Announcing the Winners of the CB Innovation Awards 2024
In the previous 12 months, companies have needed to navigate a panorama marked by whiplash-inducing technological developments, undeniably pressing proof of local weather change and ever-shifting shopper values that more and more prioritize social duty. The firms that merely sustain with digital transformation, sustainability finest practices and office wellness developments can survive, nevertheless it takes a future-focused dedication to driving significant impression to really thrive in 2024 and past.
Together with judges Krista Jones, interim CEO of MaRS Discovery District, and Takara Small, award-winning tech reporter and podcaster, Canadian Business chosen 25 firms that exemplify resilience, adaptability and an unwavering dedication to bettering lives each inside and past our borders. Meet the businesses which might be redefining what it means to be an innovator.
Pontosense
Founded 2021
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Alex Qi, Yihong Qi and Muxin Ma
In 2017, on the Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas’s annual gizmo circus, tech entrepreneur Alex Qi watched a presentation for a biometric monitoring system that was in contrast to the heart-rate-tracking smartwatches already frequent on the time. Two wi-fi routers captured the heartbeat of an viewers participant with none bodily contact, as an alternative utilizing the identical radio waves that Wi-Fi makes use of. He remembers Yihong Qi, a BlackBerry alum who was additionally attending the occasion, turning to him with a revelation: You may get much more detailed information utilizing higher-frequency millimetre waves, or mmWaves, by a singular however extra environment friendly sensor.
In 2021, the pair, together with health-tech entrepreneur Muxin Ma, formally co-founded Pontosense, with the purpose of utilizing mmWave expertise to investigate environments, acknowledge patterns and provide actionable insights in quite a lot of settings. The functions of this expertise may save lives on quite a few fronts, they thought, from well being care to vehicular security to house safety.
The underlying science is deceptively easy. Pontosense’s proprietary four-square-centimetre sensor emits high-frequency electromagnetic waves into the air. After bouncing off objects, these mmWaves replicate again onto the sensor, figuring out micro-movements as refined as a heartbeat with medical-grade accuracy from as much as 15 metres away. Qi likens it to a bat’s echolocation—besides Pontosense takes it to the following stage. Using synthetic intelligence and proprietary machine-learning instruments, the corporate’s software program is ready to shortly isolate and take away undesirable noise from information—like a automotive’s vibrations when making an attempt to measure the motive force’s heartbeat—fixing a problem that plagued earlier iterations of mmWave tech.
Imagine the security and safety enhancements attainable with a Pontosense sensor included right into a automobile’s system. This sensor may flag a possible thief’s hand slipping by an open window or acknowledge indicators of a driver being dangerously near nodding off and set off warnings accordingly. And it may considerably bolster child-presence detection, alerting a distracted mother or father to a toddler left within the backseat. Qi says Pontosense is already working with most main automotive producers, together with Tesla. He estimates that 100,000 Pontosense boosted automobiles will roll off meeting strains in 2024.
Homes are an even bigger problem for the sensors to map out, however there’s nice potential for life-saving interventions on this realm too. Pontosense’s AgeTech arm is private for Qi; had the expertise been round, he says, it could have alerted his household when his aged grandfather fell in the midst of the evening, an occasion that led to his premature loss of life from pneumonia. It’s a situation that older adults should more and more contemplate. Falls are the main reason for deadly and nonfatal accidents amongst seniors. With additional developments, Qi anticipates a future the place Pontosense sensors may assist establish indicators of different potential well being points “weeks, months and maybe even years in advance.”
The versatility of Pontosense’s expertise has discovered its means into surprising functions too—akin to monitoring cheetahs’ stress ranges at an African wildlife sanctuary to assist in their mating efforts— illustrating Qi’s aspiration to create universally accessible improvements past what he initially envisioned: “You want to create something that anybody can use.”
Spring
Founded 2014
Headquarters Vancouver
Founders Keith Ippel and Bonnie Foley-Wong
A decade in the past, Keith Ippel seen main gaps in Canada’s venture-capital panorama. Despite start-ups getting access to sensible instruments, mentorship packages and networking alternatives, none of those assets really prioritized optimistic social impression as a lot as they did monetary returns. Without intervention, he thought, company Canada appeared destined to proceed treating social duty as an afterthought.
Founded in 2014, Spring was created to empower socially minded capitalists, from founders to angel buyers, by quite a lot of academic and acceleration packages.Early on, start-ups had been its logical focus—Ippel says that getting mature firms to account for his or her environmental and social impression will be tougher. Starting with seedlings meant that Spring may make investments its time (and infrequently its capital) in individuals who already held social duty as elemental to their business. With a little bit of nurturing, these ventures may quickly be investment-ready.
