of supplements to receive the nutritional benefits they need. Bioteem40 supplements contain prebiotic and probiotics to improve consumers’ ability to absorb the other beneficial substances by improving a person’s digestive health, the company said.

Conquerall Mills-based Petite Riviere Farms produces medicinal plants to prevent and reverse chronic inflammation. Using an indoor farming process called controlled environment agriculture, it produces a powdered supplement under the Go Micro brand made from broccoli.

Like Bioteem40, Petite Riviere Farms is led by a serial entrepreneur. CEO Gregg Curwin is also the CEO of  Halifax-based Sperri, which makes plant-based meal replacements.

Led by Cathy Munro, Bramble Hill Farms sells kits under the Micro Garden brand that help consumers grow micro-greens -- tender young plants that are packed with nutrients. 

Woodward Family Boosts Entrepreneurship at MUN

The new investment will fund the Mel Woodward Cup.

The Woodward family has committed $500,000 to expand student entrepreneurship at Memorial University in St. John’s. The new capital will maintain the Mel Woodward Cup, the university’s flagship student startup competition.

Over the last ten years, the Cup has awarded $350,000 to student entrepreneurs, several of whom have gone on to build successful companies. It.was created through a donation from the family of the late Dr. Mel Woodward, founder of the Woodward Group of Companies. 

“Innovation often requires capital,” said Jason Trask, Director of the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship (MCE), in a statement. “The Woodward family’s willingness to invest in entrepreneurs at the earliest stage is as impactful as it is uncommon. The importance of supporting entrepreneurs at this stage of their development, and the resulting impact it has on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, can’t be overstated.”

The MCE supports students through every stage of the entrepreneurial cycle. The centre achieves this at no cost to students while taking no equity stake in student ventures.

Companies supported through MCE programming have collectively created more than 200 full‑time equivalent jobs and raised over $125 million in venture capital, the group said. Ventures such as CoLab Software, BreatheSuite and PragmaClin began as student ideas. Recent student ventures at Memorial have focused on improving access to health care; supporting aging‑in‑place; reducing waste; and creating value from the province’s natural resources.

OmaScan, this year’s Mel Woodward Cup winner, took top prize for its smartphone‑based 3D scanning application that helps occupational therapists and families assess home accessibility and safety for older adults.

“We are very happy about the success of the Mel Woodward Cup and its tribute to our dad,” said Peter Woodward.

“We are actually overwhelmed with its success and are thankful to Memorial. We recognize that it’s important to keep the value of the prize given time and inflation erosion. To perpetuate the stimulus to students, we felt the need to add to the principal. Our dad held Memorial in high regard and considered it essential to our success as a society — it is the appropriate place to honour him."

Five Firms Honoured at techNL Awards

CoLab AI was named Tech Company of the Year for Newfoundland and Labrador.

CoLab AI, which makes AI-driven collaboration software for engineers, was named the Nasdaq Verafin Tech Company of the Year last week at the fifth annual techNL Industry Awards.

The industry association presented awards in five categories during an event attended by about 200 people at JAG Soundhouse. The competition featured 23 nominees selected across the province’s technology sector. Winners were chosen by an independent panel of judges.

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. Last year, the company booked the largest venture capital deal in Atlantic Canada since 2023 with a US$72 million (C$100.9 million) Series C round.

“Newfoundland and Labrador’s tech sector is being recognized, celebrated, and supported well beyond our borders,” said techNL CEO Florian Villaumé in a statement. “The Industry Awards bring our community together to recognize the vision, resilience, and innovation driving that momentum. While 2025 was another remarkable year, what’s ahead is even more promising and exciting.”

The province’s tech sector reported $1.87 billion in GDP contribution in 2024 and nearly 10,000 jobs, according to figures cited by techNL. It has a stated target of reaching $2.5 billion in GDP contribution by 2030.

The awards were previously part of Innovation Week but were held as a standalone event this year. Organizers said the change was intended to provide a dedicated focus on the sector’s annual achievements. TechNL said the awards are intended to recognize business growth, innovation, and contributions to the province’s technology ecosystem.

The other winners were:

Champion of Youth: Genoa Design International

Founded in 1995, Genoa provides 3D modelling and production design services to shipbuilding and ocean industries. It describes itself as one of the most sought-after firms in North America with extensive design and production experience on Navy and Coast Guard programs in Canada and the US.

Community Builder: PolyUnity Tech 

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. In November, it announced partnerships with three groups in St. John’s aimed at advancing healthcare innovation across Canada.

Diversity in Tech Advocate: Solace Power

develops wireless power and data transfer technology for aerospace, defence and other sectors. In November, the company signed a US$3.8 million agreement to supply its patented aerospace and defence platform to Boeing.

Startup of the Year: atlantiq AI

Atlantiq AI has developed an AI platform for ship design teams which need an overwhelming amount of information to complete their task. The company says its platform acts as the bridge between the design team and the knowledge that they need, so that they can focus on what to do best, and accelerate the overall design process.

Spark Nova Scotia Applications Open

The annual contest offers funds and training to N.S. startups outside Halifax.

Nova Scotia founders are invited to apply to Spark Nova Scotia, the contest for rural and coastal high-potential, knowledge-based businesses.

The contest is run in three regions — Cape Breton, North, and Southwest — and offers winners up to $50,000. Each geographical region functions independently, with its own applicant pool and local judges.

Spark NS also offers a pre-application training program which runs free online over three weeks starting April 28. The five modules cover business model fundamentals: finance; pitch preparation; and intellectual property basics. Sessions run from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.

The training schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, April 28: Developing Your Idea While Managing Risks
Thursday, April 30: Business Model Canvas Intro
Tuesday, May 5: Finance Fundamentals
Thursday, May 7: Storytelling and Presenting
Tuesday, May 12: Intellectual Property 101

The contest application deadline is Friday, May 15 at 11:59 p.m.

Training registration and competition applications can be found here. 

Top 7 Over 70 Coming to Halifax

The gala will celebrate new achievements by regional residents aged over 70

Calgary-based non-profit Top 7 Over 70 will hold an awards ceremony in Halifax next month which will celebrate the recent successes of adults over 70. It is the first time the awards will be held in Atlantic Canada.

The Top 7 Over 70 movement began nine 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 he aimed to highlight new ventures started by seniors.

“With longer lifespans and changing demographics, recognizing the contributions of older adults is not just important socially—it’s essential economically,” said Dr. Ed Leach, co-chair of the Atlantic gala, in a statement. “These individuals remind us that innovation, leadership, and purpose continue well into our later years.”

According to Statistics Canada, the country now has more people aged 65 and older than children under 15. The aging of the population is particularly evident in Atlantic Canada. Leach said that if 25 percent of the 65+ population continued to participate in the workforce through 2035 it would add another 70,000 people to the regional workforce and reduce the pressure on inward migration. Further, the older workers could be targeted for jobs in tourism and other sectors that do not require year-round employment.

The Atlantic nominees are:

Dr. Olive Bryanton:  A champion for dignity, voice, and possibility in aging whose advocacy demonstrates that later life can be a time of leadership, discovery, and lasting impact.

Dr. Ken Lee: An internationally respected marine scientist advancing global ocean research while mentoring the next generation of environmental innovators.

John Hamblin: A leader in senior innovation and entrepreneurship championing technology solutions that help older adults remain engaged and connected.

Alan Syliboy: A celebrated Mi’kmaw artist, musician, and storyteller whose work preserves and celebrates Indigenous culture through contemporary creativity.

Carol Smith: A dedicated advocate working to build safer communities for women and families through leadership, courage, and community action.

Karen North: A champion for financial literacy helping individuals and families gain confidence and independence through education and mentorship.

Dr. Leslie Cake: A respected researcher advancing understanding of aging in Atlantic Canada and helping communities prepare for longer, healthier lives.

The gala will be held May 14 at the Halifax Convention Centre where the seven nominees will share their stories. The gala will be emceed by Steve Murphy, former CTV news anchor. The event is being organized in partnership with Aging Well Nova Scotia. Founder Jim Gray will be in attendance.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

Versos AI Partners with Tape Ark

The partners plan to use video currently on tape to train AI models.

Saint John-based Versos AI has announced a partnership with Tape Ark to convert large volumes of video stored on physical tape into structured datasets for artificial intelligence systems.

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.

The companies said the initiative focuses on unlocking legacy tape archives, which remain a significant but largely inaccessible source of video data. While AI developers increasingly rely on video to train advanced models, much historical footage is stored on aging media formats that require specialized hardware and manual cataloging.

Under the agreement, Australia-based Tape Ark will digitize analog and legacy tape-based video and migrate it to cloud storage. Versos AI will then process the digitized material using its software to structure, tag, and index the content, making it searchable and suitable for AI training.

Keevill – who raised a $1.85 million seed round late last year – said video is becoming central to the next generation of AI systems and that large volumes of such data remain offline. He said the partnership is intended to create a direct pipeline to convert archived footage into usable training material.

Tape Ark chief executive Guy Holmes said organizations currently spend between $0.40 and $1.20 per tape per month on storage, often amounting to millions of dollars annually for content that is rarely accessed. He said digitization reduces storage costs significantly while enabling new uses, including licensing data for AI applications.

Tape Ark has processed more than one exabyte (one quintillion, or 10 to the power of 18, bytes) of data globally, including over 200 petabytes of video, which the company estimates is equivalent to about 29 million hours of 4K footage. The partnership is positioned as a way to extend that capability by integrating AI-driven data structuring.

The companies said the process will allow content owners – including broadcasters, studios, sports leagues, and enterprises—to identify and use material that may not have been viewed for years. Once processed, the video can be analyzed at scale, with automated tagging of objects, scenes, people, and events.

The announcement comes as AI developers seek new sources of training data beyond publicly available internet content. Industry demand for large-scale video datasets has increased alongside the development of more complex AI models.

Versos AI and Tape Ark said their combined offering will enable organizations to convert archival storage costs into potential revenue streams by licensing processed video data. The companies described the partnership as establishing a new pipeline connecting offline media archives to the AI data market.

Stevenson Wins Rocketship Award

The award from Built in Canada is presented to the fastest-growing company in Canada.

Spellbook CEO Scott Stevenson, left. and Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures

Spellbook CEO Scott Stevenson, left. and Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures

Scott Stevenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Spellbook of St. John’s, has won the Rocketship Award as leader of the fastest-growing company in Canada at the inaugural Built in Canada Awards.

The Built in Canada Awards recognize tech companies that develop their product in Canada, and the organizers received more than 400 entries in the first edition of the awards. The winners were announced on April 1.

Spellbook’s AI copilot, which uses large language models, allows law firms and in-house counsel to draft, edit and review legal contracts. Spellbook products are now used by about 4,000 customers across 80 countries, which the company says is more than any comparable AI contract-review product. Its customers include such blue-chip companies as Nestlé and eBay, as well as the British-American law firm Kennedys Law.

In late October, Spellbook closed a US$50 million Series B venture capital round led by Khosla Ventures, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. The company said the deal valued Spellbook at about US$350 million.

MCE Launches Problem Identification Lab

The goal is to produce the problem-focused startups of the future.

The Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship (MCE) has launched a program aimed at helping Memorial University engineering co-op students identify real-world problems that could lead to the creation of new companies.

