BDC gets aggressive, Nick Frosst’s cold shot, Google faces the gavel

BDC is gearing up to serve the country’s defence tech sector in a more aggressive way, BDC president and CEO Isabelle Hudon told BetaKit this week. Part of that includes revising the name, mandate, and size of BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund to focus on defence tech.

NordSpace was just 58 seconds away from its launch, before it was forced to abort the attempt. NordSpace plans for another attempt this month.

On the 20VC podcast, Frosst said Open AI CEO Sam Altman was “academically disingenuous and did a disservice to the technology he loves,” by raising concerns about AI’s potential threat to humanity.  Frosst rejects the notion that AI models pose an existential threat to humanity.

Almost 40 percent of farewell messages sent to users contained at least one form of emotional manipulation, according to the study. The study also found that the tactic boosted engagement by up to 14x.

The Tuesday ruling in the search monopoly case ordered Google to share some search data with its competitors, but did not force the company to divest any of its divisions or break up its business.

Larochelle was recently named Mila’s scientific director, succeeding Laurent Charlin. He previously led Google Brain, which is now part of Google DeepMind.

Kardium’s Globe System is designed to treat atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat disorder that affects more than 59 million people globally. Kardium was granted pre-market approval in the US by the FDA for its Globe System, which  CEO Kevin Chaplin called “the most significant milestone in the life of Kardium.”

Sophie Boulanger co-founded and led the consumer eyewear brand BonLook, which was acquired by Canadian optometry company FYidoctors in 2021. Before joining SRTX, she was most recently CEO at Ottawa-based property tech startup 1Valet.