Meanwhile, many would-be impression buyers merely didn’t know the place to start out. They had the assets however nonetheless wanted assist figuring out alternatives to generate returns on funding and impression. Spring gives teaching on this space too, together with by its Impact Investor Challenge, a collection of multi-week packages aimed toward navigating the fundraising course of.
Now, Spring may affect enterprise capitalism from all angles: as a coach to either side, because the referee brokering offers and, often, as a participant in its personal proper. Through its Spring Impact Capital fund, Spring sometimes invests $250,000 per start-up.
Last 12 months, Spring bolstered its institutional information with the acquisition of Future Capital, an accelerator targeted on Black- and women-founded start-ups. The acquisition introduced founder and CEO Marlon Thompson into Spring’s C-suite as chief expertise officer.
A decade into Spring’s mission, the numbers inform the story of the agency’s far-reaching impression. It has labored with greater than 3,100 entrepreneurs and 900 buyers and helped facilitate over $50 million in funding. But as a lot as the primary decade was about nurturing socially accountable capitalism, the theme of Spring’s subsequent decade is standardization. In Ippel’s splendid future, firms would “no longer even be using the word ‘impact’” to qualify socially minded entrepreneurs and buyers. If all goes to plan, impression could be a given—a foundational shift towards a brighter business world.
Café William
Founded 1988
Headquarters Sherbrooke, Que.
Founder Serge Picard
It was a brainstorming session in 2020 that sparked considered one of Café William’s most original improvements. The espresso roaster and wholesaler was in pursuit of a fair greener provide chain for its natural and ethically sourced espresso, and co-owner Serge Picard had an thought: They may import their beans from South America to the corporate’s roasting plant in Sherbrooke, Que., by way of sailboat as an alternative of gas-powered cargo ships.
Partnering with the Costa Rica-based Sailcargo, Café William invested within the development of a zero-emissions cargo ship, which took its maiden voyage in December from Santa Marta, Colombia, to Quebec with virtually 75,000 kilograms of inexperienced espresso beans. The month-long journey made Café William the primary industrial espresso roaster on the planet to make use of a zero-emissions ship to move beans.
“This initiative is not just about reducing emissions; it’s also aimed at inspiring an industry shift toward more sustainable logistics solutions,” says Rémi Tremblay, Café William’s president and CEO. “We are setting a new standard for environmental responsibility in the coffee sector.”
Next, Tremblay and Picard collaborated with German producer Neuhaus Neotec to develop an electrical industrial roaster. The first 100 per cent electrical industrial roaster debuted in Café William’s new Sherbrooke plant, which opened in February and has an annual roasting capability of as much as 9 million kilograms of espresso.
Café William’s efforts to develop sustainably are paying off. The firm skilled a 53 per cent improve in gross sales income from 2022 to 2023, making it the fastest-growing of the highest 10 espresso manufacturers in Canada.
Rebelstork
Founded 2019
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Emily Hosie
Roughly 100 million items of child and child gear are thrown away within the U.S. alone yearly. Once a toddler has outgrown a stroller or not wants their automotive seat, it may be a problem for folks to determine what to do with this gear. That’s why Emily Hosie, founding father of on-line market Rebelstork, is on a mission to make sure that these things discover a new house—whereas serving to mother and father recoup a little bit of expense on the identical time.
Rebelstork makes use of a proprietary AI-powered pricing expertise referred to as REV to generate real-time resale worth on over 50,000 baby-gear fashions so clients could make good choices earlier than deciding to purchase or promote. Items are offered by way of a consignment mannequin by which Rebelstork shares the earnings with the vendor. It’s an enormous step up from the free buy-andsell websites the place truthful pricing is anybody’s guess and, even when each events have the most effective of intentions, offers typically fall by.
Hosie, who was beforehand a merchandising govt for The TJX Companies, additionally aimed to deal with the issue of waste generated by retail returns. When she discovered that many baby-gear manufacturers and retailers don’t have the capability to handle their returns (and, consequently, eliminate practically $1.6 billion in product returns yearly), she launched ReLuvable. The re-commerce partnership program offers manufacturers like Bumbleride and BabyBjörn the expertise to course of returns and resell objects on Rebelstork’s market.