The initiative, called the Problem Identification Lab Program, is now accepting applications from students who have observed challenges during their co-op placements. The program is delivered by MCE in collaboration with Memorial University’s Engineering Co-op Office.

According to MCE, the program is designed to shift the focus of early-stage entrepreneurship from generating ideas to identifying meaningful, industry-rooted problems. Students are encouraged to document issues such as inefficiencies, safety risks, or costly workarounds encountered in the workplace and develop clear, non-confidential problem statements.

“In the coming decades, the most successful emerging innovators would be exceptionally skilled at identifying and defining problems,” said Isaac Adejuwon, CEO and Founder of Metricsflow and a MUN alumnus. “They would be entirely problem-driven, rather than solution-driven, because AI would significantly support solutions. Ultimately, the challenges they uncover would help shape the next wave of innovation in our lifetime.”

The Problem Identification Lab provides structured support to participating students. This includes access to MCE programs and workspace, one-on-one coaching, and feedback from alumni working in relevant industries. Participants may also receive up to $2,000 in optional in-kind support.

As part of the process, students submit a concise problem statement based on their co-op experience. They can then choose to either contribute the problem to a shared “Problem Bank” — a repository intended to support future startup ideas — or continue developing the problem independently with MCE guidance.

Submissions are reviewed by a panel of Memorial University alumni with sector-specific experience. The panel evaluates each problem based on clarity, specificity, real-world impact, and relevance to industry needs. Selected submissions may be showcased at an end-of-term event, where top entries can receive recognition awards.

The program is open to engineering students currently on co-op work terms across all industries. MCE says the goal is to build a continuous pipeline of high-quality, industry-informed problems that can serve as the foundation for new ventures.

By emphasizing problem identification, the initiative aims to align student entrepreneurship with market demand and practical experience gained in the field.

Tribe and IGNITE Atlantic Announce Partnership

The partners aim to support BIPOC founders across the region.

Halifax-based Tribe Network, a support hub for BIPOC founders, and rural startup group IGNITE Atlantic have established a partnership to boost support for racialized entrepreneurs in the region.

The partnership connects Tribe's community, coaching, and capital for Black and racialized founders with IGNITE Atlantic's rural innovation hubs in Cape Breton, New Glasgow, and Yarmouth, the partners said in a statement.

Savior Joseph, Founding Chair and interim CEO of Tribe Network, said the agreement is about ensuring support is in place for high growth, innovation driven companies with Black and racialized founders. 

“Partnering with Tribe Network allows us to extend that impact by ensuring Black and racialized founders have access to the right support at the right time, no matter where they are located,”  said Doug Jones, CEO of IGNITE Atlantic.

The partners will host a community launch event at IGNITE's Cape Breton location on May 21st. The event will bring together founders, community members, and ecosystem partners for an evening of networking, introductions, and conversation. 

Register here.

Paytic Acquires UK-Based GUPPY-AI

The acquisition has led to the launch of PayTic Intelligent Components.

PayTic Founder and CEO Imad Boumahdi

PayTic Founder and CEO Imad Boumahdi

Charlottetown-based Paytic has acquired GUPPY-AI for an undisclosed price, a move that has led to the launch of a new product suite called PayTic Intelligent Components.

The companies announced the development Wednesday in LinkedIn posts, with Paytic describing the launch as a milestone for the financial payments industry.

“Paytic Intelligent Components marks a defining milestone — shaped by the strategic acquisition of GUPPY-AI and driven by bold decisions,” the company said. It added that the new offering is intended to deliver “smarter, faster, more intelligent infrastructure” for payment operations.

CEO Imad Boumahdi founded PayTic in 2020 on the premise that most fintech solutions address the way end-users interact with financial companies. What he set out to do was to improve the efficiency of these companies in processing payments at the back end. Now his state-of-the-art payments operation system is being paired with London-based GUPPY-AI’s agentic AI capabilities.

“GUPPY is entering a new phase of growth, bringing together Paytic’s best-in-class data operating system with Guppy’s agentic AI core, combined with the deep domain expertise of both teams,” said the British company in its post.

Paytic said the new platform represents more than a rebrand, positioning it as a broader shift in how payment operations are managed. According to the company, the system is designed to support the full lifecycle of payment operations, from system development to execution and large-scale operational management.

In April 2025, Paytic announced it had closed a US$4 million extension of its seed round. The financing was backed by investors including Build Ventures, Concrete Ventures and Island Capital Partners, and was led by AfricInvest through its Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund. Additional participants included Axian Group and Mistral. The round followed an earlier $2.95 million raise in 2022.

The company has said its platform automates and modernizes daily payment operations, helping financial institutions scale while reducing reliance on manual processes. It has also highlighted payment reconciliation as a key area of focus, aiming to simplify the process of matching transaction records across systems.

In its 4th Month, Mettara Books US$40K in ARR

The AI company wants to grow strategically with high-quality early adopters.

Mettara AI Co-Founder and CEO Yash Mehta

Mettara AI Co-Founder and CEO Yash Mehta

Yash Mehta is more interested in the quality than the quantity of early adopters as he plots the growth of four-month-old Mettara AI, which now has annual recurring revenue of US$40,000.

Yes, you read that correctly. Halifax-based Mettara was only an idea on New Year’s Day. But in the few months since, Mehta and Co-Founder Steve Day have launched the product, found paying customers, and been accepted into Invest Nova Scotia’s Accelerate program.

The Mettara platform uses agentic AI to help small and medium-sized businesses install and progress on  SaaS products, ensuring that digital tools are used to their fullest advantage. As well as the onboarding process, it helps bring SMEs up-to-speed on all the features of a SaaS product – features that might go unused because adopting them can be confusing and time-consuming.

“Mettara is helping complex SaaS platforms with user onboarding and adoption through our embedded agents that operate the platform for the end-user just by speaking to your platform,” Mehta, the company’s CEO, said in an interview. “So, if your user wants to get an outcome, they don't have to learn the complex platform. They don't need to spend time with the CSM [customer support manager].”

This company – the first we’ve covered that actually launched in 2026 – exemplifies a massive and growing trend in the startup movement. Small teams are using artificial intelligence to create a product quickly and capture immediate customers. The low costs and fast adoption mean these companies can grow without courting external investors, at least in the early stages.

Mehta conceived of the company when he was working as a CSM for Kitchener, Ont.-based Plum.io, which operates a talent assessment platform. He noticed that customers usually need to spend time – often watching videos or calling customer support – to get up to speed with the technology.

Working off a platform Day had developed in his spare time a few years earlier, the two co-founders launched Mettara on Jan. 24 or 25, and booked their first customer on Feb. 1. Five days later they had ARR of US$30,000 and that figure has risen to US$40,000 in April.

Mehta says he has come to think of his early adopters more as partners than customers because they have bought in to the product and offer such constructive feedback – feedback that he calls “beyond priceless”. As he and Day are still iterating the product, he believes the quality of customer for this year is more important than the volume of clients.

“We're actually being challenged so much on our own assumptions of what we thought our customer would want,” he said. “It's helping us really change our road map. Not necessarily change it, but steer it in a direction that is more towards customer-centric as opposed to what we thought the customer would want.”

For 2026, the two entrepreneurs want to continue to bring on more clients, but they want engaged clients who will help them develop an optimal platform. Although they had planned to develop Mettara by bootstrapping, their discussions with clients and with mentors in the Accelerate program have them considering a capital raise.

“We are thinking about doing it, but not anytime soon,” said Mehta. “We talked internally [about a plan in which} once we hit US$100,000 to US$200,000 ARR, which should be a couple more months from now, that's when we'll consider doing some kind of raise, primarily because we had an investor out of Montreal that really was like, ‘You guys have something here.’”

Applications for CDL-Atlantic Cohorts Open

The accelerator is seeking applicants for its Prime and Oceans cohorts.

Halifax-based Creative Destruction Lab Atlantic is looking for applicants for its 2026-2027 general and oceantech programs.

The Atlantic Canadian branch of the Toronto-based organization is currently seeking founders for two programs: the Prime Stream, which is open to companies in any sector; and the Oceans Stream for bluetech ventures.

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. Participants are mentored by experienced entrepreneurs, who are encouraged to invest in the companies they’re working with. Mentors who participated in previous CDL Atlantic sessions have included figures like Clearwater Fine Foods billionaire and investor John Risley and Jevon MacDonald, former CEO of Manifold and GoInstant.

Prime is for founders pursuing state of the art technological innovations across diverse industries. Oceans is for founders focused on the digital ocean, where underwater acoustics and imaging, sensors, robotics and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), data, predictive analytics and AI are transforming the sustainable ocean economy.

The group also offers a Defence stream for founders developing dual-use, defence-relevant technologies that improve mission capability, resilience, and national security.

CDL-Atlantic is located at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Management and its collaborators include the Ocean Frontier Institute, the NSERC/Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair, and the Canada Research Chair in Organic Agriculture

Click the link to learn more. 

SiftMed Eyes 4X growth in ARR this Year

The medical report company's revenues rose 10X in 2025.

SiftMed CEO Holly Hill

SiftMed CEO Holly Hill

Having recorded a $2.7 million funding round and 10X revenue growth in 2025, St. John’s-based SiftMed now hopes to book more sales – including enterprise clients – and capital in 2026.

In fact, Co-Founder and CEO Holly Hill revealed in an interview that the company’s ambition for this year is to increase its annual recurring revenue, or ARR, by four times. Assuming revenues and ARR are roughly synonymous, it means the company is looking at revenue growth of 40 times in two years.

Founded in 2022, SiftMed’s software helps medical insurers (and others who work with medical reports) to quickly and precisely extract essential information from medical data. Hill said SiftMed can process medical data in 10 to 15 minutes, offering a huge saving in time for its customers.

“Once the customer uploads all of their medical PDFs, we process them and get it back to them within 10 or 15 minutes,” said Hill in the interview. She added competitors “are still taking upwards of eight and 10 hours to get files back. . . . We've really focused on making that our kind of bread and butter, and we're super efficient, accurate, and quick at getting records back for customers.”

Having worked at such luminary startups as Verafin, Solace Power and Clockwork Fox, Hill teamed up four years ago with orthopaedic surgeon Jeremie Larouche to develop the medical investigation platform. While the company proceeded quickly in its early years, raising $2.7 million in 2023, it was in 2025 that it really began to scale.

Hill and her team (which now exceeds 40 people, according to LinkedIn) started the year knowing they were targeting a huge market, with 250,000 companies in North America viewed as potential clients. They also started 2025 with a fresh tranche of funding, once again worth $2.7 million.

To accelerate growth, they improved the software, increasing the speed at which it processed reports. They also developed the product into a collaborative hub, so that people in multiple organizations could work on the reports. These improvements allowed SiftMed to sign larger customers, and new features allowed them to work more smoothly in their own IT systems.

“We started working with larger corporate customers – our average deal size has grown by 5x,” Hill said. “In Q1 of this year, we signed our big first insurance player to launch us into the [enterprise] insurance space. So we're very much moving upstream in higher ACV, or annual contract value.”

As 2025 progressed, Hill also doubled down on efficiency, making sure SiftMed was performing well in terms of margins, cost of goods sold, and other such metrics. The team is still focused on improving sales, as seen in the target to increase ARR by 400 percent this year.

