#1. What is one of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s top asks to Prime Minister Mark Carney?
In the lead-up to the federal election, the CVCA released a white paper calling for the government to, among other things, reform the capital gains tax rules by temporarily slashing the inclusion rate and doubling the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption limit.
In a statement following the election, CVCA CEO Kim Furlong said “hard work lies ahead” for the Carney government to boost innovation and investment in Canada.
#2. Before Axibo decided to develop humanoid robotics, which Big Tech clients was it selling its cinema tech to?
Prior to closing its $7.5-million USD funding round, Axibo used crowdfunding, bootstrapping, and contracting to bring its cinema tech to clients like Netflix and Apple. The startup is now developing humanoid robots to assist with manual labour, which it hopes to debut this year.
#3. Which member of the United States First Family is speaking at Web3 conference Consensus in Toronto this month?
Eric Trump is slated to speak at Consensus 2025, following the launch of American Bitcoin in late March, which aims to become the world’s largest pure-play bitcoin miner. Other highly anticipated speakers include Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, as well as a massive contingent of Canadian Web3 founders.
#4. The CEO of Brightspark Ventures spinout Brio describes the startup as the VC firm’s what?
Brio co-founder and CEO Audrey Ostiguy described Brio as Brightspark’s “secret sauce.” The startup, which recently closed $3 million, aims to save GPs time and money by centralizing and automating LP management, including deal marketing, subscriptions, onboarding, compliance, reporting, capital calls, and distributions.
#5. Montréal incubator-accelerator Centech is set to launch an office at the former location of which organization?
Centech is establishing an office at Ax-C, an innovation hub set to open in June on the former trading floor of the Montréal Exchange. Centech recently secured $4.5 million in provincial funding to help early-stage deep tech and medtech startups jump the hurdle from research to commercialization.
#6. Arlene Dickinson and Daniel Debow were among eight Canadians that received which award from NACO this week?
Dickinson and Debow were among eight people recognized as “Nation Builders” at the 2025 NACO Awards. NACO called Debow’s Build Canada “a bold initiative to elevate Canada’s innovation capacity and ambition,” while Dickinson’s Nation Builder award recognized her as a “leading voice in the national conversation about innovation, value creation, and entrepreneurship.”
#7. Why does OpenAI CEO Sam Altman think GPT-4o is “annoying?”
On X, Altman said “the last couple of GPT-4o updates have made the personality too sycophant-y and annoying,” adding in another post that GPT-4o “glazes too much.” The CEO said OpenAI is working on fixes to the model’s personality.
#8. What percentage of Microsoft’s code is written by AI?
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that 20 to 30 percent of the code in the company’s repositories is now “written by software”—in other words, generated by AI. While in conversation with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Nadella noted that the effectiveness of AI-generated code varies by programming language, with stronger results in Python and weaker outcomes in C++.
#9. Which company is reportedly bidding on Hudson Bay’s assets?
Hudson’s Bay has attracted a bid from Canadian Tire, according to reporting from The Canadian Press. Hudson’s Bay, the 355-year-old department store, filed for creditor protection earlier this year and has since begun liquidating its 80 Bay locations and 16 Saks stores. Its assets are now up for sale as the company searches for buyers or investors to keep it afloat.
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