Whereas a conventional retailer acquires stock by buying it and marking it up on the market, Rebelstork acquires retailers’ returns and overstock and pays them a proportion after an merchandise is offered on its market. Hosie estimates that by doing so, they’ve efficiently prevented 200,000 merchandise from being discarded. Meanwhile, households are capable of get like-new merchandise at a reduction.
Rebelstork additionally helps Canadian charities akin to The New Mom Project, which offers primary child requirements and assets to marginalized households, and Mamas for Mamas, which offers poverty reduction to moms and caregivers, by its year-round donation-matching program.
The firm’s progress has been spectacular too. Sales have risen from round $1 million in 2021 to over $10 million in 2023. It expanded into the United States in 2022 and now operates three returns-and-recommerce amenities, in New York, Tennessee and Toronto.
“As we go forward, we are continuously working to partner with more retailers, large and small,” says Hosie. “We want to further drive the circular economy and divert as much product from landfill as we can.”
Moderna
Founded 2010
Canadian headquarters Toronto
Founders Derrick Rossi, Timothy A. Springer, Kenneth R. Chien, Robert S. Langer and Noubar Afeyan
Founded in Cambridge, Mass., in 2010, Moderna grew to become a family identify a decade later due to its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. This wasn’t only a scientific breakthrough; it was a game-changer within the world battle towards the virus. Its momentum led to the announcement of Moderna Canada in 2020, setting the stage for the nation’s first mRNA-manufacturing facility.
The Canadian subsidiary is considered one of a number of (there are additionally new divisions in Asia, Europe and Africa) that Moderna introduced following the beginning of the pandemic. It’s half of a bigger firm motion to make sure equitable entry to vaccines globally. The firm’s 9,300-square-metre manufacturing facility in Laval, Que., was completed in February, and it’ll turn out to be the primary facility in Canada to supply home industrial mRNA vaccine manufacturing.
This progress will enable Canada to be extra self-sufficient and fewer reliant on vaccine provide from different markets, says Stefan Raos, Moderna Canada’s normal supervisor. The Canadian subsidiary has already grown from 20 workers to greater than 80, and the launch of the power in Laval is anticipated so as to add much more to the group.
Though the science behind mRNA medication is hardly new, its success as a vaccine towards the Covid virus has introduced forth new potentialities for treating different situations. Currently, Moderna has a pipeline with 45 improvement packages in 5 therapeutic areas: most cancers immunotherapy and infectious, cardiovascular, autoimmune and uncommon illnesses. With the brand new facility in Laval, it is going to be simpler for the group to collaborate with native universities to discover this analysis whereas additionally offering higher entry to medical research for Canadians.
The firm is on the chopping fringe of sustainable operations too. The Laval facility is working towards LEED certification, the worldwide normal for vitality effectivity in buildings. And Moderna Canada is the primary pharmaceutical firm within the nation to affix Environment and Climate Canada’s Net-Zero Challenge, which inspires companies to implement methods to transition their operations to net-zero emissions by 2050.
With the brand new manufacturing facility set to provide as much as 100 million mRNA respiratory vaccine doses and supply extra alternatives for home analysis, Moderna Canada represents an enormous leap ahead in biotech innovation.
&Or Collective
Founded 2020
Headquarters Montreal
Founders Kristen King, Katie Green, Rosa Halpern and Drew Green
Starting a vogue model that balances type with environmental duty isn’t any simple feat, particularly with textiles accounting for an estimated 450 million kilograms of waste yearly in Canada. Enter retail-industry veterans Kristen King, Katie Green, Rosa Halpern and Drew Green, the co-founders of &Or Collective, who beforehand labored for firms like Aldo and L’Oréal. They launched their women-led clothes model final summer time with a set of zero-to-landfill clothes that kind the idea of a acutely aware capsule wardrobe.
The firm makes use of natural cotton and sheep’s wool licensed for moral therapy and sustainability. But what actually units &Or aside is its extremely technical manufacturing. “Our ‘secret sauce’ is our use of flatbed knitting, a solution to the fashion industry’s alarming waste problem,” says Katie Green. Flatbed-knitting machines are digitally programmed in order that solely the exact quantity of yarn wanted to create a selected garment is used.
Circular-knitting machines, that are extra generally utilized in mass garment manufacturing, work quicker than flatbed ones however have restricted design flexibility. Moreover, conventional cut-and-sew manufacturing requires a number of panels of cloth and a number of machines—for shaping, chopping and stitching—to create a single piece of clothes. With &Or’s course of, a ready-to- put on garment will be made on single machine, considerably lowering the quantity of vitality consumed and supplies used. Green says their manufacturing strategies cut back pre-consumer textile waste from an {industry} common of roughly 15 per cent to lower than one per cent.
