That September chill in the air foretells a change of seasons. With it comes sweeping change across Canadian tech C-suites.
This week’s headliner was undoubtedly Shopify chief operating officer Kaz Nejatian leaving Canada’s largest tech company to become CEO of San Francisco-based Opendoor. The proptech firm is in the midst of a meme stock moment (partially fuelled by Canadian hedge fund boss Eric Jackson), with retail investors now expecting Nejatian to take Opendoor to the moon.
Elsewhere in the public markets, Sue Ozdemir resigned as CEO of struggling Calgary EV tech firm Exro Technologies following layoffs, lifeline financing, and class action threats. Meanwhile, Q4 Inc. has added a new CFO, chief marketing officer, and chief revenue officer since exiting the public markets last year. The company completed its go-private transition this week, replacing founding CEO Darrell Heaps with former SolarWinds CFO Lewis Black.
Other notable executive changes this week: Oren Gelman was appointed CEO of Toronto healthtech firm Arthrolense, former Benevity CEO Kelly Schmitt joined mental health platform Headversity, and AbCellera named Dr. Sarah Noonberg as its first-ever chief medical officer. InBC also added Thomas Park as chief investment officer following CEO Jill Earthy’s recent departure.
The scale and consistency of Canadian executive turnover was one of BetaKit’s biggest stories of 2024, which saw us cover nearly 50 CEO swaps alone. Industry experts we spoke with at the time pointed to a tough macroeconomic environment that had created strict leadership expectations.
In public statements on his new role, Nejatian laid out one clear expectation for Opendoor.
“The only thing that should matter is building something people want,” he wrote on X.
Alex Riehl
Staff Writer
Ottawa
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Carney says new Major Projects Office will help build a “Canadian sovereign cloud”
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced this week that developing a “Canadian sovereign cloud” will be a priority of the newly launched Major Projects Office.
“This [project] would build compute capacity and data centres that we need to underpin Canada’s competitiveness, to protect our security, and to boost our independence and sovereignty,” Carney said.
Tetra Trust parent secures backing from banks, FinTechs to launch Canadian stablecoin
Tetra Trust has formed a new parent company called Tetra Digital Group, which has closed $10-million CAD in funding to launch a Canadian-dollar stablecoin and expand its newly-launched Tetra Unity software business.
“I think everybody’s very interested in the stablecoin and Canadian stablecoin problem,” Tetra Digital Group CEO Didier Lavallee told BetaKit.
OpenAI pushes for Canadian publishers’ copyright lawsuit to be heard in the US
OpenAI is arguing that a lawsuit filed by Canadian news publishers should be heard in the United States.
The lawsuit alleges the AI giant violated Canadian copyright law in training ChatGPT, but OpenAI argued in a court filing that all of its commercial activities—including training AI models—occurred outside of Ontario and should not be subject to Canada’s Copyright Act.
Shopify and VitalHub return to TSX top 30 list while Propel Holdings and MDA Space make debuts
Canadian tech companies were a driving force in the Toronto Stock Exchange’s 2025 TSX30 list. Despite its relatively limited presence, the tech sector delivered the strongest average share price increase, at 620 percent over three years, according to the TSX.
Space tech firm MDA Space made its first-ever appearance on the list with a 340 percent stock price increase. Those gains took a significant hit this week, however, after Elon Musk’s SpaceX swooped in to deny the company’s $1.8-billion CAD contract with American telecom EchoStar.
Christopher Skeete exits Québec’s innovation portfolio in cabinet shuffle
Québec Premier François Legault has overhauled his cabinet, shuffling Minister Christopher Skeete away from the province’s innovation portfolio. The move leaves Minister Christine Fréchette to lead the innovation file with two junior ministers.
Student-led takeover of Tri-Cities tech continues with Waterloo Tech Week
Creating new opportunities to connect was the goal of the inaugural Waterloo Tech Week, which was organized by the same student-led team behind the Hack the North hackathon.
“We’ve always felt limited by the fact that Hack the North is only one weekend for the 1,000 students that we can accept,” organizer Jasmine Jiang said. “There are so many things happening in Waterloo all the time, specifically around the tech community, and we felt that people needed to experience all them.”
NordSpace granted new window for Canada’s first commercial rocket launch
Aerospace startup NordSpace has been granted a new window to attempt Canada’s first commercial rocket launch, following a thwarted effort at the end of August. The new window is set to open Sept. 20 and last until Sept. 27, NordSpace CEO Rahul Goel told BetaKit.
2Keys security breach exposes government-stored emails and phone numbers
A routine software update for multi-factor authentication (MFA) provider 2Keys created a vulnerability that allowed a malicious actor to steal phone numbers and email addresses associated with government accounts. The breach affected users who used the MFA service to access their accounts between Aug. 3rd and Aug. 15th.
AI, startups, and Simu Liu: Elevate Festival announces 2025 schedule
The seventh annual Elevate Festival is expected to attract 10,000 attendees from across the global tech community to downtown Toronto between Oct. 7 and Oct. 9.
Taking place at Meridian Hall and the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, the event will feature more than 85 sessions. Attendees will be brought inside Spotify’s AI lab, learn what VCs are looking for, and hear from Canadian actor Simu Liu. Liu will speak about his journey, purpose-driven investing, and the industries he believes are shaping the future.
BetaKit is an official Elevate Festival media partner.
FEATURED STORIES FROM OUR PARTNERS
- BetaKit took a tour of Intuit’s Canadian operations, where the company is making long-term investments in the local talent ecosystem. Take our Intuit office tour.
- Nick Frosst and other founders appear in a new video series promoting Canadian AI. Read about Inovia’s “Build from Canada” brand campaign.
- Foresight has launched a new accelerator for ventures dealing with climate impacts that are already here, like fires, floods, and heat. Read about Foresight’s new Earth Tech: Adapt program.
- A “silent, escalating crisis.” That’s how Xero’s Mike Cascone describes the impact of open banking’s absence in Canada. Read Cascone’s op ed.
🇨🇦 Weekly Canadian Deals, Dollars & More
- BC – Feds invest $5.8M across three carbon management projects
- CGY – Ultimarii closes $2.6M CAD to speed up regulatory approvals
- EDM – Amii receives $9M to equip energy workers with AI skills
- TOR – Evolo raises $4.1M for AI video marketing platform
- TOR – Float launches SME “hybrid” accounts to take on big banks
- TOR – Wittington hires former MaRS IAF leader Zeeshan Ali
- MTL – LocusX raises $3M to debug video games with AI
- MTL – Bo acquired by Québec recycling cooperative Tricentris
- MTL – Ssense wins temporary protection in battle with creditors
The BetaKit Podcast — Amber Mac wants parents to know their kids are talking to AI
“There’s a really good chance that a young person’s parents—or even their friends—don’t even know that this individual is building a relationship with this chatbots. And that’s where the danger exists.”
Tech expert Amber Mac is on the advisory board of Rally, a new tech festival dedicated to digital wellness for teens. She desperately wants parents to know the reasons why their kids are talking to AI, and the dangers of manipulative chatbots pretending to be their friends.
Take The BetaKit Quiz – MDA Space loses EchoStar, Apple trims the iPhone’s waist, and is there life on Mars?
Think you’re on top of Canadian tech and innovation news? Time to prove it. Test your knowledge of Canadian tech news with The BetaKit Quiz for September 12, 2025.
Join Canada’s largest AI event, September 24–25 in Montreal.
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With 55% of attendees being AI adopters and 45% being AI providers, ALL IN is a prime opportunity to build powerful business relationships and discover practical solutions to scale AI adoption.
Image by Ramsey Cardy/Collision via Sportsfile. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.