There’s never been a more critical moment for Canadian founders to turn ambition into action. That warning—and challenge—rang out from the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall on June 23, where more than 500 tech leaders gathered at BetaKit Town Hall: Most Ambitious to hear from Canadians leading the charge.
The Toronto Tech Week event also coincided with the release of BetaKit Most Ambitious, a new annual edition telling stories of bold ambition in Canadian tech. Many of the speakers at BetaKit Town Hall were also featured in the inaugural issue.
While the subject-matter expertise of each speaker was varied—from mushroom-based fashion to “joyful” social media to literal rocket science—the message was loud and clear: Canadians are tackling big problems at home and abroad.
Big problems, hard science
The founders on the BetaKit Town Hall: Most Ambitious stage did share some commonalities. Many were Canadian innovators transforming world-class science into homegrown solutions for a more sustainable planet.
Phil De Luna, Chief Science and Commercial Officer at Deep Sky, shared how the cleantech startup is developing technology to remove CO2 emissions from the air and safely store them underground.
With the current US administration scaling back or eliminating its climate-change mitigation efforts, De Luna said this is an opportunity “for Canada to step up,” noting the country has the people, technology, and resources needed to address climate change.
“We want to make Canada the place where carbon capture scales,” De Luna said.
Like Deep Sky, Xatoms is tackling a global threat: contaminated drinking water, which affects more than two billion people worldwide. At the BetaKit Town Hall, founder Diana Virgovicova gave a live demonstration of her company’s ability to treat contaminated water with AI and quantum chemistry-developed photocatalysts—using BetaKit editor-in-chief Douglas Soltys as a willing test subject (he’s fine).
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Making polluted water safe to drink can make an impact globally and across Canada. Moderator and BetaKit reporter Madison McLauchlan reminded the audience that there are 37 long-term drinking water advisories in effect for 35 First Nations communities in Canada. With contracts in the United States, Kenya, and South Africa, Virgovicova said that addressing clean water issues back home is part of her company’s long-term ambition.
“Our vision is a platform that tailors catalysts for any contaminant: arsenic in South Africa to PFAs in Texas, and boil-water orders in Canada,” Virgovicova said.
Putting Canadian tech in orbit to keep Canadian talent at home
While some of Canada’s most ambitious tech leaders are firmly focused on planet Earth, others are looking beyond it.
Canada is the only G7 nation without homegrown launch capability, but Markham, Ont.-based NordSpace plans to change that with Canada’s first commercial rocket launch later this year.
Rahul Goel, the company’s founder, warned that relying on foreign launch pads drains capital and potentially compromises security, citing Ottawa-based Telesat, which will spend about $1.5 billion to send its made-in-Canada Lightspeed satellites into orbit from the United States.
“That’s Canadian taxpayer money leaving the country,” Goel said. “That was a wake-up call.”
To keep those dollars and critical know-how at home, NordSpace is building engines, vehicles, and Canada’s first spaceport in St. Lawrence, Nfld.
“I think we’re all united by this desire to turn Canada into a true spacefaring nation, one that’s competitive, one that’s respected, one that’s highly capable of retaining talent,” he said.
What entrepreneurs need to turn ambition into reality
The BetaKit Town Hall speakers also reminded the audience that ambition alone is not enough. MycoFutures founder Stephanie Lipp, whose company has developed a synthetic leather using mycelium fibres made from fungi, told the audience that for her, manufacturing in Canada isn’t just hard, it’s almost impossible.
“We need actual venture capitalists again who are willing to take risks on the zero-to-one.”
Katherine Homuth
Oomira founder
“We need more domestic buyers willing to try new biomaterials. We need more shared lab space, guaranteed offtake contracts, and additional grant programs focused on hardware, not just SaaS,” she said.
Lipp also acknowledged the support she received from SRTX founder Katherine Homuth, who offered MycoFutures $100,000 in prepaid purchase orders and use of the company’s manufacturing facility in Montréal.
“For anyone who doesn’t know how incredible and impactful Katherine’s help was, I need to emphasize that,” she said. “Because there really wasn’t another way forward for us, and I was getting really nervous about what was going to happen.”
Now the CEO of Oomira, Homuth shared her thoughts on what hard tech founders need in her fireside chat with BetaKit CEO Siri Agrell. Homuth earned a hushed murmur from the crowd when she said, “Traditional VC hates that risk, but that risk is exactly what venture capital is supposed to fund.”
“We need actual venture capitalists again who are willing to take risks on the zero-to-one,” she added.
Beyond more risk-friendly capital, Homuth said entrepreneurs need to be compensated for the time they are building the company while not taking a salary.
“We need a standard employment agreement for founders. From day one, the CEO should have a benchmark salary on the books—even if the company can’t pay it yet—so the economic value of that forgone salary is visible. Otherwise, five years later, nobody remembers what you sacrificed,” she said.
Together, their calls highlight a common wishlist: more risk-taking customers, purpose-built infrastructure, and venture capital that understands hardware risks and timelines. Without those supports, the speakers said even the boldest ideas will stall on the launchpad.
At home and abroad
As part of her opening remarks, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow connected BetaKit Town Hall to the broader week’s events.
“This week is all about telling the stories of Canada’s most ambitious tech people,” she said. “When founders from India, Hong Kong or any corner of the globe come here, they see a city that welcomes them, funds them, and helps them grow. Their success stories inspire the next generation of dreamers and doers.”
Chow’s optimism helped set the tone for the afternoon, but it also underscored one of the most significant challenges for Canadian tech: keeping Canadian talent in Canada and winning people back once they have left.
That topic came into focus during the fireside chat with Aaron Rodericks, a Canadian who is working in Ireland leading trust and safety for the decentralized social media startup Bluesky. He noted a return to Canada would require finding a role that would allow him to feel like he could make a difference globally.
He added that finding those roles becomes easier when companies tell their story and brag about being Canadian.
“I was flipping through BetaKit’s Most Ambitious issue earlier and kept thinking, ‘Wait, that company is Canadian?’”
BetaKit is the official media partner of Toronto Tech Week. All images courtesy Matt Tibbo Photography for BetaKit.