A repeat Alberta technology entrepreneur and a former provincial cabinet minister have joined forces to help big infrastructure builders get projects approved more quickly.
Founded in January 2024 by president Josh Malate and CEO Doug Schweitzer, Calgary-based Ultimarii has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that it claims can help speed up the application and regulatory approval processes for large energy and utility infrastructure projects by assessing their feasibility.
“Calgary is the hub for this in Canada.”
Josh Malate, Ultimarii
Malate co-founded Calgary legaltech scaleup Athennian, while Schweitzer served as Alberta’s innovation minister. As the Government of Canada gears up to fast-track nation-building projects from its new Calgary office, Schweitzer believes the time and place is right for Ultimarii’s software.
“With what the federal government has done recently, it seems like there’s an appetite in Canada to build big infrastructure again … But in order to hit the ambitious timelines that they’ve set forward, we need to bring innovation to the table,” Schweitzer argued in an interview with BetaKit.
In July, Ultimarii closed nearly $2.6 million CAD in equity seed funding. The all-primary round was led by Toronto’s Staircase Ventures, with support from others, including Calgary-based Bluesky Equities, Sky Energy Group, former Suncor CEO Mark Little, Thin Air Labs partner James Lochrie, and ScaleGood Fund managing partner Ashif Mawji. Malate did not disclose Ultimarii’s valuation.
The latest funding brings the startup’s total to approximately $5.3 million. That includes $2 million in previously unannounced pre-seed financing from June 2024 that was raised through a simple agreement for future equity, as well as $700,000 in grants secured from Alberta Innovates, the NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program, the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund, and Prairies Economic Development Canada.
Schweitzer, who is also a lawyer, claimed he learned firsthand how time-consuming and complex the regulatory approval process can be during his time working as a politician, and that he tried to help address this while serving as an Alberta minister.
“I learned that you need to have political will in order to get major projects built in a particular jurisdiction, but I also learned that there are limitations to what the policy levers are that you can change,” Schweitzer said. “You still have to go through a robust regulatory review process. You still need the permits and approvals at multiple stages of government.”
Schweitzer now hopes to tackle this problem from a different angle with Ultimarii and the help of Malate, who is an engineer by trade. Malate began his career helping to build these sorts of projects before moving into tech with Athennian, serving as its CFO and then COO until he departed in 2023. Ultimarii now marks his second consecutive team-up with a lawyer.
RELATED: Calgary says it has the makings of an innovation capital. What’s the next step?
Ultimarii wants to help companies decide which projects to pursue by helping them understand the track records of similar projects and the regulatory challenges they faced.
Malate noted that there is a lot of publicly available information about what projects have been approved and why, including applications, public feedback, hearing transcripts, and decision documents. Ultimarii ingests that data and uses large language AI models to analyze it.
Malate claimed Ultimarii initially designed its software as a reaction to a large Canadian infrastructure project from the late 2000s that an unnamed company spent 10 years and nearly a billion dollars trying to clear.
“Functionally, it never got approved, and this company just had to eat all of those losses,” Malate said. “We looked at that and said, ‘Okay, how can we build software that makes sure that something like that doesn’t happen again—which hopefully increases the ability for capital to take risks on projects on Canadian soil.’”
Schweitzer contended there has been “loud advocacy” from Western Canada for more than a decade regarding the need for regulatory change, but that the United States (US) trade war has created renewed political will to invest in and facilitate the development of major nation-building initiatives.
RELATED: Alberta’s tech sector is embracing an AI data centre boom. Will it pay off?
“There’s now a national narrative and a national imperative in Canada,” the CEO added.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has signalled his desire for the Government of Canada to fast-track approval for major infrastructure projects as a means of spurring the country’s economy. As part of this push, under the Building Canada Act, the feds recently shared plans to open a new office in Calgary for businesses to pitch plans for large industrial construction initiatives.
“Calgary is the hub for this in Canada,” Malate said. He argued that building Ultimarii in the city “is one of the core pillars of what’s going to make us successful and win.” He noted that many of the firms that Ultimarii aims to serve have a presence in Alberta. He also cited the growth of the city’s tech ecosystem in recent years.
Over the past 18 months, Ultimarii has developed and refined its product, grown to about 15 employees, and amassed more than 20 enterprise customers, including large energy and utility companies and law firms. It has surpassed $1 million in annual recurring revenue, although Malate did not disclose the company’s exact sales.
Ultimarii’s broader vision involves serving not just infrastructure builders but the regulators vetting their projects, who face similar challenges.
To start, Ultimarii has focused most of its efforts on conventional energy and utilities markets. The company has been pushing into mining lately, and Malate said Ultimarii also sees opportunity in the data centre space. He said Ultimarii plans to use its seed funding to continue building its presence in Canada ahead of a planned US expansion in 2026.
Feature image courtesy Ultimarii.