What’s more, the company is hoping to raise more capital in the near term, though Hill declined to reveal details.

“We are we are currently in discussions of a term sheet as I speak,” said Hill.  “So yes, we're in the middle of a round right now.”

Venn Pitch Competition Awards $7,000

The contest recognizes emerging tech-focused founders in New Brunswick.

The winners are: Eman Alhamd, left, Dual-Axis Solar Tracker; Avery Cote, Trek.iQ; and Eric Pardatscher, VELONIX.

The winners are: Eman Alhamd, left, Dual-Axis Solar Tracker; Avery Cote, Trek.iQ; and Eric Pardatscher, VELONIX.

Moncton-based startup hub Venn Innovation has announced the three winners of its pitch contest, held on March 28. The contest brought together 11 teams who pitched their ventures for a chance to win $7,000 in prize funding.

The winners of the contest were:

First place, winning $4,000: Trek.iQ, founded by Avery Cote.

The company is developing accessibility intelligence for venues and events, aiming to reduce uncertainty, improve operations, and build confidence for users navigating physical spaces.

Second place, winning $2,000: VELONIX, founded by Eric Pardatscher.

The company is focused on transforming reactive ground operations into precision-engineered performance for Atlantic Canada’s airports. By leveraging AI-driven analysis of real-time flight data, weather, and congestion, VELONIX is building predictive models to reduce delays, improve coordination, and enable more efficient airport operations.

Third-place, winning $1,000: the Dual-Axis Solar Tracker, developed by Eman Alhamd.

The project focuses on improving solar energy efficiency by dynamically adjusting panel orientation to maximize energy capture, with long-term plans for commercialization.

The pitching event also featured a panel discussion with founders from Bellavero Manufacturing - Benjamin Perreault, Nicholas Lavallé, and Jonathan Belliveau – who won last year’s VIP competition, as well as Ashish Deshmukh of Clearance Central, last year’s first runner-up.

The panel offered insights into their entrepreneurial journeys over the past year, sharing lessons on growth, challenges, and building momentum post-competition. At the conclusion of the panel, the Bellavero Manufacturing team presented this year’s competition trophies, which they designed and built themselves, marking a full-circle moment from past winners to current competitors.

Venn Innovation’s activities include its startup program, The Garage, where companies in all stages of growth work with the Venn team to access mentors, expert workshops and bi-weekly coaching sessions.

NACO Calls for $750M in Startup Support

The group wants Ottawa to back early-stage startups and improve funding infrastructure.

NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas

NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas

NACO Canada, the national organization for angel investors, is recommending the federal government address the funding gap for early-stage startups with two programs costing $750 million.

The group – officially the National Angel Capital Organization – released a white paper last week with recommendations on how Ottawa should support smaller startups through its $1.75 billion venture capital strategy, announced in last fall’s budget.

Of that total, $1 billion is earmarked for later-stage and institutional-grade investment vehicles. NACO would like the remaining portion to be used for: a $500 million pre-seed and seed matching funds program; and a $250 million early-stage infrastructure funding initiative. (For the purposes of this article, we’ll use the term “early-stage” to describe pre-seed-stage, seed-stage, and Series A funding.)

“Pre-seed and seed investing is hyper-local, high-risk and relationship-driven – exactly the conditions where U.S. capital does not compete,” said NACO in a slide deck accompanying the white paper. “Early-stage investing builds companies that stay and scale from Canada, embedded in Canadian networks, funded by Canadian angels.”

NACO Chief Executive Claudio Rojas will host a national roundtable on the proposals Tuesday, April 7, at noon Atlantic time. You can register here to attend virtually. The matter will also be discussed at the NACO Summit in Ottawa May 5-7. You can find more information on this annual convention here.

The NACO white paper highlights a $323 million annual shortfall in early-stage funding across the country – a cumulative gap expected to exceed $1.6 billion over the next five years. This shortfall impacts the ecosystem throughout the startup lifecycle, says the report, resulting in 50 percent fewer Series B companies funded in Canada than in the U.S. The report also notes that this shortfall is taking place as 68 percent of Canadian founders with new companies are launching their ventures outside Canada.

To mitigate these problems, NACO is advocating that the federal government establish a half-billion-dollar fund to top up investments from approved investors in pre-seed- and seed-stage startups. This matching-fund program would encourage more private investments in young companies and prepare them for Series A funding rounds. NACO proposes that this public fund invest $2 for every dollar of private investment, which it says would assist 500 to 1,000 companies and mobilize $1 billion in private capital over five years.

The second recommendation is the creation of a five-year initiative to stabilize and professionalize Canada's pre-seed and seed ecosystem — angel networks, emerging fund managers, venture studios, and early-stage funds. NACO says the program could target five areas: human capital, diligence and governance, technology and shared infrastructure, angel activation, and regional growth.

“The five-year target is 5,000 companies funded, 10,000 net new active investors onboarded, and a 5x private capital mobilization multiple per public dollar deployed,” said NACO.

Parados Eyes More Partnerships

The company, which produces gait-analysis software, wants to link up with care homes and others.

With more than 1,000 active users, Fredericton-based Parados is seeking partnerships with long-term care and home care organizations as it scales its gait-analysis software.

Founder and CEO Pascal McCarthy said in an interview the company blew through the threshold of 1,000 active users and five-digit cumulative sales in 2025, driven by early adopters across research, education, and care settings.

Parados develops software that analyzes video of people in motion. The system is designed to assess gait and mobility without requiring physical contact or wearable sensors. McCarthy said the technology has applications in elder care facilities, where it can be used to monitor residents unobtrusively, as well as in academic and research environments.

“So far, we've partnered with home care, long-term care, and physiotherapy [providers], and we help matchmake where it's relevant,” said McCarthy. “So we're looking for more of those kinds of partners.”

The company is also targeting what McCarthy described as a dual-use market. In addition to health and mobility analysis, the software can be applied to surveillance contexts, including identifying potential threats based on movement patterns. Parados has conducted early work with federal law enforcement on physical readiness assessment, which McCarthy said provided validation for that use case.

Parados positions its platform as a portable biomechanics lab. The system is intended to allow students and researchers to capture and analyze motion data quickly, producing results in about 30 seconds compared with longer traditional workflows. The company also states its technology costs less than 1 percent of conventional motion-capture systems.

The software is not classified as a medical device. Instead, it is designed to track mobility changes over time. McCarthy pointed to a growing body of research linking measurable gait changes to a range of conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, various forms of dementia, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. In healthcare settings, particularly long-term and home care, he said the goal is to detect early changes that may allow for intervention before a crisis occurs.

Parados is already in use at the University of New Brunswick and Dalhousie University, as well as in continuing education programs for clinicians and insurers. McCarthy said the company’s next phase depends on securing institutional partnerships with long-term care providers, economic development agencies, and provincial and federal health organizations focused on aging and healthcare capacity.

The company’s client success platform also automates data collection, administration, and analysis tasks, with the goal of supporting physical training and therapy that can be delivered remotely.

McCarthy, a former professional volleyball player, founded Parados in 2020. He now serves as an athlete-entrepreneur in residence with the Victory Accelerator, which helps athletes launch their own venture.

Asked what to expect from the company in 2026, he said he is now working on making inroads in healthcare.

“From hospitals to physio care centers, wait lists are really long and we're helping cut down those by being able to prepare [patients’] information beforehand and better prioritize resources,” he said. ”Everyone at some point needs healthcare, so hopefully you see us there.”

TrojAI Partners with NY-based Wiz

The companies are collaborating on Wiz's new product, AI-APP.

Saint John-based TrojAI has announced it has partnered with New York cybersecurity firm Wiz as part of the American company’s release of its new AI Application Protection Platform, or AI-APP.

Founded by James Stewart and Stephen Goddard in 2019, TrojAI sells cybersecurity software to guard artificial intelligence systems against having malicious code injected via training data. The company is now helmed by CEO Lee Weiner, who was appointed in 2024.

Wiz announced the new product last week, saying it’s aimed at helping organizations identify and manage risks in artificial intelligence systems. TrojAI’s role in the new product is to focus on testing AI systems for vulnerabilities.

“TrojAI and Wiz integrate to bring AI red teaming findings from TrojAI into Wiz, revealing vulnerabilities like jailbreaks, prompt injection exploits, and data leakage from your AI Endpoints,” said Wiz on its website. “Wiz enriches these findings with cloud context to surface attack paths to your AI application, helping teams prioritize exploitable risks.”

The companies say AI-related risks are often spread across multiple layers, including models, software tools, data, and underlying infrastructure. This makes it difficult for security teams to detect and prioritize threats using traditional methods.

TrojAI, which raised $7.8 million in venture capital in 2024, specializes in “red teaming,” a process where systems are deliberately tested to uncover weaknesses. In this case, it identifies issues such as prompt injection (manipulating AI inputs to produce unintended outputs), system “jailbreaks,” and potential data leaks.

Wiz’s platform then adds context from cloud environments and live system operations to these findings. This combined view is designed to help organisations understand how individual vulnerabilities could be exploited in real-world scenarios, rather than treating them as isolated risks.

The companies say this approach allows security teams to focus on the most significant threats – those that are both technically feasible and likely to be targeted – rather than theoretical concerns.

The announcement reflects growing industry attention on securing AI systems as their use expands across business operations. By combining vulnerability testing with broader system analysis, Wiz and TrojAI aim to provide organizations with clearer guidance on how to protect AI applications in practice.

 

 

 

Climative Launches Platform for Insurers

The new product is targeting an industry that faces rising risks from climate change.

Climative has launched a new data platform aimed at helping insurers translate climate risk assessments into practical actions for homeowners, as the industry faces rising losses from extreme weather.

The platform, announced last week, is designed to provide insurers with insights into risks such as wildfire and flooding for specific properties. It also offers step-by-step guidance that homeowners can use to reduce those risks. The Fredericton-based company said the tool is intended to move insurers beyond traditional risk scoring by offering clear, tailored recommendations for improving resilience, energy efficiency, and household costs.

Insurers across North America are dealing with increasing financial pressure from climate-related events. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, natural disasters caused about $140 billion in insured losses globally in 2024. In the United States alone, 27 major events each exceeded $1 billion in damages, totaling $182.7 billion.

“Our goal is to give insurers a way to reduce risk while building trust with policyholders,” said Climative CEO Winston Morton in a statement. “We help carriers move beyond identifying climate risk to actually fixing it, while giving homeowners clear steps to protect their homes.”

Climative’s platform combines address-level risk data with adaptation plans specific to individual properties. These plans outline potential upgrades – such as improvements to building materials or energy systems – that could reduce exposure to climate hazards while lowering energy costs.

The system also includes portfolio analytics to help insurers identify concentrations of risk across their customer base. In addition, it offers co-branded digital portals that allow insurers to communicate directly with policyholders and present personalized recommendations.

Unlike some existing tools that focus primarily on modelling risk, the platform emphasises practical application. It uses what the company describes as transparent modelling to show how risks are calculated and how specific changes could alter outcomes. Insurers can also integrate their own data into the system.

The product is built around three main components: tailored adaptation plans for each property, tools to support homeowner engagement, and data models designed to be understandable to non-specialists.

Originally developed for use by banks, utilities, and public-sector programmes, Climative’s technology has already been deployed in Canada and the northeastern United States. The new platform adapts those capabilities for the insurance sector.

