Taiv acquihires fellow Canadian adtech startup Local Reach to aid expansion plans

Winnipeg-based advertising technology company Taiv has purchased the founding team and assets of Local Reach, a nascent Kingston, Ont. startup with a similar solution for business televisions.

“It just seemed like we were building two sides of the same coin.”
Noah Palansky,
Taiv

As part of this cash-and-stock transaction, Taiv will bring on Local Reach co-founders Evan Ferreira and Joseph Liao as well as some of the startup’s tech in what Taiv co-founder and CEO Noah Palansky described as “more of an acquihire in nature.” Both companies declined to disclose the purchase price or other financial terms of the deal, which closed in February and marks Taiv’s first acquisition to date.

Taiv and Local Reach, which were both started as the result of barroom banter while watching hockey games, have been independently developing artificial intelligence (AI) products designed to help bars, restaurants, and other small businesses boost profits by delivering more targeted ads and other content to their customers via their existing TV sets, from commercials to venue-specific specials and events, to trivia.

“It just seemed like we were building two sides of the same coin,” Palansky told BetaKit in an exclusive interview.

Taiv has built a presence in the United States (US), while Local Reach has sought to do the same in Canada over the past year. Palansky expects the deal to support Taiv’s coming expansion into the Canadian market.

Local Reach was founded in 2024 by Liao and Ferreira as an AI research project. Ferreira told BetaKit that he and Liao were watching a National Hockey League playoff game at a bar when an ad for a funeral home came on—which felt strange given the establishment’s patrons. “It really spoke to the fact that there is no way for these restaurants and bars to optimize what content is being played when, and to what customers, inside of their venues,” he added.

Ferreira and Liao decided to team up to try and address this. They developed proprietary AI models trained on classifying content in Canadian TV feeds and acquired customers in Kingston before expanding into Mississauga and Toronto, eventually growing to seven employees, funding its operations via revenue and government grants.

Ferreira initially contacted Palansky to explore partnership opportunities. “Evan reached out completely cold, actually, with just an email,” Palansky said. “I believe the subject was something along the lines of, ‘I like your business so much, I tried to build it.’”

The Local Reach co-founder had seen what Taiv had been building south of the border and wanted to do the same in Canada. Ferreira said they quickly realized the two companies were aligned on everything from product vision to values and approach, and ultimately decided that it made the most sense to join forces.

“It felt like such a natural fit,” Palansky said. “Either we’re going to bump heads and go against each other as competitors, or we could bring these smart, capable guys and their tech that they built on board and do it together.”

Liao and Ferreira are relocating to Winnipeg, where they will join Taiv’s 39-person team in its product division and bolster the company’s AI expertise, work to integrate some of Local Reach’s tech, and support the company’s plans to move into the Canadian market. Local Reach’s other four active team members at the time of the deal—who were interns with work terms that were ending—are not joining Taiv.

Founded in 2018 by Palansky, CTO Jordan Davis, and chief business officer Avi Stoller, Taiv aims to make business TVs more valuable and entertaining. The startup offers a small box that connects to clients’ existing cable boxes and TVs and automatically switches between cable, streaming channels, digital signage, and trivia, aiming to show the best content and ads for any environment.

Taiv’s proprietary AI model analyzes the live video feed and switches sources during commercial breaks, show changes, or based on the time of day. The company offers its product for free to venues, making money by selling ads, and Taiv shares a portion of this revenue with these businesses.

The startup has raised millions in venture capital funding to date from a group of investors that includes Kitchener-Waterloo’s Garage Capital, Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator (YC), FJ Labs, and others. Palansky declined to share the exact amount.

Taiv launched in the southern US in 2021 due to Canada’s heightened COVID-19 restrictions at the time. Today, Taiv serves more than 1,000 bars and restaurants and more than 500 retail establishments, including convenience stores and gas stations, across 14 major US markets.

Taiv plans to hire over 30 people in Manitoba in 2025 to support its Canadian expansion.

Palansky said Taiv saw 400-percent growth last year, and has been generating positive earnings before income, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) since mid-2024, but declined to disclose the startup’s current revenue or EBITDA.

Taiv plans to launch in Winnipeg this July as a test Canadian market ahead of a broader expansion across the country beginning in 2026. The startup intends to hire more than 30 people in Manitoba over the next nine months to support these efforts, Taiv’s continued growth in the US, and its product development plans.

The adtech company’s founders were born and raised in Winnipeg, and Palansky said that Taiv plans to stay in the city “forever.”

“We had a lot of pressure during YC to move to San Francisco, we’ve had lots of pressure from investors to move to Toronto, and we’ve kind of held firm that Winnipeg is a great market,” he added. “It’s got great, smart, hard-working, loyal people, and they just need a couple of big tech winners to really launch an ecosystem here, and it’s something we’re passionate about.”

Feature image courtesy Taiv.