A group of Canadian technology and defence leaders has launched a trio of initiatives designed to foster innovation as Canada prepares to accelerate its defence spending.
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is rolling out a global CDL Defence accelerator stream aimed at supporting startups with dual-use technology that directly addresses defence, national security, and critical infrastructure needs. CDL Defence aims to support up to 25 startups each year at its sites across Canada and Europe, including CDL-Atlantic and CDL-Toronto.
The Canadian tech industry has been gearing up for Canada’s ramp-up in defence spending.
Atlantic Canada is also getting its own dedicated national defence accelerator in Fredericton-based Vimy Forge. Announced last week and led by leaders from Kognitiv Spark and Tidal Venture Partners, Vimy Forge aims to bring together Canadian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), academia, industry partners, and government to help scale Canadian defence tech solutions.
“Canada can’t afford to treat defence innovation as something that happens elsewhere; it must be part of how we build national resilience and economic growth at home,” Vimy Forge founding partner and Tidal Venture co-founder and managing partner Ian Whytock told BetaKit.
Whytock noted that as the only G7 nation without a dedicated defence innovation accelerator, “Canadian innovators often fall into the ‘valley of death’ between research and real procurement,” or export their intellectual property abroad. Vimy Forge hopes to change that with an accelerator model meant to bring together companies, customers, and investors that “don’t usually speak fluently to each other.
Meanwhile, Ottawa defence company Calian plans to support SMBs in the sector through a slightly different approach. It’s launching Calian Ventures to help businesses test, validate, and sell defence offerings to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
These hubs and programs join a growing list of initiatives aimed at accelerating Canada’s defence tech and national security capabilities.
Interest in defence investment has been heating up lately as the ongoing trade war with the United States has spurred the Government of Canada to bolster its sovereign and military capabilities. The Canadian tech industry has been gearing up for this shift, but the sector has its work cut out for it after decades of underinvestment in defence.
Canada is one of a few NATO allies that have failed to meet the organization’s defence expenditure threshold of two percent of a member country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to finally meet that target within the fiscal year—much earlier than 2030, which he initially promised during this year’s election campaign.
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The feds have also committed to spending five percent of GDP on defence by 2035, changed their approach to procurement, and begun encouraging banks and pension funds to invest in the sector ahead of the upcoming release of the federal budget on Nov. 4, which Carney has indicated will include a comprehensive Defence Industrial Strategy.
These conditions have given way to a flurry of activity in Canadian defence tech from public and private players. The Business Development Bank of Canada has communicated plans to support the sector, Kensington and One9 have teamed up, and defence tech startups like Ottawa’s Dominion Dynamics and Calgary’s North Vector Dynamics have secured funding to develop their solutions.
Last month, the BetaKit Podcast sat down with Matt Lombardi, co-founder of the defence innovation network and newsletter Icebreaker, to unpack why Canada’s defence tech sector is suddenly exploding.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Jason Hafso.