The company said the platform is now available to insurers in Canada and is being rolled out in phases across the United States, as regulatory scrutiny of climate risk continues to increase.

Plaex Aims for Summer Launch

The company has raised $1M in a round it hopes to close at $3M.

Plaex CEO Dustin Bowers

Plaex CEO Dustin Bowers

PLAEX Building Systems, which converts waste into modular building blocks, is working on a $3 million raise as it prepares for a launch this summer.

The Moncton-area company has secured $1 million to date and is seeking an additional $2 million in equity financing to put it in a position to begin delivering its products to customers in the coming months. The funding will support the transition from research and development into early commercial production.

Founded by CEO Dustin Bowers, PLAEX produces modular, interlocking construction blocks made from more than 90 percent recycled materials. The company’s proprietary composite, known as PLAEX-crete, incorporates difficult-to-recycle waste streams, including agricultural, marine and industrial plastics, along with construction aggregate waste.

The resulting bricks are designed to lock together without mortar or cutting, reducing labour requirements and construction time. According to the company, its Brick&Panel system can lower total project costs by up to 35 percent and allow structures to be assembled up to three times faster than conventional methods, in part because it eliminates curing time.

Bowers, who spent roughly 18 years in construction as a project manager and later as the owner of a renovation company, said the idea emerged from firsthand exposure to industry waste. He said the volume of discarded material from job sites – particularly plastic – prompted him to look for alternatives to landfill disposal.

“We’re one of the only companies in the world taking waste and turning it into a building material that outdoes concrete on almost every metric,” Bowers said in an interview, adding that the technology has been validated through its development phase.

The company completed its research and development stage and now operates a pilot facility. In addition to manufacturing its own products, PLAEX plans to pursue licensing agreements, positioning its intellectual property as a scalable solution for other markets.

The modular system is aimed at a range of low-rise applications, including retaining walls, flood barriers, sheds and foundations. The company is also targeting residential construction, with full wall systems currently pending certification. Bowers said the technology could address both environmental and housing challenges by enabling faster, lower-cost homebuilding.

He said a typical 1,000- to 1,500-square-foot home could be assembled in about one week using PLAEX blocks, compared with months for traditional construction methods.

PLAEX has also developed a demonstration home in collaboration with Hungarian architect Zsuzsanna Tóth-Jeffery. The project is intended to showcase the design flexibility of the system as well as its structural capabilities. Bowers said the collaboration highlights how sustainability-focused materials can be used without sacrificing aesthetics.

Market interest has been driven in part by the company’s online presence. PLAEX reports generating approximately 38 million views across its social media channels, resulting in about 20,000 sales leads worldwide. Of those, more than 1,000 are considered qualified leads, according to the company.

In addition to construction materials, PLAEX has introduced smaller retail products, including modular hockey rinks and garden bed kits designed for consumer assembly.

The company received the InnovateNB award for Most Innovative Product or Service in 2023, providing early external validation of its approach.

Bowers said the immediate focus is completing the current fundraising round and scaling production capacity to meet anticipated demand.

“We have the opportunity to get into the market this summer,” he said.

 

 

Infralytix To Focus on Hardware, Pilots

The company won $105.5K at NBIF's breakthru competition.

Dr. Ethan MacLeod

Dr. Ethan MacLeod

Having won $100,000-plus in New Brunswick’s breakthru competition, Infralytix CEO Ethan MacLeod has his sights on developing his hardware and launching some pilot projects to help his young company grow.

At a sold-out event in Fredericton last week, Infralytix captured the first prize at breakthru, which was hosted by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. The company will receive a $100,000 investment from NBIF for winning the competition, and it also took home $2,500 for the Viewers’ Choice Award.

Infralytix is the product of eight years of research and development by MacLeod, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New Brunswick.

“Infralytix turns bridges into scales,” said MacLeod in an interview. “We place small sensors under a bridge so they can weigh the trucks going over it. No lane closures. No interruptions.

“We also look at how the bridge performs and hopefully extend the life of our aging infrastructure.”

MacLeod’s work on this project began when he was a summer student employed by the New Brunswick Department of Transportation. He was asked to assess the weight of trucks passing over a truss bridge southeast of Fredericton.

Placing sensors under the bridge, he was able to come up with his own system of weighing the trucks that passed over it. The ease of installation and access to data impressed his bosses, and MacLeod has spent the past eight years refining the product.

MacLeod and the transport department worked together in the intervening years testing, refining and validating the product. He also presented it at conferences to public- and private-sector owners of infrastructure, gaining interest from potential customers.

MacLeod said the market for the product is vast as there are 650,000 bridges in the U.S. and Canada, but only 2,000 weighing stations. Provincial and state governments might be natural customers for Infralytix and MacLeod also believes owners of public-private partnership projects could use the technology. As well as helping to maintain the condition of the structures, these infrastructure owners would also benefit from the data Infralytix generates.

With the technology validated, MacLeod decided to enter breakthru, a competition that had been popular in the last decade but faded away during the pandemic. The competition included several workshops and mentorship sessions, and MacLeod said he benefited greatly from these sessions as he’d never been exposed to the processes of entrepreneurship before.

“It’s kind of a hard muscle to train if you’re an academic because it’s a different set of questions you have to ask,” said MacLeod. “I think there are a lot of academics out there who may not realize that they have a million-dollar idea.”

With the competition over, MacLeod now has to develop the technology into a company, and he plans to spend the next few months building the product into something he can sell to customers.

“We really need to shrink it down into a simple turnkey package that really will help us scale,” he said. “So, the next big step is developing our own hardware and then lining up some pilot projects hopefully for late summer or early fall.”

 

 

Seagreen, AquaPath AI Win at UNB Pitch Event

The two student ventures each took home $3,000 for winning their categories.

Seagreen Solutions CEO Marie Dankworth

Seagreen Solutions CEO Marie Dankworth

AquaPath AI from the University of P.E.I. and Seagreen Solutions NB from the University of New Brunswick were the two big winners at the recent Student Pitch Competition at UNB.

The J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology, Management and Entrepreneurship hosted the competition, which handed out $3,000 for each first prize, $2,000 for second and $1,000 for third.

Seagreen, which uses seaweed to create climate-positive products that support healthier soils and stronger ecosystems, won the $3,000 first prize in the Growth category, which targets graduate students.

“Have you ever tried pitching while sick with a cold?” posted Co-Founder and CEO Marie Dankworth on LinkedIn. “I took some daytime cold medication, got out of bed, and went straight to the RBC Student Pitch Competition, and it was so worth it. Seagreen Solutions NB landed 1st place.”

Dankworth, a seaweed scientist, formed the company last year with videographer and musician Joel Thompson, who is the company’s COO.

The second-place prize in the Growth category went to SymmOptima Tech, a UNB venture founded by Seyedeh Maryam Abbasnia. Another UNB venture, Ghatan, led by Farhana Ahmed, captured third place.

In the Ideas category, which is intended for undergrads, the winners were Ana Kwon, Daniel López, Camille Neri, and Jonathan Zul Luna for their company AquaPath AI.

Another UPEI venture, Avoxify founded by Illyas Aberbaz, captured second place. UNB students Ayden Wright, Mattias Floyd, Murray Ferris, Nicolas Tower won third place for their venture Modulus Power Solutions.

The TME team handed out additional prizes to the participants in the pitching event. The winners were:

  • Communications Award – Gluten Free Living (Saint Mary’s University – Emma McGill);
  • Social Innovation Award – Gluten Free Living (Saint Mary’s University – Emma McGill);
  • Innovation Award – Niavra (UNB - Sanjib Torafder, Dylan Piercey, Justin Christie, Lucas Weeks);
  • Technical Innovation Award – OZONE Hockey (UNB - Nathaniel Dryden, Michael Doiron, Dominic Losier, Jake Profit);
  • And Impact Award – Modsquad (UNB - Cael Serrao, Nashmia Riaz, Lam Tuan Anh Tran, Kieran Brian Prior Nicholson).

At the awards dinner, UNB also honored several members of its community even though most were not directly involved in the pitching competition. They were:

  • Student Leader of the Year 2026 – Dominic Losier, a member of the OZONE Hockey team from UNB;
  • The Brian Flood Entrepreneur of the Year 2026 – serial entrepreneur Jeff Thompson;
  • Teaching Excellence 2026 - Kevin Ferguson, a UNB Adjunct Faculty Instructor;
  • And Ecosystem Award – Tracy Bell, Executive Director of the Wallace McCain Institute.

 

 

Feds Hand $17M+ to St. John’s, Halifax Companies

The funds, outlined in two announcements, are intended to help ventures strengthen productivity.

Sean Fraser, the minister responsible for ACOA, at the announcement in St. John's last week.

Sean Fraser, the minister responsible for ACOA, at the announcement in St. John's last week.

In two separate announcements, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency has announced loans or grants totalling more than $17 million for eight companies in the St. John’s and Halifax areas.

The federal development agency said last week it was lending about $16 million to defence companies in Newfoundland and Labrador to help develop and manufacture critical equipment and technologies, and support 115 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.

And this week, the agency named three Dartmouth ventures to receive $1.3 million in contributions to help them optimize supply chains and adopt the technologies they need to compete in new markets. These payments are made through the Regional Tariff Response Initiative, a $1 billion program to help Canadian businesses respond to global trade pressures.

The companies in Newfoundland and Labrador receiving loans are:

  • PAL Aerospace ($7.5 million) will commercialize a new missionized aircraft solution to offer enhanced capabilities that strengthen Canada’s potential in maritime and northern surveillance, and Arctic sovereignty.
  • Solace Power ($4 million) will enhance capabilities in delivering wireless power and data solutions in harsh environments, including the Arctic.
  • Virtual Marine Technology ($2.5 million) will develop and deliver marine simulation-based training solutions for defence.
  • CoLab AI Inc. ($1 million) will deliver AI-powered collaboration software solutions to meet defence market requirements.
  • Rutter Inc. ($1 million) will develop and deliver enhanced radar technologies for naval and Arctic defence operations.

These three companies based in Dartmouth are also receiving funding:

  •  Outdoor-Fit Exercise Systems ($770,250) will expand and upgrade its manufacturing facility through new automation equipment and specialized expertise to support process improvements, product development, and market diversification.
  • Reftek Systems ($267,500) will hire staff and acquire equipment to establish a specialized sensor lab in the Halifax Regional Municipality to reinforce supply chain reliability.
  • Aurea Technologies ($250,180) will lower production costs for its Shine 2.0 wind turbine and support prototyping, compliance testing, and cybersecurity, as well as global business development to expand into international markets.

 

Kraken Increases Offering to $402.5M

The money will help pay for its $615M acquisition of a British company.

St. John’s-based Kraken Robotics Inc. has increased the amount of money it is raising to support its acquisition of U.K.-based Covelya Group Limited to $402.5 million.

Earlier this month, the oceantech company announced the acquisition of Covelya for $615 million, and said it planned to sell $350 million of stock on the TSX Venture exchange to help finance the deal. Kraken followed up with a second statement saying its underwriters have exercised their over-allotment options, meaning there was more demand for the shares than expected. This move increases the capital raise by $52.5 million.

