Cohere’s new MOU, New School Foods’ new food, and BetaKit’s Most Ambitious

Cohere has inked new partnerships with the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom as it expands its offerings beyond enterprise AI into the public sector. The partnerships aim to leverage Cohere’s AI tools and expertise “to enhance government services and national sovereignty,” the company said.

While Scott is “admittedly not a big salmon guy,” he was “particularly impressed” by the simulated salmon burger, which is now on the menu of Toronto diner Stefano’s. Scott also enjoyed the ribs.

New School Foods recently opened the doors to its Dufferin Street Facility in Toronto’s west end as the startup looks to expand beyond plant-based seafood and into other types of simulated meat.

Canada’s venture capital industry group is pushing the federal government to pause the collection of the Digital Services Tax as it anticipates a costly US policy retaliation.

A recently penned letter urges Canada’s prime minister to rethink the tax due to the “unintended consequence” of the US proposing a tax hike for Canadian investors in retaliation for what it calls “unfair foreign taxes.”

Aaron Rodericks is Bluesky’s Head of Trust and Safety. Rodericks will join Oomira’s Katherine Homuth, Deep Sky’s Phil De Luna, and leaders from Nordspace, Socratica, and more for this year’s BetaKit Town Hall event, which will mark the release of our inaugural Most Ambitious issue.

According to Startup Genome’s report, one of the common denominators was weak startup funding, as Vancouver, Toronto-Waterloo, Ottawa, and Montréal scored relatively poorly by this metric.

Toronto-Waterloo scored below many of its peers on performance, talent and experience, and market reach, but its lowest ranking was for funding. Vancouver posted the lowest possible scores in funding, and for Ottawa, the lowest scores were in funding and market reach.

The GENIUS Act, which passed in the US Senate this week, establishes the first federal framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins, granting sweeping authority to the Department of Treasury and opening the door to banks, fintechs, and retailers.

Sam Altman claimed Meta offered OpenAI staff $100-million bonuses to jump ship. After failing to acquire Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup Safe Superintelligence, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly tried to poach its co-founder, Daniel Gross.

Elizabeth Stone, CTO of Netflix, will speak about the company’s evolution from a streaming service into a global entertainment powerhouse. Elevate Talks will also feature Marjan Anwar Khan, CTO of Canada Goose, and Andrea Stapley, Head of Technology at Air Canada.

For more can’t miss events taking place next week, check out The BetaKit Guide: Toronto Tech Week 2025.

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