‘Tis the season for stump speeches.
I’m writing to you from my newsletter bunker shortly after former finance minister Chrystia Freeland and government House leader Karina Gould announced their candidacy for Liberal party leader. Along with Mark Carney and a host of other candidates (but not Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne), they are running for the right to become Canada’s 24th prime minister. It is generally expected they will also earn the right to immediately defend their new position in a federal election.
BetaKit isn’t a political publication but we do track where the political intersects with tech. Josh Scott and Madison McLauchlan drafted thoughtful pieces at the end of last year on the SR&ED patent box and open banking promises left in limbo while the Liberals get their leadership act together. This week, we saw a commitment from Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to scrap the capital gains tax rate changes if he is given the opportunity to form government.
Meanwhile, a political chaos agent is set to take office down south and Prime Minister Trudeau has tapped Canadian tech leaders for his tariff team to get tough on Trump. Whatever your thoughts on how that game of chicken will go, it speaks to the new era of economic nationalism brewing. On that front, my old boss Jim Balsillie thinks Canada does itself more harm than good, so he’s committed $10 million CAD to a new policy think tank.
BetaKit isn’t the place to go to for the latest on the forthcoming political horse races. But we are the home for those eager to learn about their impact on Canadian tech.
Douglas Soltys
Editor-in-chief
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TOP STORIES OF THE WEEK
Former Plooto CEO Hamed Abbasi on trial for alleged sexual assault
Hamed Abbasi, the co-founder and former CEO of Toronto-based payments scaleup Plooto, is facing charges of sexual assault, BetaKit has learned.
According to court documents obtained by BetaKit, the alleged assault took place in Toronto in November 2023. Abbasi was arrested and charged days later with one count of sexual assault contrary to s. 271 of the Criminal Code of Canada. The Crown elected to proceed by indictment in June 2024, which means Abbasi could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
These allegations have not yet been proven in court.
Canadian tech advocates join movement to free social media feeds from billionaire control
A group of tech entrepreneurs, scholars, and advocates, which includes celebrity signatories such as Mark Ruffalo and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, launched a fundraising campaign this week called Free Our Feeds.
The campaign hopes to establish a public service foundation to protect decentralized social networking platform Bluesky’s underlying technology from billionaire capture.
Canadians Mark Surman, president of the Mozilla Foundation, and Philippe Beaudoin, co-founder and CEO of Numeno.ai (formerly Waverly), are both custodians of the Free Our Feeds initiative. Nine custodians plan to help kickstart the foundation and register it as a non-profit in the US.
Tailscale hits 10,000 paid business clients after doubling customer base in 10 months
It took Toronto-based corporate virtual private network (VPN) startup Tailscale over four years to reach 5,000 paid business customers, a milestone it achieved in March 2024.
Ten months later, Tailscale has more than doubled its corporate client base. The software unicorn recently hit 10,000 paid business customers—ranging from small firms to Fortune 500 companies—not including its hundreds of thousands of personal users.
“If you want to get rich in the gold rush, don’t go searching for gold; sell shovels … Tailscale is sort of the shovel seller for the AI world, and I think that’s pretty exciting,” Tailscale co-founder and CEO Avery Pennarun told BetaKit in an exclusive interview.
Home hardware: Canadian founders at CES talk challenges and opportunities
Canadian companies secured some high-profile awards at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, even while most face hurdles building their solutions on home soil.
Montréal-based companies Eli Health and Haply Robotics each won Best of Innovation awards for their respective products: the Hormometer and minVerse.
There was little doubt, however, that the Canadian tech companies exhibiting at CES still faced an uphill battle when it comes to the global tech landscape—first and foremost, with production.
Ritual CEO, R&D team members to join Shopify
Toronto-based food ordering app Ritual’s co-founders Ray Reddy and Larry Stinson, alongside members of Ritual’s research and development team, are leaving to join e-commerce giant Shopify.
Reddy will remain on Ritual’s board of directors as an advisor, and the company will continue under new leadership, but it’s unclear who will serve as CEO in his stead.
Cyclic Materials, Ionomr Innovations, Summit Nanotech among Canadian returnees to the 2025 Global Cleantech 100
Nine Canadian tech companies, but few new faces, have been named to the 2025 Global Cleantech 100 list. The list showcases private cleantech companies globally that are predicted by a panel of experts to make a substantial impact on the market in the next five to 10 years.
The total number of Canadian companies on the 2025 list dropped by four from last year’s 13, and this is the first time since 2015 Canada has had fewer than 10 companies featured. Additionally, there’s only one new Canadian company on this year’s list, with eight of the nine having also been named to the 2024 Global Cleantech 100.
Luge Capital, Pender Ventures hire in Alberta following investments from AEC
Two venture-capital firms from opposite sides of the country are establishing new presences in Alberta.
Montréal-based Luge Capital and Vancouver-based Pender Ventures are both adding new Calgary-based investors after the Alberta Enterprise Corporation contributed to their most recent funds. The new VC presence indicates a boost in capital available to early-stage companies in Alberta.
‘Is there life after acquisition?’ Canadian founders get candid at TechTO
Can ChatGPT write a founder’s story for them? What does life after exit look like? And how do you get men to back a fertility solution?
On January 13, four founders took the stage at the MaRS Discovery District for TechTO Together to share hard-earned lessons about fundraising, storytelling, life post-acquisition, and winning at every stage of entrepreneurship.
FEATURED STORIES FROM OUR PARTNERS
Canada has quietly become a powerhouse for Intuit’s most ambitious tech projects. From its Canadian headquarters in Toronto, Intuit’s teams are tackling challenges in personal finance and small business management across the company’s marquee products like TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp.
These opportunities have prompted a talent recruitment campaign in Toronto, and Intuit’s Greg Coulombe believes the draw lies in an opportunity to work on tech used by millions around the globe.
“The potential to impact so many people’s lives is really cool,” he said. “Where can you impact 100 million people with the work that you do? That’s rare.”
Read about Intuit’s available roles here.
Weekly Canadian Deals & Dollars
- CA – Feds pledge $100M in grants to commercialize research
- CGY – The51 closes $51M CAD for Food and AgTech Fund
- KW – Uvaro acquires coding school Lighthouse Labs
- TOR – Float secures $70M CAD Series B round
- TOR – League secures $144M CAD credit facility and 40M users
- MTL – Vasco raises $11.5M CAD in seed funding
- MTL – Lyteflo closes $3M CAD seed round
The BetaKit Podcast — Discussing Social media’s midlife crisis with Amber Mac
“It does make me increasingly nervous that one of them really wants to move to Mars and the other one has a legit bunker. Like, what are they preparing for?”
Social media expert Amber Mac joins to discuss why two of the world’s richest men, collectively responsible for over 3 billion monthly users, are so quick to blame everyone else for the problems their platforms cause.
Take The BetaKit Quiz – This week: Uvaro acquires, Float soars, Shopify’s order is ready for pickup
Think you’re on top of Canadian tech and innovation news? Test your knowledge of Canadian tech news with The BetaKit Quiz for Jan. 17, 2024.
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Feature image courtesy Mark Carney via X.