The purchase price includes $480 million in cash and $135 million in Kraken common shares issued to the seller, Sonardyne Holdings. Kraken expects to close the deal by the end of June.

The acquisition combines two providers of subsea technology serving defence and commercial maritime markets, with the goal of offering a greater range of mission-critical products in more geographic markets.

Covelya Group operates several underwater technology companies, including Sonardyne International, EIVA A/S, Forcys, Wavefront Systems, Voyis Imaging Inc. and Chelsea Technologies. The group designs and manufactures systems used for underwater navigation, communication, positioning, imaging and monitoring for uncrewed maritime platforms and surface vessels.

Covelya, which employs nearly 750 people and operates 12 facilities across North America, South America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, is expected to report 2025 revenue of between $249 million and $275 million. The business has recorded revenue growth of about 24 percent annually since 2023.

 

 

We Need AI Founders to Complete our Survey

Young AI companies are the future of the startup community. We would love their metrics.

If you head a young Atlantic Canadian AI startup, we need two minutes of your time.

At Entrevestor, we put out a data report on Atlantic Canadian startups each year after surveying founders across the region. This year, we really want to capture data on first- or second-year AI companies.

We need founders/CEOs at these young companies to fill out our 10-question survey. It’s super quick, 100% confidential, and you can skip questions you’re not comfortable with. We aggregate this data so we will never reveal information specifically about your company. Just click on this image:

What we are really interested in is revenue and funding of these companies.  

It would be a huge help if you could take – literally – two minutes to complete the survey.  If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at peter@entrevestor.com

Yours,

Peter Moreira

Infralytix Takes Top Prize at Breakthru

The runners-up were Urai AI and Mulli Swing.

Daniel Armali, NBIF, left; Ethan MacLeod, Infralytix; Jean-Claude D'Amours, Education Minister; Jeff White, NBIF.

Daniel Armali, NBIF, left; Ethan MacLeod, Infralytix; Jean-Claude D'Amours, Education Minister; Jeff White, NBIF.

Infralytix, which improves infrastructure monitoring, took home the first prize and $102,500 in cash Thursday night at the finals of breakthru, the main competition for new startups in New Brunswick.

The two runner-up awards in the competition hosted by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation went to Urai AI Corp. and Mulli Swing Solutions.

Breakthru was NBIF’s flagship event in the 2010s, helping to steer dozens of entrepreneurs through the early stages of setting up an innovative company and finding a market. The competition faded away during the pandemic and the innovation agency is now resurrecting it with the new competition, which attracted 140 participants spread across 80 companies this year.

“What matters most is the belief, the ambition, and the courage of founders who chose to build here. This is what momentum looks like. This is how you change a province,” said NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White in a statement. “What we saw on stage at breakthru live are companies with real potential to scale, and that’s where this starts.”

Infralytix is the brainchild of Dr. Ethan MacLeod, a postdoctoral fellow at University of New Brunswick who has been working with advanced bridge weigh-in-motion technology. It aims to improve infrastructure monitoring and overweight enforcement with minimal installation.

Infralytix uses data to help infrastructure owners make better decisions about roads and critical assets, bringing a faster, more modern approach to infrastructure management. As well as earning a $100,000 investment from NBIF for the first place in breakthru, Infralytix also took home the $2,500 Viewer’s Choice Award, receiving the most in-room votes following the five live pitches at the breakthru live event.

The $50,000 first runner-up prize went to Shanthi Shanmugam and Vagmi Mudumbai of Urai AI, who are building a programmable AI platform that makes AI agents simple, cost-effective and easy to interpret.

Mulli Swing Solutions, co-founded by Brycen Munroe, Alex Khoshbakhtian, and Ethan Belliveau, earned the $50,000 second runner-up prize for their technology designed to help athletes -- mainly golfers -- improve performance through real-time swing feedback and training insights.

Mulli Swing has won several awards in New Brunswick in the past year, and was named the top company at the demo day for the Masters of Technology, Management and Entrepreneurship program at UNB in July.

 

 

Invest NS Accelerate Welcomes New Cohort

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

Members of the Playfinder team pictured L-R: Laura Duggan, Gina MacInnis & Steph Spencer.

Members of the Playfinder team pictured L-R: Laura Duggan, Gina MacInnis & Steph Spencer.

Invest Nova Scotia has announced the 12 startups they have selected for the 2026 to 2027 cohort of Accelerate.

This year, companies were accepted into one of two new streams: the Growth Stream and the Development Stream. In total, 12 Nova Scotia start-ups will receive tailored support, the group said.

Companies in the Growth Stream will receive $30,000 in funding plus dedicated sales training and guidance, while companies in the Development Stream will receive $40,000 in funding and targeted advisory services.  

Growth Stream Companies

Awardly – Zack Wilson, Karim Mamlook – Halifax  
AI-powered platform to find, evaluate, and pursue Canadian government opportunities

Clarity Case – Sarah Kehoe – Halifax
A website to help survivors document abuse & generate organized evidence for family court.

Home and Health – Alan Mackeen, Matt Shaw, Anthony Probert – Bedford 
A digital marketplace connecting families with independent care and home service providers.

Mettara AI – Yash Mehta, Steve Day – Halifax  
Embedded AI agents that execute work inside SaaS products to increase customer adoption.

Playfinder - Laura Duggan, Martin McLaren – Pictou
SaaS platform enabling effective management and increased access to community recreation through shared digital navigation.

Table Touch – Ciaran Doherty, Lacey Doherty – Halifax  
Software that monitors restaurant employee table visits and displays service timing in real time.   

Development Stream Companies

Finleaf Technologies - Danielle Maitland, Myrna Gillis, Mike O’Keefe - Hebb’s Cross
Circular economy technologies for converting aquaculture waste into phosphorus rich fertilizers for agriculture.

iFormit Solutions - Abdul' Onabanjo – Halifax  
AI platform retrofitting both smart and legacy utility meters for real-time utility intelligence.

Leap Volt Tech – Renfei Ge – Halifax
Polymer functional materials for improving the cycle life of lithium-ion batteries.

Pividl Bioscience – Craig Jackson, Anriban Ghosh – Ingonish
Patented bio-native micelle technology redefining how active ingredients are built and delivered.

ThaliosAI – Bruno Padovese, Samual Silver, Noah Barrett, Jessica Doman, Harvey Wang – Halifax
AI-powered underwater acoustic monitoring and vessel detection for maritime surveillance.

ZEMΠTechnologies – Peyton Baird, Farzaneh Mami Khalifani – Halifax
AI-driven process that analyzes mineral exploration datasets to identify optimal drill targets and highly-prospective zones.

 

OmaScan Claims $25K at Woodward Cup

The Awards have handed out $350K to Memorial University students in 10 years.

Peter Woodward, left, Liam French, Rohith McKim and MCE Director Jason Trask. Photo Credit: Rich Blenkinsopp/MUN

Peter Woodward, left, Liam French, Rohith McKim and MCE Director Jason Trask. Photo Credit: Rich Blenkinsopp/MUN

OmaScan, which aims to make homes safer and more accessible, has captured the $25,000 first prize at the 10th annual Mel Woodward Cup at the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship, or MCE.

In the competition finals Wednesday night, OmaScan beat out four other competitors for the top student entrepreneurship award at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Co-founded by engineering students Rohith McKim, Liam French, and Jordyn O’Brien, OmaScan modernizes home safety by using smartphone 3D scanning to help occupational therapists and families create accessible home environments.

The Mel Woodward Cup was created through a 2017 donation to the Faculty of Business Administration from the family of the late Dr. Mel Woodward, founder of the Woodward Group of Companies. It has awarded $350,000 to student entrepreneurs, several of whom have gone on to build successful companies.

In fact, the first winner was CoLab Software, founded by engineering grads Jeremy Andrews and Adam Keating. Late last year, the company closed a US$72 million (C$100.9 million) Series C funding round, the largest VC financing in the region in the past two years.

At the Woodward Cup finals Wednesday night, the $15,000 runner-up award went to Seam Fishing, founded by engineering student Isaac Batten and engineering alum Rowan Meaney.

Seam Fishing builds high-quality, modular and affordable landing nets, meeting growing demand from modern catch-and-release anglers.

Engineering student Liam Yandon was awarded $2,500 as winner of the Fry Family Foundation Entrepreneurship Award for an Early-stage Idea for his company TerraEos. This company aims to develop a biodegradable solvent for cement processing that improves the efficiency and affordability of carbon capture. 

The Fry Family Foundation Entrepreneurship Award for Women and Non-binary Leadership, also worth $2,500 went to engineering student Chelsea O’Hara for her company DCXIX Consulting and Technical Services.

DCXIX plans to launch Scenecast, a performance capture tool that allows real people to be present and interact in virtual 3D environments.

The other finalists for the Woodward Cup were: EsseReale, which is creating a new class of compact, hands-free personal mobility device; and RespAI, which delivers real-time, personalized exposure intelligence for firefighters through a wearable, multi-sensor device and machine-learning platform.

In honor of the 10th Woodward Cup competition, the Centre for Entrepreneurship this year named several winners of the special Decade of Impact Awards. Keating and Andrews of CoLab Software won both the Founders in Motion Award, which recognizes ventures that have moved decisively from idea to influence, and the Journey Award, which recognizes resilience, growth, learning and community engagement.

The Trailblazer Award, which recognizes a woman or gender-diverse founder shaping ventures, markets and future founders, was awarded to Nikitha Kendyala, Co-Founder of Nucliq Biologics.

 

 

Volta Launches New AI-Focused Program

Sprint aims to help produce market-ready AI projects in four weeks.

Volta, the Halifax-based tech hub, has launched a new program called Sprint to help participants from across Atlantic Canada to develop AI-driven projects that are market-ready in just four weeks.

The organization on Tuesday announced the launch of Sprint, saying five cohorts are currently open for applications, with each limited to 10 participants.

Sprint is structured as a small-group, practice-based program rather than a traditional course or certification. Participants commit at least 10 hours per week and are expected to complete a working AI project by the end of the program.

Each cohort is led by a “lead builder,” an experienced practitioner responsible for selecting participants, defining outcomes, and facilitating weekly sessions.

"AI is opening an opportunity that simply didn't exist before – a chance for anyone, regardless of background, to become genuinely valuable as a founder, consultant, or individual contributor within an organization,” said Volta CEO Matt Cooper in a statement.

“What stands between most people and that opportunity isn't talent or resources. It's the time they've put into the tools. Sprint is how you put in that time with the right structure, the right peers, and an expert in your corner.’

Sprint uses a flipped classroom model. Participants work independently during the week, then meet with their cohort to review progress, address challenges, and receive feedback. Admission includes a short interview process to align participants by skill level and goals.

Cohorts cover a range of applications, including web and SaaS development, AI agents, marketing, and media production. Delivery formats vary, with in-person, virtual, and hybrid options available. Additional cohorts are expected to be added over time as demand increases and more lead builders join.

The launch comes amid growing demand for AI-related skills, said Volta. A World Economic Forum report this year found that demand for AI literacy increased by 70 percent over the past year, highlighting workforce readiness as a key factor in economic competitiveness.

Sprint is positioned as a complement to other AI-focused initiatives in the region, such as Digital Nova Scotia’s microcredentials, Dalhousie’s AI2Market program, and Genesis’ AI Garage, to name a few.