And that one per cent? &Or recycles it by a partnership with SuperCircle, an organization that hyperlinks shopper manufacturers to specialised recyclers and in addition manages circularity for world retailers like Uniqlo and Reformation.
“Every step of the way has been about making thoughtful, deliberate choices,” Green says. By sustainably producing adaptable and highquality clothes, the corporate hopes clients will maintain these staples of their wardrobes for years, not seasons. “We are set on redefining fast fashion by championing conscious consumption.”
Lightspeed
Founded 2005
Headquarters Montreal
Founder Dax Dasilva
For practically twenty years, Dax Dasilva has been devoted to remodeling outdated money registers into relics of the previous. According to the founder and CEO of point-of-sale software program large Lightspeed, these surprisingly still-prevalent fee terminals are literal and figurative black containers. For business house owners to really seize management of their retail operations, he says, they want actionable, up-tothe- minute insights.
Lightspeed’s path towards a current-day market cap of $2.9 billion started with Dasilva studying to program on a Mac when he was 13. The pc’s design-forward {hardware} represented one thing aspirational— a future constructed on the intersection of excessive artwork and deep science. “When I started Lightspeed in 2005, it wasn’t to build a public company,” the now 47-year-old Dasilva says. “It was to win a design award from Steve Jobs.”
But at the same time as an Apple acolyte, Dasilva noticed a missed alternative in its software program, particularly packages designed to assist business capabilities. “The original Lightspeed had an almost iTunes-like interface to manage different elements of inventory, transaction flow and employee management,” he says.
For retail companies, the place money is essentially tied up in stock, an omni-channel platform that permits visualization and optimization was a game-changer. Lightspeed’s ensuing developments, together with the incorporation of AI instruments, additional democratized data-driven decision-making inside the retail and repair sectors.
As Lightspeed scaled, the corporate sought out methods to innovate past its software program by social-enterprise initiatives. For occasion, with its Carbon Friendly Dining program, which it rolled out in 2017, diners at choose restaurant companions may decide to offset the carbon footprint of their meal straight by Lightspeed’s POS software program. The program, which prices eating places nothing, has funded the planting of greater than 1.5 million timber so far.
Lightspeed has additionally discovered methods to institute progressive individuals insurance policies inside its world-spanning workplaces. Most lately, the corporate, which now totals round 3,000 employees worldwide, overhauled its relocation coverage to assist workers who face potential well being and questions of safety resulting from anti-transgender laws of their house state. Diversity, fairness and inclusion initiatives have at all times been core tenets of Lightspeed’s workplace tradition, Dasilva says. In truth, the agency’s first 4 workers—its founder included—are members ofthe LGBTQ2S+ group.
Dasilva, having stepped again as Lightspeed’s CEO into an govt chair function in early 2022, returned to his former place in February, able to oversee what he expects to be a worthwhile progress section. In March, the founder hinted at the potential for going personal, driving up share values in a single day.
Flygreen
Founded 2023
Headquarters Saint-Laurent, Que.
Founders Matt Keezer and Ryan Saroli
When you concentrate on eco-friendly transportation, a personal flight most likely isn’t prime of thoughts. After all, personal jets are proven to be 5 to 14 occasions extra polluting per passenger than industrial flights. But they aren’t going away any time quickly—as of final 12 months, there have been about 23,370 personal jets working around the globe—so Flygreen is working to considerably cut back their environmental footprint.
The firm developed Jetpro, a software that makes use of synthetic intelligence to trace flight choices primarily based on value, comfort and environmental issues. This helps Flygreen’s clients—the vast majority of whom are in Canada and the U.S.—choose lower-impact flights. At the tip of every journey, travellers get a report with an in depth overview of their flight’s environmental impression, together with gas consumption, CO2 emissions and the variety of tree plantings required to seize the carbon emissions from their journey. So far, the corporate says it has contributed to the planting of 20,000 timber in Canada and the U.S. with the aim of supporting carbon sequestration and biodiversity preservation.
Co-founders Matt Keezer and Ryan Saroli are devoted to creating personal jet charters as sustainable as attainable till the {industry} transitions to electrical plane. In the meantime, Flygreen can also be working to make change on the bottom with its Drive Green initiative. The inner program encourages the corporate’s employees—which has grown from two to twenty—to modify to electrical automobiles by offering month-to-month subsidies.
Jelly Academy
Founded 2018
Headquarters Fort Langley, B.C.
Founder Darian Kovacs
In 2018, Darian Kovacs, a Metis entrepreneur from B.C., based Jelly Academy with two major goals: to make Canadian schooling extra inclusive for marginalized teams and to assist arm the nation’s workforce with the digital abilities demanded by immediately’s job market.
Since its inception, the academy has skilled round 3,000 college students, emphasizing assist for girls, Indigenous people and other people of color. “We wanted to build a program that is intentionally accessible for under-represented people,” says Kovacs.
Jelly’s coaching focuses on the “new collar” {industry}: jobs that didn’t even exist a decade in the past. With digital programs on matters like digital advertising and marketing and web site constructing, Jelly has caught the eye of each governments and {industry} companions that wish to upskill their employees at scale. It lately collaborated with the Canadian Professional Sales Association to certify a B2B-sales course for its members and has been contracted by Upskill Canada and Digital, each elements of federal authorities initiatives designed to spice up abilities coaching and work-placement alternatives in digital industries throughout Canada.
This March, Jelly Academy joined the Digital Marketing Skills Canada consortium, a Canadian Marketing Association initiative that’s funded by a $10.8-million grant from the federal authorities and can practice 15,000 Canadian staff. It has additionally partnered with the Calgary-based Influence Mentoring Society to supply mentors for Indigenous learners navigating the post-secondary system.
Most of Jelly’s programs are aimed toward post-secondary college students or early-career professionals seeking to achieve particular accreditation, however the academy has lately licensed its introductory course to the governments of B.C. and Alberta in order that college students in Grade 12 can take its programs and obtain credit score as a part of a workforcereadiness curriculum.
In 2023, 700 college students accomplished Jelly Academy packages, and 75 per cent had been from demographics which might be under-represented of their respective sectors. Jelly offers scholarships for Indigenous learners and ladies, and in 2022, it was named a finalist within the DEI class of the B.C. Tech Association’s Technology Impact Awards.
Tech abilities, says Kovacs, needs to be accessible to everybody, not simply these with privilege or those that occur to be in the proper place on the proper time.
Quill
Founded 2019
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Fatima Zaidi
In 2018, Fatima Zaidi, who was then a VP of business improvement for a advertising and marketing company, seen a rising demand from purchasers considering producing podcasts. In the afterglow of sensations like This American Life’s “Serial,” manufacturers had been beginning to establish audio-format reveals as a chance to have interaction their clients. But Zaidi discovered there was little, if something, available on the market that offered an end-to-end resolution for podcasting—from manufacturing to viewers progress to analytics administration. So, in 2019, she launched Quill, a women-led full-service company specializing within the manufacturing and advertising and marketing of high-quality podcasts.
When the pandemic took in-person occasions and different types of experiential advertising and marketing off the desk, many extra firms turned to audio-format reveals when it got here to investing their advert {dollars}, and Quill’s buyer base grew exponentially, attracting a bunch of recent purchasers, akin to Microsoft, Expedia and TD Canada Trust. In lower than a 12 months, Quill turned Zaidi’s preliminary funding of $10,000 into $1 million in income.
These large manufacturers additionally wished metrics for his or her podcasts to gauge their attain and success. And whereas platforms like Google Analytics and Semrush had been accessible for analyzing web site visitors, there was nothing comparable for analyzing podcast efficiency. In 2022, Quill launched CoHost, the primary techenabled podcast-hosting platform to supply built-in demographic-based analytics. Within the primary 12 months, it gained greater than 200 sign-ups. Quill additionally developed an extra software referred to as Prefix that permits podcasters and entrepreneurs to achieve analytics and viewers insights by the CoHost platform with out having to alter their podcast internet hosting supplier. Currently, there’s a trademark underway for the expertise that permits each CoHost and Prefix.
Today, Quill produces a mean of 30 branded podcasts per quarter all through Canada, the U.S. and the U.Ok. Last 12 months, the corporate made virtually $4 million in income and is on observe to succeed in $6 million in 2024. Currently, Zaidi and her group are working to combine synthetic intelligence into their merchandise, which might enable purchasers to entry extra particular information with ease.
By turning a conventional content-marketing company mannequin into a number one software-as-a-service product, Quill is altering the podcast panorama globally. Having grown from a group of two to 25, the company is continuous to gather podcast information from around the globe and refine its platforms with the aim of creating high-quality audio storytelling extra accessible to manufacturers in every single place.