While many programs focus on foundational knowledge and credentials, Sprint aims to translate that knowledge into applied outcomes, says Volta. The model is based on repeated practice under guided conditions, similar to training in athletics.

Applications for current cohorts are open and can be found here.

 

 

Athena’s Playground Launches Kickstarter

The startup offers online education in popular hobbies.

Michael Sanderson and Meredith Drost

Michael Sanderson and Meredith Drost

Halifax-based Athena's Playground has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help boost the number and range of hobby-focused courses it offers online.

The startup’s platform has been created to allow users to embrace new skills and hobbies with ease, creating community, and overcoming the difficulties people often feel when getting started with a new interest.

“Our mission is to transform the way people engage with personal growth,” CEO Michael Sanderson told Entrevestor.

“We are creating a vibrant, supportive space where users can rediscover the joy of learning and connect with a global community of experts and fellow enthusiasts.”

Since launching in 2021, the startup has been creating a small but growing presence. The platform currently offers eight courses, from dance to cooking and painting. There is a 95 percent completion rate among users with a 4.9-star average rating. The company is aiming to provide 50 courses by Fall 2026. Its Kickstarter campaign is currently a third of the way towards its $25,000 goal.

Sanderson said many people sign up to learn a hobby or develop a passion with big platforms that don’t offer personal support and connection, and that is where Athena’s Playground – named for the Greek goddess of wisdom – stands out. The platform is accessible and designed for learners to pursue their interests without the barriers of extensive searching, costly initial investments, or limited time.

Users can learn on their own schedule from anywhere and become part of a global learning community that offers expert support, said Sanderson, who is also Director at Arthur L. Irving Entrepreneurship Centre at Saint Mary’s University.

Trainers are chosen for their experience and enthusiasm, with Sanderson and co-founder and Chief Operations Officer Meredith Drost, providing further training. Other staff include Mukul Gupta, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, and Grace Giffin, Marketing Manager.

Sanderson and Drost first met at Saint Mary’s University, where Sanderson was mentoring students who were building businesses around social impact through the global Enactus movement. Drost was a student. The two stayed in touch after she graduated and moved to Toronto. They now work together at the university’s Arthur L. Irving Entrepreneurship Centre, which she manages.

The idea for Athena’s Playground began with a dream Sanderson had about the kind of learning platform he wanted to create.

“The person in the dream told me, ‘This is your business,’” he said.

He shared the dream with Drost who was alone in Toronto at the time. Together with Gupta, a longtime collaborator, they conceived of a platform where learning could be social, accessible, and human.

“There’s a quiet moment many adults know well, the moment you want to try something new, and just as quickly, the feeling fades,” said Drost

“Not because the curiosity isn’t real, but because starting alone feels overwhelming...Our focus is on ensuring that the journey of mastering a new skill is a shared experience...We aren’t just launching courses; we’re giving people a space to truly experience learning.”

 

 

Feds Commit $200M to NS Launch Pad

Ottawa is committing to a 10-year lease at the Canso rocket launch site.

The federal government has committed $200 million to the launch pad based in Canso N.S. to help develop the Canadian space industry.

The government announced Monday it is signing a 10-year lease on the space launch pad operated by Halifax-based Maritime Launch Services as part of its new defence industrial strategy. The statement said that the strategy calls for Canada to be able to put satellites into orbit, even during times of global tension and uncertainty.

Spaceport Nova Scotia is being developed to provide satellite launch services for both Canadian and international clients. The project is expected to generate economic benefits in rural Nova Scotia through job creation, investment attraction, and the growth of a local supply chain. The first satellite launch from the site took place in July 2023.

“Located on Canada’s Atlantic coast, Spaceport Nova Scotia offers safe over-ocean launch corridors and access to highly sought-after orbital inclinations, providing a unique capability that only a limited number of global launch locations can support,” said Maritime Launch CEO Stephen Matier in the statement. “Spaceport Nova Scotia helps address a global launch capacity bottleneck, where demand for access to orbit continues to outpace available launch infrastructure.”

The government commitment is a 10‑year, $200‑million agreement to lease the dedicated space‑launch pad that will serve as the foundation for the multi-user spaceport. The government said the spaceport will support the operational needs of the Department of National Defence and the government itself, while offering ad hoc access to allies and partners.

The contract demands that 90 percent of the money be spent within Canada, which translates into $180 million for Canadian businesses.

Of the $200 million commitment, the Atlantic Canadian Opportunities Agency is delivering $38.2 million, over three years, under the Regional Defence Investment Initiative.

Shares in Maritime Launch rose 36 percent to 45 cents a share in over-the-counter trading Monday, according to Google, although they have since fallen back about 6 percent.

 

 

ACOA Backs NS Aerospace and Defence Companies

The federal government is providing $3.25M for three companies.

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is providing just over $3.25 million to three companies: MilAero Electronics Atlantic, GSTS and Survival Systems.

The money will help the ventures scale operations, boost production capacity, and respond to growing market demand, ACOA said in a statement.

“This is good for MilAero, but it’s also good for Nova Scotia,” said Paul Greedy, Founder and Co-owner of MilAero. “When we invest in people, training, and new capabilities, we’re not just growing our company, we’re helping build a stronger aerospace and defence sector right here at home.”

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.

The region is home to nearly 10,000 direct aerospace and defence jobs, representing 20 percent of national defence industry employment, ACOA said.

Detail on the recipients includes:

• MilAero is a CCIB-Certified Indigenous Business and female-owned SME specializing in high-performance electrical assemblies for aerospace, defence, marine, renewable energy, and industrial sectors. The company serves domestic and international markets and has doubled its workforce to 60 employees in the last 12 months.

• GSTS is a maritime AI company whose dual-use OCIANA platform delivers advanced risk management, intelligence, and operational optimization for defence, security, and commercial maritime sectors worldwide.

• Survival Systems Limited designs and manufactures advanced safety training and simulation systems, including its globally recognized Helicopter Underwater Escape Trainers and Environmental Simulation Systems. The company serves defence, oil and gas, and training organizations worldwide.

The money is invested under the Regional Defence Investment Initiative and the Regional Tarriff Response Initiative.

The announcement is part of ACOA’s $38.2 million allocation, over three years, under the three-year $379.2 million Regional Defence Investment Initiative.

The Regional Tariff Response Initiative is a $1 billion national investment to help Canadian businesses respond to global trade pressures, strengthen productivity, and build long-term competitiveness. In Atlantic Canada, ACOA is delivering $80 million under the Regional Tariff Response Initiative to support small and medium-sized enterprises as they modernize operations, strengthen supply chains, and pursue new market opportunities.

 

 

Invest NS, NBIF Invested $8.3M in 2024-25

The figures are contained in the provincial agencies' annual investment statements.

Invest Nova Scotia and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation – the two main public sector venture capital investors in Atlantic Canada – invested a total of $8.3 million in 2024-25, according to the most recent figures available.

Late each year, the two provincial agencies released annual reports with little fanfare, and these documents reveal the VC investments they made in the previous fiscal year. In both cases, the most recent reports cover the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2025.

Invest Nova Scotia invested in nine companies during this period, for a total of $5.0 million. In the previous fiscal year, the group had invested $3.2 million across seven deals.

In New Brunswick, NBIF made 16 investments worth a total of $3.2 million in the most recent period, compared with 31 investments worth $6.0 million in 2023-24. The NBIF report also reveals the total amounts raised by each company’s funding round, and the 16 companies in the latest fiscal year raised a total of $11.3 million

“As the leading venture capital firm in New Brunswick, NBIF is uniquely positioned to support and invest in early-stage startups,” said Chief Executive Jeff White in the latest NBIF Impact Report. “By providing the right investment at the right time, we empower innovative entrepreneurs to develop groundbreaking technologies and create globally competitive brands.”

The following table shows the nine companies Invest NS invested in during 2024-25:

Invest NS 2024-25 Investments
Company Amount 
Wellnify.ai (o/a The Program.AI)* $500,000
Nova Resp $500,000
Sperri (o/a Novagevity)* $750,000
Skaldyr   $100,000
Rfine   $72,495
Sound Blade $1,086,451
Freshr $1000000
Voltai $500,000
Coloursmith $500,000
Total $5.01 million

*O/A means "operates as".

Here are the investment totals for NBIF in 2024-25:

NBIF Investments in 2024-25
Company NBIF Investment Other Investment
AgroGeneSolutions $50,000 --
Brunvalley  $100,000 $200,000
CropMind (All-Farmers-Online Inc.)  $200,000 $250,000
Cybercheck (Global Intelligence) $100,000 $606,158
HomeSchoolToGo (GHP Scholastic) $50,000 --
Passiv $200,000 $939,467
pHathom Technologies $750,000 $3,407,300
Postilize $200,000 $1,150,000
Profitual $200,000 $540,000
Rise $100,000 $500,000
Soricimed $200,000 $1,800,000
Symbodi $250,000 $50,000
trippl $25,000 --
Uresta $425,000 $1,100,000
Versos AI $200,000 $235,000
Victory Advanced Technologies $200,000 $530,000
Total $3.25 million $11.3 million

 

 

Collect Brings Together Creators in Halifax

The group fosters collaboration in IT, the arts, and other disciplines.

Collect hosts Sam Silver, left, Vansh Sood, Noah Barrett, and Aryaman Pandey

Collect hosts Sam Silver, left, Vansh Sood, Noah Barrett, and Aryaman Pandey

A new group in Halifax is encouraging collaboration in IT, the arts and other disciplines, and is beginning to have an impact on the city’s startup community.

Collect is a loose organization that brings together creators – anyone with their own idea or an enthusiasm for other people’s ideas – for weekly sessions. They exchange ideas in such fields as art, design, music or software and work on promising concepts. It’s a bit hackathon, a bit kitchen party, a bit gab session.

“We see it as the very top of the funnel for the startup world where people just meet up, talk, discuss ideas,” Co-Founder Sam Silver told Entrevestor.

Added the other Co-Founder Noah Barrett: “People early in their careers or pursuits are able to be in the same room as experts, and work together informally. Knowledge transfer from folks well along on their career to early-stage folks happens frequently on our space, and appears to be equally rewarding on both sides.”

The pair started Collect in Barrett’s apartment building in October 2024, and there are now more than 370 people who subscribe to its calendar. The group hosts sessions each Thursday evening at Volta, and about 15 to 20 people attend each session. As well as Volta, the group teams up with Dalhousie’s Computer Science Faculty as well as ShiftKey Labs, the IT sandbox.

Last month, the group held a demo day, which featured 18 presentations and 150 registrants. “So far we've held over 50 events including two buildathons – our take on a hackathon,” said Barrett.

The participants include a lot of software developers but people from other disciplines show up as well. Silver said the goal is not to build tools powered by artificial intelligence, but AI is so prevalent in the IT world that some of the ideas involve AI.

Along the same lines, the goal is not to create startups, but some of the ideas have come close to being launched as companies, and Barrett and Silver helped to co-found a young company after hanging out at Collect.

The pair are co-founders of Thalios AI, a Halifax startup that has developed Thalios Edge, an adaptable, acoustic-based vessel detection solution for remote maritime settings. As well as detecting vessels, it can classify and track them.

The five-member team – four with computer science degrees – also includes Dr. Bruno Padovese, Jessica Doman, and Harvey Wang.

Silver said the technology could be used by government bodies or conservationists and could have military applications. The company will likely announce some developments in the coming months, he said.

Said Silver: “When you surround yourself with great people, you yourself become elevated so we really found ourselves elevated within Collect.”

 

 

We Need More Survey Responses

Two minutes of your time can help produce a great assessment of the startup community.

We still need more Atlantic Canadian founders and CEOs to complete our quick-and-confidential survey, which is the backbone of our coming 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.

We apologize in advance if it’s bothersome, but it’s critical for us to collect as much data as possible. And we want to thank the scores of startups that have taken the time to fill it in. 

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

Thank you.

RickShaw Collective Eyes City Streets

The business aims to expand its lightweight rickshaw service in St. John's this year.

Simon Herbinger, Founder of Rickshaw Collective

Simon Herbinger, Founder of Rickshaw Collective

Having re-engineered the traditional rickshaw and re-designed his business model, Simon Herbinger is envisioning Rickshaw Collective franchises across Canada and internationally.

Herbinger incorporated Halifax-based Rickshaw Collective in 2023. The company has recently expanded to the city of St. John’s, taking their lightweight rickshaws to popular George Street and the pedestrian mall on Water St. Their rickshaws will also return to Halifax streets along with the summer sun. 

Herbinger sees his business as both a return of a traditional service and a re-imagining of it. He told Entrevestor that rickshaws were a recognizable part of downtown Halifax culture in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly in nightlife and tourism, but after the pandemic, the industry nearly disappeared locally.

“Rickshaws create memorable social experiences that are real. They enable inclusivity, accessibility and promote community,” he said. 

A mechanical engineer by training, Herbinger said he has rebuilt the classic rickshaw. His modern design uses lightweight aluminum and carbon-fibre. He is currently working with Dalhousie University mechanical engineering students on a dual hydraulic disc brake system.

Rickshaw Collective also operates as a mobile marketing platform. He said the company has partnered with sponsors such as Supplement King, Magnetic World and Purple Cow, participated in events such as the Apple Blossom Festival and Parade of Lights, and has rented rickshaws for TV productions, including This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Herbinger plans to design lightweight LED billboards, add electric motor assist,  and an app to automate scheduling. 

“Rickshaw Collective marks a shift from informal street service to engineered, eco-friendly urban mobility and entertainment platform,” he said.

Seeing opportunity in an old idea, the company has redesigned the employment and revenue structure to make it easier and more flexible for workers to pull rickshaws. Runners can make $10,000 to $30,000 a season, Herbinger said.

“We’re providing flexible, low-barrier, highly paid work for casual operators. The work is fun, social and a workout.” 

So far, the venture has been bootstrapped by Herbinger with money he inherited from his grandfather. He said he may need to raise funds when he tackles scaling across Canada.  

Competition is not fierce, he said, as the pandemic led to a decline in hand-held rickshaws.

Ultimately, he would like to sell fleets of rickshaws through a franchising model, with recurring revenue available through franchise fees and expanded marketing deals.  

Herbinger began working as a rickshaw runner in 2017, while still a student. His current business partners include the previous owner of a 2010's rickshaw business in Halifax and another former rickshaw runner.  

He previously ran a company called Remote Energy Systems which created foldable solar panels for sailboats.

With five co-founders (all young engineers), that venture ran out of money after they spent too much time on research and not enough on moving the business forward, he said.

That experience helps him with managing the new business. He said his company’s greatest problem is probably the negative perceptions of rickshaws that some people hold.

“There can be resistance to rickshaws on public streets and waterfronts. There can be a perception of operators as rogue-like and unprofessional. But our staff are professional, well-trained, and our rickshaws well-designed prioritising safety. We offer accessible tours at a walking pace. 

“Rickshaws can be the heartbeat of downtown," he added.

 

Applications Open for ideaBUILD Spring 2026 Cohort

The program seeks deeptech startups focused on creating physical solutions for a healthier world.

Young companies are being sought for ideaBUILD, a 10-month program run by the Dalhousie Emera ideaHUB in Halifax.

IdeaBUILD offers founders a $10,000 grant towards prototyping materials, a 12-week bootcamp, and deep-tech-leading industry advisers who work alongside them to validate and build their product’s first operational prototype, organizers said on LinkedIn.

The deadline to apply is April 6.  The program will run May 2026 through March 2027.

Dalhousie affiliation is not a requirement; all early-stage, deep tech companies are encouraged to apply.

Apply here.

 

Two Maritime Finalists in Canadian Cleantech Awards

Cape Breton's Aeon Blue and NB's Amlamgog First Nation are finalists.

Amlamgog First Nation of New Brunswick and Cape Breton-based Aeon Blue are finalists for the inaugural Canadian Cleantech Awards, which aim to highlight the country’s cleantech successes.

Foresight Canada, which is organizing the awards, released the list of finalists in five categories this week. It will announce the winners May 13 at the Climate Innovation Zone at this year’s Web Summit Vancouver conference.

Based in Sydney River, Aeon Blue is one of five finalists in the Startup of the Year category.

Aeon Blue specializes in the production of sustainable eFuels by harnessing wind energy and seawater. The company’s technology and processes aim to integrate hydrogen production with carbon capture technology, using wind energy, seawater, and atmospheric carbon dioxide to create cost-efficient eFuels.

Last year, CEO Lark Meadows told Entrevestor the company had set its sights on a $10 million seed round that would be dedicated to building a pilot reactor. It hopes to be fully operational by 2027.

Amlamgog First Nation has been nominated for the Adopter of the Year award.

Under the leadership of Chief Rebecca Knockwood, the southeast New Brunswick community views sustainable energy as a crucial tool for protecting the environment. It is one of eight Mi'kmaq First Nations partnering on a large-scale wind energy project to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Amlamgog is also involved in developing microgrid innovations to enhance energy resilience and sustainability.

You can read the full list of Canadian Cleantech Awards finalists on this blog.

 

 

Applications Closing for Brain Health Challenge

Newfoundland is seeking digital solutions focusing on aging and brain health

Innovators in Newfoundland and Labrador are invited to apply for the Bounce Health Innovation Challenge, a four-month program focusing on developing digital health solutions around aging and brain health.

The challenge offers $75,000 in funding, including a $25,000 top prize. Solutions are expected to support older adults, caregivers, and communities across the province, organizers said in a statement.

Delivered by Bounce Health Innovation and the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation, the program offers mentorship, guidance, and access to healthcare and innovation leaders.

“This challenge is about bringing people together to work on real problems that affect families and communities across Newfoundland and Labrador,” said Andy Fisher, Director of Bounce Health Innovation.

“We know there’s incredible talent here, from healthcare professionals to students and developers, and this program creates space for those perspectives to come together and build meaningful solutions.”

The challenge is open to students, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, developers, and early-stage innovation teams across Newfoundland and Labrador. Following an initial development phase, five teams will be selected through a midpoint evaluation to receive $5,000 prototype development grants to further advance their ideas. Those teams will continue to develop their solutions before presenting at a public final showcase, where $50,000 in additional awards will be distributed, including a $25,000 first prize, $15,000 second prize, and $10,000 third prize.

The challenge comes as Newfoundland and Labrador faces significant demographic change, organizers said. The province has one of the fastest-aging populations in Canada, with nearly one in four residents now over the age of 65. As the population ages, communities across the province face growing challenges related to access to care, caregiver support, and helping older adults remain independent and connected.

Applications for the Challenge close this Friday, March 13.

Apply here.

 

Energia Ventures To Host Demo Day

The three-month program is for new, technology-focused ventures.

The innovation community is invited to the final presentations by Energia Ventures’ winter 2026 cohort.

Based at the University of New Brunswick’s J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship, Energia Ventures is a three-month intensive accelerator for entrepreneurs with an innovative business in the energy, smart grid, clean tech, and cybersecurity sectors. It offers mentorship, funding, and a network of industry mentors.

With two virtual cohorts per year, the program helps early-stage companies scale and prepare for rapid growth. 

The participants are:

Agent Maple - Agent Maple is an on-site AI agent for trades and field teams. It answers calls and texts from your crew, handles scheduling and documentation inquiries, and escalates to a human when needed.

DeepREM  - We're helping people level up their sleep with innovative sleep solutions.  DeepREM helps you get a blissful sleep- every single night with an AI-driven sleep-enhancing app that uses the devices you already own to dynamically enhance sleep quality.

Mulli Swing Solutions - Mulli is a golf technology that was founded by a team of engineering graduates passionate about the sport of golf and helping others improve their performance through technology. Their key focus is on a critical blind spot in current golf training tools: grip pressure.

SeaGreen Solutions – SeaGreen was founded with a simple idea: harnessing the ocean to help heal the earth. They are building climate-positive solutions by turning sustainably farmed kelp into low-carbon products that improve soil health and reduce emissions.

Wellobit - Empowering individuals to take control of their stress and wellbeing through science-backed breathwork and measurable biofeedback.

The event will take place March 18th between 1:30PM and 5:30 PM at the Student Union Building at 21 Pacey Drive, Fredericton.

Register here. 

 

NS Launches INMC Intl. Startup Competition

The contest network includes 23 international cities.

The town of Bridgewater, the Municipality of the County of Kings, and Pictou County have announced the launch of the INMC Nova Scotia International Startup Competition. It will send three Nova Scotia startups to compete at the International Network of Michelin Cities (INMC) Conference in Cuneo, Italy in October.

The competition brings together Nova Scotia’s three INMC membership holders under a shared “INMC Nova Scotia” approach, the partners said in a statement.

“IGNITE is pleased to support the design and delivery of this collaborative initiative,” said Doug Jones, CEO of IGNITE Atlantic. “By coordinating across regions, we are helping founders prepare for meaningful international engagement and positioning rural innovation as globally competitive.”

Each region will host its own pitch competition or showcase in Spring 2026. One startup from Bridgewater and the South Shore, one from the Municipality of the County of Kings and the Annapolis Valley, and one from Pictou County will be selected to represent Nova Scotia at INMC Cuneo.

The International Network of Michelin Cities is a global network of communities connected through innovation, economic development, and international collaboration.

Regional competitions will take place in April, with final selections made by the end of May. Selected startups will receive founder preparation and international readiness support throughout the summer and fall in advance of the October 2026 conference.

More information is available here.

 

 

NS Applications Open for Web Summit Vancouver

The call is for Nova Scotian tech ventures less than six years old.

Invest Nova Scotia is seeking companies to participate in a trade mission to the Web Summit Vancouver Conference from May 11-14 (previously known as the Collision Conference that took place in Toronto).  

Applicants must be technology startups with a live, launched product and interest in global expansion.

Web Summit Vancouver is one of North America’s leading technology conferences. It offers the chance to connect with global investors and industry leaders and explore new partnership and market expansion opportunities.

The conference offers an opportunity for Nova Scotia tech companies to showcase their innovations to an international audience, the group said in a statement. Opportunities include pre- and post-mission virtual workshops designed to help companies get the most out of the Web Summit experience.

Selected companies will receive conference passes, a branded exhibiting booth, investor and networking opportunities, mission preparation workshops, and travel support.

This year, the group will only be accepting ten Nova Scotia startups to join the mission. Startups that previously attended with Invest NS are not eligible to apply.