Skip the Dishes
Founded 2012
Headquarters Winnipeg
Founders Chris Simair, Josh Simair
The food-delivery firm, which helped set up Winnipeg as a tech hub, lately launched improvements that make ordering simpler and assist couriers receives a commission quicker. Also cool: Its new Skip for Business vertical lets firms present employees with supply credit as an alternative choice to in-office catering.
University Health Network
Founded 1999
Headquarters Toronto
Last 12 months, Canada’s prime analysis and instructing hospital community established a first-of-its-kind synthetic intelligence hub and appointed a chief AI scientist with the objectives of higher predicting surgical outcomes, bettering strategies and personalizing therapy.
Turo
Founded 2009
Canadian headquarters Toronto
Founder Shelby Clark
Last 12 months, the San Francisco-founded carshare service built-in a ChatGPT plug-in that permits customers to enter their journey particulars and obtain a tailor-made listing of automobiles, with the choice to refine searches for particular options like bike racks or sunroofs.
Founded 2009
Canadian headquarters Toronto
Founders Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp, Ben Silbermann
Everyone’s favorite digital-moodboard platform simply launched a novel expertise that leverages AI to ship extra numerous body-type illustration in search outcomes inside its vogue and marriage ceremony verticals.
Maple
Founded 2015
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Brett Belchetz, Stuart Starr, Roxana Zaman
The digital-health-service firm lately partnered with provincial governments in Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick to fill the health-care hole, bettering accessibility for tens of 1000’s of Canadians with out entry to main and pressing care.
Wahi Realty
Founded 2022
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Benjy Katchen
Using generative AI, Wahi lets potential homebuyers seek for property traits by pictures, making it simpler to slender in on issues like “renovated kitchen” or “finished basement.” In 2023, it additionally launched the {industry}’s first AI-powered realtor-recommendation system.
Willful
Founded 2017
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Kevin Oulds, Erin Bury
In 2023, the estateplanning disruptor expanded its digital business to promote bodily kits that embody a planning guidelines, a documentstorage field and a code to redeem a will on-line, opening the door to new retail companions.
Qohash
Founded 2018
Headquarters Quebec City
Founders Jean Le Bouthillier, Dany Grimard, Guy Veilleux, Jean-Pierre Pelletier
As a part of its mission to guard delicate data, data-security firm Qohash expanded its expertise to cowl extra platforms, enabling organizations to watch data and observe potential breaches throughout a number of cloud environments.
Arcana
Founded 2019
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Alan Gertner, Felicia Snyder, Jeremy Hill
The experiential hospitality firm, which has biophilic cabins throughout Ontario, simply launched Arhome, a line of design-forward prefab cabins for particular person buy as personal visitor dwellings or short-term rental items.
Knix
Founded 2013
Headquarters Toronto
Founder Joanna Griffiths
Following a $400-million acquisition in 2022, the period-underwear model simply surpassed 3 million clients due to current improvements like the brand new Ultra Leakproof briefs, which might take up the equal of 9 tampons.
Opentext
Founded 1991
Headquarters Waterloo, Ont.
Founders Frank Tompa, Gaston Gonnet, Tim Bray
After a long time of serving to firms with information and data administration, OpenText launched its Aviator AI platform within the fall of 2023 to assist its clients automate workflow processes and establish patterns and anomalies in information.
Xyon Health
Founded 2022
Headquarters Vancouver
Founders Victor Hasson, Simon Pimstone
Serial founder and clinician Dr. Simon Pimstone launched a DTC hair-growthsolutions model that makes use of nanoparticle expertise to slowly launch treatment, lowering drug uncomfortable side effects. The firm is now increasing with a line of merchandise for girls.
Mejuri
Founded 2015
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Noura Sakkijha, Majed Masad, Masoud Sakkijha
Last spring, Mejuri invested US$1.5 million in sustainability packages that assist restore habitats round precious-metal mining websites. The fine-jewellery model additionally lately launched labgrown treasured stones as a part of its dedication to accountable sourcing.
Tadiem
Founded 1993
Headquarters Toronto
Founders Jack Bensimon, Peter Byrne
In 2022, creative-agency collective Tadiem got down to reply the query “Why would people want to return to an office?” Last 12 months, the group unveiled their reply: The Combine, an progressive workspace in Toronto that co-functions as a social membership the place workers and company alike can study, store, podcast, view artwork and extra.
Busch Systems
Founded 1985
Headquarters Barrie, Ont.
Founder Craig Busch
Focused on waste administration, diversion and discount, this licensed B company lately partnered with Plastic Bank to cease over 45,000 kilograms of waste from coming into the ocean.