Applications are open until March 20 at 5:00 PM ADT.

Apply here.

 

Kraken Acquires UK Company for $615M

The oceantech giant is raising about $350M to help fund the purchase.

St. John’s-based Kraken Robotics Inc. has agreed to acquire British underwater-tech company Covelya Group for $615 million in cash and stock.

Announced late last week, the deal combines two providers of subsea technology serving defence and commercial maritime markets, with the goal of offering a greater range of mission-critical products in more geographic markets.

The purchase price includes $480 million in cash and $135 million in Kraken common shares issued to the seller, Sonardyne Holdings. To help finance the cash component, publicly listed Kraken will raise about $350 million by selling stock.

“Strategically, this acquisition will provide a unique opportunity to combine two leading subsea technology providers with complementary products, operating in markets with barriers to entry and high growth potential,” said Kraken CEO Greg Reid in a statement.

“The combined company will be able to provide more integrated solutions of mission-critical systems for underwater platforms and subsea sensors/monitoring systems. These key technology systems include Kraken’s subsea batteries and synthetic aperture sonar and Covelya Group’s subsea navigation, positioning, and communications offering.”

Covelya Group operates several underwater technology companies, including Sonardyne International, EIVA A/S, Forcys, Wavefront Systems, Voyis Imaging Inc. and Chelsea Technologies. The group designs and manufactures systems used for underwater navigation, communication, positioning, imaging and monitoring for uncrewed maritime platforms and surface vessels.

Covelya, which employs nearly 750 people and operates 12 facilities across North America, South America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, is expected to report 2025 revenue of between $249 million and $275 million. The business has recorded revenue growth of about 24 percent annually since 2023.

Combined with Kraken’s operations, the companies estimate total 2025 revenue of between $351 million and $379 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of about 24 percent.

Kraken said the acquisition expands its product portfolio and customer base in subsea technology, particularly in defence and maritime surveillance markets where demand for autonomous underwater systems is increasing. The combined company will offer integrated systems that include Kraken’s subsea batteries and synthetic aperture sonar alongside Covelya’s navigation, positioning and communication technologies.

The acquisition is expected to add to earnings per share beginning in 2027 and to increase revenue, EBITDA and cash flow per share. Kraken is targeting about $10 million in savings within 24 months through supply chain integration, research and development coordination and administrative efficiencies.

Following completion of the transaction, the seller will hold about 4 percent of Kraken’s outstanding shares on a pro forma basis. The shares will be subject to a staged lock-up over two years.

Kraken expects the acquisition to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.

Kraken shares on the TSX Venture exchange fell 5.2 percent Friday to $8.36, according to Google. However, they are still near an all-time peak, having risen 287 percent in the past year. The company now has a market capitalization (the total value of its shares) of $2.6 billion.  

 

 

AKA Partners with 2 South Korean Companies

The PEI company will work on Canada’s Canadian Patrol Submarine Project.

The signing ceremony in Ottawa last week

The signing ceremony in Ottawa last week

Montague, P.E.I.-based AKA Energy Systems has signed a teaming agreement with South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean Co. and technology firm KTE Co.to collaborate on Canada’s Canadian Patrol Submarine Project.

The tri-party agreement was formalized on March 5 during Hanwha Ocean’s CPSP Partners’ Day event in Ottawa. It establishes a framework for cooperation on submarine power distribution, electrical and control systems, and propulsion technologies.

Under the arrangement, AKA Energy Systems will work with the two South Korean companies to integrate Canadian-developed power and propulsion systems into submarine and naval platform programs. The agreement also aims to position Canadian technology within international shipbuilding supply chains.

“This teaming agreement is a significant milestone for AKA Energy Systems and for Atlantic Canada,” said AKA Energy Systems CEO Jason Aspin in a statement. “By partnering with Hanwha Ocean and KTE, we are bringing Canadian power and control system expertise into an international naval program, creating high-value engineering jobs, and building export pathways for Canadian technology into global shipbuilding projects.“

Before the signing in Ottawa, representatives from Hanwha Ocean and KTE visited AKA’s headquarters and manufacturing campus in Montague. The facility includes electrical assembly, mechanical fabrication and testing operations used for developing hybrid power and microgrid systems.

Further collaboration is planned through reciprocal visits, including a trip by AKA representatives to South Korea to tour Hanwha Ocean’s shipyard and KTE’s facilities. The companies plan to discuss technology integration and the development of next-generation electrical and control systems for submarine platforms.

AKA said participation in the submarine program could lead to about 200 new jobs in Atlantic Canada across engineering, manufacturing, systems integration and testing roles.

The partnership is intended to support Canada’s defence procurement policy introduced earlier this year, which encourages greater participation by domestic firms in military projects and aims to expand defence-related exports.

 

 

Raymex Launches Amid Dragons’ Den Frenzy

Halifax-based Axtion is now in "catch-up mode" due to the strong demand.

Suling Duong, left, and Tracey McGillivray

Suling Duong, left, and Tracey McGillivray

Tracey McGillivray was so busy preparing for a factory inspection in late January that she didn’t realize CBC had posted the trailer for Axtion Independence Mobility’s coming appearance on Dragons’ Den.

So she was flabbergasted that night when she checked the Halifax-based company’s social media accounts and saw video on the company she co-founded had gone viral.

And that was nothing to the online response following the actual episode, in which she and colleague Suling Duong pitched the Action’s Raymex Lift, a walker that can help seniors back up if they fall.

“We ended up with 7.5 million views in seven days – it's now up to close to 10 million . . . between Instagram and TikTok,” said the Axtion CEO in an interview last week. “We had a quarter of a million interactions. We had over 10,000 shares. But what was really impactful was we  . . . had over 60,000 visits to our website. And what was really powerful about that was that Dragons’ Den in their posts did not include a link to our website.”

For McGillivray, the outpouring of interest proved a point that she and Co-Founder Liam Maaskant believed in when they conceived the Raymex Lift eight years ago: there is a crying need in the elder-care market for a device that can not only help frail seniors move but also pick them up when they fall.

The Raymex Lift (named for McGillivray’s father, Ray, whose experiences inspired its creation) is a combination of a rollator walker and a powered seat that can be raised and lowered from ground level to about two feet up, and vice versa.

In the last month, Axtion (pronounced the same as “action”) launched the product, which is manufactured in Amherst, NS, under a contract with Halifax’s Precise Design Engineering Solutions. The product is now being sold in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., and Europe is due to come on stream soon. McGillivray hopes to add Australia and Malaysia before long.

Its network of sales agents includes Pisces Healthcare Solutions, which sells through the Veterans Healthcare Administration, the largest health authority in the U.S.

The company has grown with the support of various groups, including Invest Nova Scotia, and it developed Raymex largely through non-dilutive funding from these parties. During the appearance on Dragons’ Den, the team struck a deal with investor Arlene Dickenson. Due diligence on that agreement is continuing. What the televised deal did do was establish a valuation for the company, and that helped to raise about $750,000 in equity financing from several investors, many from Nova Scotia.

Admitting that the company’s production is now “in catch-up mode” after the demand created by a successful launch, McGillivray is pleased with the launch – and with the fact that the online engagement has remained steady in the month since the Dragons’ Den appearance.

So this year her focus is on manufacturing enough units to meet demand and expand distribution to more companies.

“I think 2026 is all about initially just trying to catch up with the demand that's out there and we will do that over the coming couple of months,” said McGillivray. “We've had some outreach. . . . so I think you're going to see some expansion of our global footprint start to take hold.”

 

 

Ocean Supercluster Unveils Desalination Project

The partners aim to improve knowledge around the complex issue of desalination.

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster has announced a $4.1 million project to provide AI-powered monitoring of a sustainable wave-powered desalination project.

The project will be led by Oneka Technologies of Sherbrooke, Quebec, working with partners. It aims to accelerate the commercialization and AI-enablement of Canadian ocean hardware platforms to support the global scaleup of sustainable wave-powered desalination solutions. The aim is to expand access to reliable freshwater, and address global challenges including water scarcity, climate change, and environmental sustainability, the group said in a statement.

Oneka -- which received a $1 million investment from Invest Nova Scotia in 2023 -- will work with Ocean Sonics of Truro Heights, N.S; Innovobot Labs of Montreal, QC and Lengkeek Vessel Engineering of Dartmouth.  The Supercluster is investing $1.6 million of the total $4.1 million value, with the balance coming from project partners.

The work will examine how marine assets and ocean datasets can be used to cut in-ocean operational issues and costs, and how low carbon desalination solutions interact with their surrounding coastal environments.

The group said the result will be the world’s first commercial scale, long-term demonstration of a wave-powered desalination system that delivers fresh water to end users and enhanced AI-driven acoustic and IoT monitoring capabilities to multiple offshore sectors.

Based in Atlantic Canada, the Ocean Supercluster is a private-public organization established by the federal government. 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.

 

Spellbook on Track for US$100M ARR this Year

The company has secured US$40M in debt to pursue acquisitions.

Spellbook CEO Scott Stevenson

Spellbook CEO Scott Stevenson

St. John’s-based Spellbook, which makes generative AI products for law firms, has revealed that it tripled its revenue in 2025 and is on track to hit US$100 million (C$133 million) in annual recurring revenue this year.

Co-Founder and CEO Scott Stevenson revealed the strong performance in an interview with the Globe and Mail this week. He was speaking as Spellbook announced it had secured US$40 million in venture debt, leveraging on the US$50 million in equity funding it had secured in the autumn.

The company’s AI copilot, which uses large language models, allows law firms and in-house counsel to draft, edit and review legal contracts. Spellbook products are now used by about 4,000 customers across 80 countries, which the company says is more than any comparable AI contract-review product. Its customers include such blue-chip companies as Nestlé and eBay, as well as the British-American law firm Kennedys Law.

In late October, Spellbook closed a US$50 million Series B venture capital round led by Khosla Ventures, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. The company said the deal valued Spellbook at about US$350 million.

This week, the Globe said the company has secured an additional $40 million in debt financing from RBC to buy smaller competitors that rushed into the generative AI market but are now struggling. Stevenson confirmed the content of the Globe and Mail report in an email.

The  company now employs 150 people and plans to add about 100 employees by the end of the year.

 

Free Invest Canada Tickets for Female Investors

The CVCA is offering ten tickets to senior women working in investment.

The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, or CVCA , is offering 10 fully funded tickets to Invest Canada '26 to senior women investment professionals experiencing barriers to access.

Invest Canada is a national venture capital and private equity conference, bringing together the funds raising capital, the institutions allocating it, and the policymakers shaping the environment, the group said in a statement.  

The conference will be held in Halifax from May 26 to 28. The CVCA says the gesture is to mark International Women's Month.

The opportunity is open to women who hold active investment decision-making authority at their firms, including: general partners, founding partners, or managing partners, principals or vice presidents with formal investment committee participation or delegated authority to lead transactions.

Applicants must be part of a firm that would not otherwise sponsor attendance and must demonstrate a financial or structural barrier to access. Applications will be reviewed by a selection committee.

Applications must be submitted by March 20. 

Apply here.

General registration for Invest Canada '26 is also open. Buy tickets here.

This initiative is partially funded through the Women's Entrepreneurship Strategy, administered by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED).

 

 

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.

 

 

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